"Faith often requires a special kind of waiting — not a fidgety, toe-tapping, clock-watching kind of waiting, but a restful waiting, a secure expectation. Patience is the practice of abiding, and one abides in one's abode. It's the kind of waiting that can happen only when one feels at home.
"Home, in a spiritual sense, is an inner realm ruled by an astute self-acceptance and a wise fondness for the world at large. In this home there is always a good telescope at the window, its optics lovingly maintained, pointed toward the ever-changing face of Creation. Around this home are acres of rolling meadows yielding to limitless expanses of wild forest, mountains, and sea.
"To wait patiently for anything or anyone is to remember that we can always sit by the window or on the porch of our inner home and experience the timelessness of the spirit, like a breeze that blows through our open windows carrying the news from the great beyond. If anyone tells you to 'be patient,' you can repeat it to yourself as 'be at home.' When patience is called for, retreat to the inner, stable center where you can abide.
"Patience is an instinct we all carry within us, for it is the human experience of nature's timing. The rose unfold patiently; a tree grows old and great the same way. Of course, we may forget the instinct of patience as easily, and as painfully, as we forget nature's abiding within us. What we choose to believe about ourselves, what we pretend is important, is what sends us rushing against the clock in a senseless way. What we remember of our true nature — what remains magnificent within us — gives us the capacity to live without fear of time.
"Patience is deciding in favor of attention rather than tension. Attending to the inner part of ourselves that knows timelessness, we can wait in the world of time and balance our hurried sense of self-interest with the timeless knowledge that all will be well — even when then 'all' swallows us, as it inevitably will. Patience, then, is also humility, a surrender to the transcendent. Patience is the rhythm of faith.
How to Practice Patience
"Be compassionate toward your impatience. This is not the same as doing its bidding or believing everything it tells you. Instead accept that impatience signals an inner belief that you are somehow being cheated, insulted, forgotten, or ignored, by others, by God, or by yourself.
"In any case, implementing compassion for your impatience means choosing the most productive route toward whatever you are waiting for. This entails asking what you are really waiting for, in the biggest possible sense, even if your impatience at the moment is about something petty. (But if you are impatient for something petty, why waste the precious energy of your awareness on something unimportant?) Rather than chafing perpetually against the delay of what you want, you can give yourself the inner comfort of a secure expectation that what you truly need will eventually be delivered — and that whatever you expect but don't need will eventually fall out of your awareness.
"If you are impatient for something large and important, like justice for all, then you need to choose the most effective state of mind on which to base your actions. Acting on a righteous impatience sometimes gets results, but there is always some war created around the edges. A righteous patience derives from a clearer vision that is merciful toward all, even the perceived perpetrators of insult and injustice. A righteous patience brings unseen powers to bear on your situation, because it is state of mind aligned with your inborn spiritual purpose. This state of mind might also be called sublime confidence — a confidence not that your little self will be served in all of its chaotic, shifting aims, but that the greater good of all will be served by your acceptance of deep guidance.
"Therefore, to practice patience is to use your impatience as a signal to call on greater powers. Whether you are stuck in a traffic jam or waiting for world peace, replace the anxious queries of 'When?' and 'How much longer?' with the reassurance that 'God is with me' or 'Whatever else I may feel, there is also a great peace within me always.' That's how to cease waiting for events and transport yourself into timeless contemplation. Of course, this is not to say that one can or should disconnect from the world's problems or concerns.
"In fact, everyone is capable of timeless contemplation while attending effectively to the situation at hand. For the key to faith and equanimity is a constant awareness of two worlds of experience. if we are completely absorbed by the timed, material world, then our lives will tend to be mean and dispirited. If we are completely absorbed by the timeless, spiritual world, we cannot function effectively in an everyday world that needs our contributions."