"To learn patience is to put time in its proper perspective. For many of us today, time has become our taskmaster. We are driven by deadlines and timetables, anxious that there is not enough time available to us to carry out all that is needed. And yet it is only in the last few hundred years that any accurate measurement of time has been available. It seems the more we measure it, the less there is available for us to use. 'Time management' is an expression of our desire to control time, to make it a functional accessory in our quest to master the world. Paradoxically, the more we seek to exploit time, the more it becomes a prison for us by setting the hard boundaries of our lives.
"The alternative is, rather than trying to use time, that we respect and honor it. This can be achieved ritually by the act of what some people regard as 'wasting' time, and what I prefer to regard as 'enjoying' time. That is, to become aware of the sheer pleasure of existence and the force of its movement through us, by unplugging from the external framework of minutes and hours. How long does it take to eat a meal? How long does it take to heal a wound? How long does it take to forgive a wrong? In such questions we confront the absurdity of using time as the sole measurement for human existence. When we are able to relax and release our tight grasp on time, it becomes our gentle companion rather than our relentless enemy. We find ourselves able to allow time to pass, without agonizing over what we have 'lost.'
"Waiting does not need to be a source of frustration, but can become the way in which we honor existence and its enticing allure. Far from the bleak monotony portrayed by Beckett's Waiting for Godot, we may discover in devotional patience a rich landscape of wonder and joy. Uncoupling from a world in many instances seems driven, we are able to make a creative gap in which the soul can breathe and God can speak. It is the womb of the imagination; the space from which all that is lasting will arise.”
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