Learning patience to 'walk this way'

Chapter 1 of Henri Nouwen's little book 'Turn My Mourning Into Dancing' is titled "From Our Little Selves to a Larger World."

People spend great amounts of time and energy trying to avoid suffering or inconvenience of any kind. Nouwen points out that the way of Jesus looks very different from this. He starts on p. 10 with this...

"While Jesus brought great comfort and came with kind words and a healing touch, he did not come to take all our pains away. Jesus entered into Jerusalem in his last days on a donkey, like a clown at a parade. This was his way of reminding us that we fool ourselves when we insist on easy victories. When we think we can succeed in cloaking what ails us and our times in pleasantness. Much that is worthwhile comes only through confrontation.

The way from Palm Sunday to Easter is the patient way, the suffering way. Indeed, our word patience comes from the ancient root patior, 'to suffer.' To learning patience is not to rebel against every hardship. For if we insist on continuing to cover our pains with easy 'Hosannas,' we run the risk of losing our patience. We are likely to become bitter and cynical or violent and aggressive when the shallowness of the easy way wears through.

Instead, Christ invites us to remain in touch with the many sufferings of every day and to taste the beginning of hope and new life right there, where we live amid our hurts and pains and brokenness. By observing his life, his followers discover that when all of the crowd's 'Hosannas' had fallen silent, when disciples and friends had left him, and after Jesus cried out, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then it was that the Son of Man rose from death. Then he broke through the chains of death and became Savior. That is the patient way, slowly leading me from the easy triumph to the hard victory.

I am less likely to deny my suffering when I learn how God uses it to mold me and draw me closer to him. I will be less likely to see my pains as interruptions to my plans and more able to see them as the means for God to make me ready to receive him. I let Christ live near my hurts and distractions."

Nouwen sums this up with a quote he heard from an old priest: "I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted; then I realized that the interruptions were my work."

The rest of this chapter, then, deals with the fact that life is not about what happens to us, but how we will live in and through whatever happens.

We cannot change most of our circumstances. Good things happen, as well as bad. There will be wins and losses. Our only choice is how to face them. Will we discover God's Spirit at work within us, amid even the dark moments? As Henri says, "A key in understanding suffering has to do with our not rebelling at the inconveniences and pains life presents to us... We are invited to choose life."

---

I have much experience at suffering poorly, or in not practicing patience. It is certainly much easier said than done. I guess the good news is, I will likely have plenty more opportunities to learn patience. It is, after all, the path Jesus leads us on in walking his way.