Peter Csermely's blog 2.0 - waiting

What can we learn from our current miseries?

Csermely Péter — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 17:49:13 +0000

Lenten thoughts about the benefits of slowing down and longsuffering

1. Why do not we want to (why cannot we) tolerate longsuffering in this century? Not so long ago, there was a large rush all around the world... We have forgotten even that how to prepare for something. The problem with this was that we never arrived where we were. Because we never know where we are. Because we never let ourselves have enough time to realize where we will be... The moment became unimportant. There will be a new, another moment instead. Only the lack of tolerating unchanging things was bigger than the hunger for changes. "It is unbearable if we have to bear anything!"– we thought. Mankind lived in the illusion of omnipotence. This was a blindfolded road to the abyss. Then the crisis came. Corona virus appeared... I think that mankind learns now a very painful, very awful, but for our long-term survival very important lesson today. We should learn from this. We need to find the path to inner growth in these weeks of coerced silence. Please do not return back to rush even when these weeks will be over. This is the way how we can save the Earth, our home. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

2. Longsuffering as a part of wisdom. Inner peace and wisdom can only be reached with the ability of distancing ourselves from our desires. For that we have to become trained at longsuffering. Now we are gaining the very important skill of longsuffering... Lent of the church calendar became a coerced-Lent... Please do observe that we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. Those local communities which were not ready to follow the new rules of life, had many more infections than those which were able to slow themselves down. This slow-down will be (hopefully) over in a few months. Let us build up during this time ourselves in a different, in a better way! (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

3. Longsuffering: God’s exceptional mercy. The driving force of longsuffering is love that "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1Corinthians 13:7). Let me repeat my previous sentence here: we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. We do see now why love is the driving force of longsuffering, do not we? We may only save those who are the fragile members of our community with the longsuffering of the whole community. We did not receive corona virus as a punishment. However, it is our education which proceeds right now. Let us observe that despite the sad tragedies this education comes with much love. Let’s feel the love flowing on us even amidst our current misery and we will be given the grace of inner peace with it, too. With this love and inner peace let us start re-building our communities. (If you would like to know more about this, please read my essay here.)

1. Why do not we want to (why cannot we) tolerate longsuffering in this century?

Not so long ago, there was a large rush all around the world... We have forgotten even that how to prepare for something. The problem with this was that we never arrived where we were. Because we never know where we are. Because we never let ourselves have enough time to realize where we will be... Life became dense. A man met more of his fellows in an hour than his great-grandfather did in his whole life. The moment became unimportant. There will be a new, another moment instead. That is why we never observed anything that made our great-grandparents happy everyday: the dragonflies flying, the birds singing... – it was closely related to the fact that there were no flying dragonflies and singing birds in more and more people’s lives. (What is a dragonfly? A real flying dragon?) Busier life raised our sensitivity threshold. If the incoming input decreased, our discomfort increased. (How many people suffer now from this...) Only the lack of tolerating unchanging things was bigger than the hunger for changes. "It is unbearable if we have to bear anything! We have conquered the Earth! We have got the power, we do what we want! There is democracy: we select our food, our partner, our faith, our socks and our political party." – we thought. Mankind lived in the illusion of omnipotence. This was a blindfolded road to the abyss. Then the crisis came. Corona virus appeared... I think that mankind learns now a very painful, very awful, but for our long-term survival very important lesson today. We should learn from this. We need to find the path to inner growth in these weeks of coerced silence. Please do not return back to rush even when these weeks will be over. There will be recession. Economy will suffer. There will be many problems emerging from this. But there will be a good side as well: finally we will impose a self-control of our behavior. This is the way how we can save the Earth, our home. Please do observe, that there ARE other ways of happiness, than the boundless consumption and rush! First, observe this from pressure. Than observe this from your own choice in a creative way.

2. Longsuffering as a part of wisdom

Instant gratification makes us be at the mercy of our desires. Inner peace and wisdom can only be reached with the ability of distancing ourselves from our desires. For that we have to become trained at longsuffering. Now we are gaining the very important skill of longsuffering... Lent of the church calendar became a coerced-Lent... Please do observe that we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. Those local communities which were not ready to follow the new rules of life, had many more infections than those which were able to slow themselves down. Survival is the ability to leave our former comfort zone fast. We are able to find the optimal decision only with . But in parallel with this the new order is always getting to be built. Let us build up ourselves in a different, in a better way!

3. Longsuffering: God’s exceptional mercy

Longsuffering is the measure of the inner peace and serenity. Those who practice longsuffering know it very well what is Totality and how much smaller it is what they have to suffer right now. There is an immeasurably great example for that: God Himself. The Old Testament describes longsuffering as one of God’s most important characteristics: "but thou, a forgiving God, gracious, and merciful, longsuffering, and full of compassion" (Nehemias 9:17b). The driving force of longsuffering is love that "beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1Corinthians 13:7). Let me repeat my previous sentence here: we may only prevent individual tragedies with a community longsuffering. We do see now why love is the driving force of longsuffering, do not we? We may only save those who are the fragile members of our community with the longsuffering of the whole community. We may only save the Earth, our home with the longsuffering of the whole community. Let’s think deeply: if Our Lord not only tolerates us with our plenty of deceits but He gave His only begotten Son for death to save us. Don’t we think it is time for us to be able to bear more? We received a trial from this now. Please bear the self-constraints and help bear them for those, who may not tolerate this so much. There will be many more trials like this to come. Let us prepare ourselves for this. This is the token of our survival. We did not receive corona virus as a punishment. However, it is our education which proceeds right now. Let us observe that despite the sad tragedies this education comes with much love. Though it is difficult to imagine this right now, but we may have received a much larger misery instead of this. We had not received that. We had received a chance for our education instead. Please use this chance. Let’s feel the love flowing on us even amidst our current misery and we will be given the grace of inner peace with it, too. With this love and inner peace let us start re-building our communities. Our Father in heaven please be merciful to your un-educated children! Let us pray for our communities, as well as for Africa and South America where the disease is just about to start its decimation.

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Waiting and persistence – as modern virtues

Csermely Péter — Sat, 27 Jan 2018 11:00:46 +0000

How can we discover the wisdom and creativity of patience?

1. Waiting and persistence are virtues here and now. Behavior of „let’s get and enjoy today’s pleasures fast” is such a form of „In those who are really able to wait, a profound patience is born that is not at all less regarding its beauty and meaning than all what they are awaiting for.” ( Our desires which are not fulfilled for a long time may improve us much more than those which become accomplished quickly.

2. The liberating and creative strength of patience. Virtues of waiting and persistence liberate us. If we do not obey our first reflexes but we think our situation over thoroughly, more creative and optimal solutions may emerge in our minds. (If you wish to know how, please read the post.)

3. Why patience has become one of the key elements of wisdom specifically today? The wise avoids the extremes. But the wise does more than that. If circumstances drive towards one of the extremes the wise moves just to the other. That is why we should deliberately slow down when life accelerates around us. (If you wish to know how patience becomes a way to save the harmony of the world, please read the post.)

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1. Waiting and persistence are virtues here and now

A significant part of the Western world has been living in an era rich of resources in the past fifty years. In this community an easy access to goods has devaluated the joy of growth. Growth has become a default, a natural phenomenon. Behavior of the Hungarian folk-tale’s “little dumpling” (which swallows all goods until it bursts) has spread all over. (One may also cite here the distasteful but unforgettable Monty Python sketch "Overconsumption has devaluated the virtues of waiting and persistence, because – as it is said by many – „it is a fool who does not enjoy the easily obtainable goods of this era”. This approach can not only „be anathematized” on a moral basis but it evokes fearful dangers, too.

Behavior of „let’s get and enjoy today’s pleasures fast” is such a form of „. We should not forget either that welfare society belongs to a vanishing minority compared to the whole world.

A wonderful example of the strength of waiting and persistence is the saving of : „Evening has come. Candles are lit. Ten candles, a hundred candles, a thousand candles. As if it wasn’t the celebration of Pentecost but All Souls’ Day and as if they didn’t light in the heart of the town but at the "Olaszi" cemetery. Women and maidens are getting tired of kneeling one after the other. Other women and maidens take their places. They take over the candles or light new ones. Just as it was a military relief. More and more candles are taken out from bags. As if factories would have cast all the candles for years to be lit together here, around St. Ladislau Church. As if a bloody, fiery wreath would entwine the assaulted church. There are candles in the hands of the humble Catholic, the stubborn Calvinist and the contemplative Orthodox. Hungarians, Jews, Romanians. In the surrounding streets men do not move either. Neither those in glad rags, nor the ones in uniforms do. They occupy different streets very close but still very far away from each other. Silence and stillness are really frightening. Candles are lightening continuously around St. Ladislau Church for two and a half days. How many people do change places on their knees without a pillow on the pavement? For how many times does the fear sweeps over them? Because they were women and children, although they could feel that their husbands’ and fathers’ eyes looked out them from the nearby streets. Men changed each other there, too. A war battle could not have been planned more carefully than Nagyvárad people: Hungarians, Romanians, Jews, Catholics, Calvinists and Orthodoxes organized themselves.” (excerpt from György Beke's short story published in "Kortárs" magazine in 1999) After two and half day of kneeling and praying the order to demolish the church was revoked. From the virtue of waiting and persistence derives the seemingly paradoxical statement that our desires which are not fulfilled for a long time may improve us much more than those which become accomplished quickly. (A high level of self-development is when we realize that we should have not wished at all what we had wished – I will deal with these virtues in later posts.) A well-known example of the advantages of being able to wait is the marshmallow-test, in which children are left alone with a marshmallow in a room with the instruction that if they can resist eating it for a few minutes they will be given one additional piece. It is worth watching the suffering of children how they try not to eat the candy persistence is a behavior-pattern learnt from parents, i.e. our own mistakes may descend to our children, too.

Patience also means a wish that the wrong will become good. Martin Luther highlighted in the 1519 explanation of "forbearance" in St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians (5:22) that the original Greek word was neither "hupomone" in the sense of enduring, steadfast waiting, nor "anoche" in the sense of forbearing tolerance but "makrothumia", which is patience in the sense of "longsuffering" hoping that the wrong will become good, that it will be saved, and not even thinking on revenge.

2. The liberating and creative strength of patience

All things have their season…
A time to get, and a time to lose.
A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
(Ecclesiastes 3:1,6)

The virtue of waiting can make us realize the value of humility. We may learn that it is not us who determines when something can be fulfilled or not. It is important to learn how we can experience the time which is not our lives’ limited duration but the time of much bigger time-scales, where changes stretch over generations after generations. Virtues of waiting and persistence liberate us. They set our souls free of our own lives’ limits and make them able to experience dimensions of much bigger scales. It is important to think about the words of Paul the Apostle: „power is made perfect in infirmity” (2Cor 12:9)

Suppose you succeed in breaking the wall with your head.
And what, then, will you do in the next cell?
(

Patience gives a chance of engrossment and deliberation. The Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman's book,

The evolution of originality often requires many years. By then the mind has rephrased the question again and again, has already tried millions of combinations as possible solutions and has found the only one which is really original and useful.

3. Why patience has become one of the key elements of wisdom specifically today?

One of the key elements of wisdom is the „golden mean” As a closing idea I would like to introduce the virtue of patience as an important element of our contribution to the preservation of the world’s harmony with this beautiful thought of Buddhism: „As the bee collects nectar and flies away without damaging the flower or its color or its scent, so also, let the wise person dwell and act.” (Dhammapada, 49) These thoughts already lead to a deeper understanding of the significance of humility. This will be the topic of the next post.

Postscript: I would like to apologize that my native language is not English. I am especially not familiar with English phrases concerning spiritual life. I would like to ask all Readers whose native language is English to send any corrections to csermelyblog@gmail.com. Thank you very much for your help (and patience) in advance! (I hope as time passes there will be fewer and fewer mistakes in the text.)