Endurance
“Endurance
is patience concentrated.” Thomas Carlyle
This
week, the Spirituality Group has been looking into the practice of
perseverance. In my mind, endurance is critical to perseverance. It
is the spirit of not giving up in the face of difficulty; of holding
back when the fear inside you says to cut and run. Enduring, when the
job is hard, when it is exhausting and mind numbing, is a test of
one's ability to persevere. I think of all the care givers in Africa,
who are nursing people with Ebola. They know that their patients may
or may not live, that they themselves may contract the virus, but
they do not turn away. That's endurance at work.
I
think of the young people protesting in China, in Ferguson, MO, in
Thailand, in Washington, DC, and in many places around the world.
They know their ability to persevere, and to exercise forbearance in
the use of violence, is critical to their success in changing the
status quo. It was Virgil who said: “Every calamity is to be
overcome by endurance.” Right here in Birmingham, young
people endured the assault of police dogs and fire hoses to turn the tide in the Civil Rights movement. Endurance is how Mahatma
Gandhi led India out of colonial rule.
It
is not in achievement, nor in violence, that the human soul
flourishes. It is in peaceful endurance. That is where we see the
divine spark of God exercised in the world. George F. Kennon said,
“Heroism is endurance for one moment more.” And one moment more,
and then one more...
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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