Covid meditation: Episode 4: Patience!

1. Patience in Art

One afternoon, before Covid-19 upended everything, I was driving home, and stopped at a light near my house. I had my right turn signal on; in Maryland, it is legal to make a right turn on red. Except in this case: there was a sign on the traffic light clearly marked No Turn On Red. The car behind me began to honk, and honk--and honk. I didn't move, and he didn't stop honking. Road rage, I thought, and, I admit  it, I felt scared. When the light finally changed, I made the right turn, while he honked  a few more times, as he whizzed on straight ahead, to let me know how much I had angered him.

Has that ever happened to you?

On another occasion, while driving on a highway, I witnessed a sports car weave in and out of lanes at high speed, like a hapless hare pursued by a bobcat. Why is the driver--most probably a he--risking his life and ours? Getting home a few minutes early so he can catch the beginning of his favorite show? Unlikely, since these days most shows are streamed. Rushing to get to point B from point A to taste a delicious samosa freshly prepared by his Indian wife? Unlikely; even if this unlikely pair were likely, she probably would be on the way home--at a more reasonable speed--from work as well. Speeding because he has an anxious foot on the pedal and a mind flailing about like a rabid bat? Speeding for no other reason than no reason at all? Likely, alas! indeed.

Why are we so impatient?

Our age sometimes has been referred to as "The Age of Anxiety." It is difficult to imagine anxiety without impatience. "The Age of Impatience," is therefore a synonym for our age; both adjectives apply to our impatience- and anxiety-provoking times, characterized as having more burning questions than soothing answers; as having more intractable problems than tractable solutions; as having more intangible woes, and fewer solid consolations.

It wasn't always thus. In the past, before electricity, people followed circadian rhythms, resting when it got dark and rising with the sun, rather than subjecting themselves and others to the unearthly rhythms of a Mexican jumping bean.

Patience was once considered to be one of seven traditional virtues; people were once actually expected to have the patience of a saint. Patience helped one endure difficult times; patience helped us be satisfied with inner light until sorrow's outer darkness dissipated.

One of my favorite statements regarding patience comes form Proverbs 14:29: The patient man shows much good sense, while a quick-tempered man displays folly at its height.

Our impatient age has much to learn from the much more patient past. In the sixteenth century, the Italian master Georgio Vasari painted The Allegory of Patience, which is now on display (when Covid-19 cases diminish, permitting its reopening) at the National Gallery in Washington D.C.)

The woman is chained to a rock; she patiently waits for the water to corrode the chain so she can break free. She looks down at her bound limb with an expression of supreme patience, her body conveys the peace of her mind; not a trace of tension anywhere.

Yes, she's going to have to wait a long time; and that's precisely the point.

2. Patience in Literature

There are undoubtedly many examples of patience in literature; I will list and briefly analyze two of my favorites.  The first is "On his Blindness," by John Milton.

When I consider how my light is spent,
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Master, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide;
"Does God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait.

One of the finest sonnets in the English language. Rarely does one come across a poem where technique and content are so seamlessly fused. It is one of the profoundest poems as well--The wisdom of acceptance, the lack of which in modern culture often wreaks havoc, resulting  in frenzy and despair.

Next to the sublime last line, my favorite is, "Does God exact day-labour, light denied?" The protagonist expects great things from himself, and is perhaps close to despair from his inability to accomplish great things. (The metaphor for  this inability is blindness, but many other "defects" can be substituted.) An example; the composer Salieri in Schaffer's play, Amadeus, who wantS to serve God with great works of art, but lacks the ability to do so; how unfair it is that the capricious Mozart is endowed with talent in abundance!)

Salieri murmurs a lot in the play, but the protagonist of this poem, a man of faith, will not. Patience comes in the form of accepting life as it is, not as one's fantasy demands. Replace "God" with "life" and this line applies as deeply to modern secularists. If you don't accept the Book of Life's minute entry that describes yourself, too bad. To try and replace it with a phrase such as, "I am a very stable genius," when you're anything but, is the height of folly.  Sadness turns into joy, however, when the Book of Life is accepted as a whole. Once (at least relatively) free from the ego, one delights in everything: one's mind, one's neighbors, one's world.

The exquisite last line is a good way to segue to the second poem, In honour of St. Alphonsus Rodriquez Laybrother of the Society of Jesus, by Gerard Manley Hopkins:

Honour is flashed off exploit, so we say;
And those strokes once that gashed flesh or galled shield
Should tongue that time now, trumpet now that field,
And, on the fighter, forge his glorious day.
On Christ they do and on the martyr may;
But be the war within, the brand we wield
Unseen, the heroic breast not outward-steeled,
Earth bears no hurtle then from fiercest fray.

Yet God (that hews mountain and continent,
Earth, all, out; who, with trickling increment,
Veins violets and tall trees makes more and more)
Could crowd career with conquest while there went
Those years and years by of world without event
That in Majorca Alfonso watched the door.

(After teaching a course on Hopkins, I wrote an essay for the students which can be found at the following address: https://thomasdorsett.blogspot.com/2017/10/st-afphonsusrodriquez-alias-gerard.html) What follows is a quote from that article:

Alfonso Rodriquez (1532-1617) was the son of a wool merchant. When his father died when Alfonso was 14, the latter took over the business, but was unsuccessful. The future saint married, at the age of 16, a peasant woman and had three children. When he became a widower with two surviving children, he began to be increasingly devout, which in this case included severe austerities. When his last child died, he sought to enter a religious order. He was not accepted by the Jesuits to be trained as a priest, since he had little education...Eventually, he was accepted by the Jesuits as a lay brother. He was soon transferred to the Jesuit college in Majorca, where he served as a doorkeeper, or hall porter, for 46 years.

The inner struggles of an ordinary man, (in Rodriguez's case they were considerable), do not make the news, they are, according to Hopkins, newsworthy, nevertheless. They do not escape the merciful eye of God; God hews mountains, yes, but he also veins violets. He helped overcome hardships and daily struggles of a man whom we might designate today as a manic-depressive. Yet Rodriguez accepted his lot and performed a function commensurate with his abilities for 46 years--a prodigious example of patience. His humility, serenity, and affability made him, well, saintly. His is an example of patience in enduring his Cross without complaint.

These two examples of patience fit together nicely. The first is an example of a great man, the second, and example of a humble one. Transcendent patience, however, applies to both.

3. Patience in Music: Geduld! Geduld!

In the early 60's, I bought a recording of the St. Matthew Passion conducted by Karl Richter. The recording dated from 1958. Richter favored much slower tempos than are usual today; the emotional intensity of the performance, which I listened to countless times, had a very deep impression on me. I remember calling the figured bass in the astounding opening chorus the "sore-tooth bass" for it pounded home man's inhumanity to man, an impression which is still vivid after all these years.

My brother was affected as well. One the choruses, "O Jesu, was hast du begangen" became the first line (in English, "O Jesus, what crime have you committed?") of one of his first poems.

Years later, around 1975, after I received a fatal diagnosis at Columbia Presbyterian, (which proved not to be so bad--I'm still here), I walked home, nearly 100 blocks, muttering to myself, "Selbst das Wenige, was sie haben, selbst das wird ihnen genommen"--the Biblical, "even the little they have will be taken from them." I walked through dangerous neighborhoods, and on at least one occasion, fearlessly walked through a gang of young men, all the while mumbling those words; they cleared a path before me, an apparent madman. (Later, this reminded me of  George Fox, who,  in 165o, in a fit of madness, took off his shoes before the town of Lichfield and subsequently marched through its streets screaming, "Woe to the inhabitants of bloody Lichfield!" Later, he gave the lame excuse that he did it because someone was martyred there in the 3rd century.)

When I got home on West 59th Street, I played the Richter recording in its entirety.

Bach's St. Matthew Passion has remained among my favorite classical pieces to this day. I am writing this because of a wonderful tenor aria in the piece, called Geduld! Geduld! (Patience! Patience!). The background to this aria is as follows: Jesus is on trial. The High Priest testifies against him that Jesus blasphemously claimed to reconstruct the Temple, if destroyed, in three days. Jesus remains silent. The tenor aria is aimed at Bach's contemporaries: "Patience! Patience! When false tongues injure,/ if I suffer, though innocent,/ insult and mockery,/God will avenge the innocence of my heart." To remain patient, to keep silent when mocked--our twitter culture could learn a lot from that!

Here is my favorite recording of the piece, by the late, great Fritz Wunderlich:

4. Patience in Buddhism

Buddhism stresses not sweating the small stuff, to be patient with others and with oneself, and to concentrate on the big picture, peace. The impetus for writing this article is the occasional impatience I feel during meditation. Meditation can transform the personality in a very positive sense, but it takes time. It is working, but sometimes I am almost as impatient as the driver on the highway. Negative karma, after all, has been building up over a lifetimes, and, if you believe in reincarnation, for a long time prior to birth. There are no easy fixes in the universe, and Buddhism, albeit an answer, is not an easy answer. Without patience, little progress will be made. 

In Buddhism, there is an attainable state called that of the "stream-winner" (sotapanna). The stream-winner has gained insight into the truths of Buddhism. Enlightenment is inevitable; backtracking is now impossible. But Enlightenment can take up to 17 lives at this point! Talk about the necessity of being patient!

I have written about what I consider to be a "Wizard of Id" a disembodied critic inside the head. We peek behind the curtain, and realize that the Wizard is a sham. Yet it keeps on criticizing,  and, in weaker moments before Enlightenment, which are many, we still believe that nattering sham. We need to keep patient and to keep meditating, focusing on truths! This is why I find the lyrics to Bach's aria so apt. "The false tongues" I interpret as being one's false inner critics.

Mortal creatures, however, cannot have infinite patience. Hillel's question, "If not now, when" pierces the heart. We must do our best patiently. We must have the wisdom to know what doing our best means. Buddhism, as well as other systems, provides an adequate path. Great art has a lot to tell us about how to walk this path, with humility and with patience. Vesari, Milton, Hopkins and Bach--and, of course, Buddha--remember their examples when you lose patience with yourself, or with others. Smile, laugh, and then, patiently move on.