Time, Discovery, and Patience

Have you ever had the privilege of watching something transform before your eyes. Perhaps you did not see this transformation immediately, but slowly and over time. This morning, I was reading a selection from Mark Neepo’s book The Book of Awakening. In his reflection for today, he wrote:

I recently learned that the first form of pencil was a ball of lead. Having discovered that lead, if scratched, would leave markings, people then wrestled with large chunks of the stuff in an attempt to write. Through the work of many, the chunks were eventually shaped into a useable form that could fit the hand. The discovery became a tool.

I am humbled to confess after a lifetime of relationship that love is no different. Be it a lover or a friend or a family member, the discovery of closeness appears in our life like a ball of lead – something that is wrestled with, will leave markings by which we can understand each other.

But this is only the beginning. The work of love is to shape the stuff of relationships into a tool that fits our hands. With each hardship faced, with each illusion confirmed, with each trespass looked at and owned, another piece of the chunk is whittled and love begins to become a sacred tool.

When truth is held in compassionate hands, the sharpness of love becomes clear and not hurtful.

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The P Word

I was talking with an associate of mine about, what my son calls the P word, Patience. She said when she used to preach about it, she would say, “God I need patience, and I need it now.” The interesting thing about patience is that we have the capability of being patient at any point in time in our lives. We just have to choose to work what a friend of mine calls the patience muscle. Unlike things like time which we all have the same amount of regardless who we are. regardless of our race, ethnicity, sexuality, class, sex, etc. we all have 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. What we do with those 24 hours may differ, but we all have the same amount of time in a single day. Patience, unlike time, is one quality one can acquire greater levels of over time. The secret is in working your P muscle. As many wisdom teachers have argued, the more you practice patient, the more patient you become
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