Infinite Patience

"Now you must learn that only infinite patience produces immediate effects. This it the way in which time is exchanged for eternity. Infinite patience calls upon Infinite Love, and by producing results now it renders time unnecessary." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 5, Section VI, 12:1-3

"Do you really believe you can make a voice that can drown out God's? Do you really believe you can devise a thought system that can separate you from Him? Do you really believe you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless; you need merely cast your cares upon Him because He careth for you." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 5, Section VII, 1:1-4

I don't know about you, but patience has never been my favorite word. I have been notoriously impatient all my life. Now that I am 57 years young, I have more tolerance and patience than before, but I would still not call myself a patient person. Of course, this is a judgment made through the world's eyes, based on actions and reactions within a story, by a fictional identity of 'me.'

The above quote from ACIM is talking about absolute patience, not patience as the world uses it. In the world, if you are not putting up with whatever is going on with a smile on your face, or at least a long-suffering sigh, you are impatient. If you want things to happen right away, you are impatient. If you aren't always pretending to be O.K. with what is going on, you are impatient. So the translation for the world's notion of patience is to be fake, inauthentic, a pretender. Hmmmm... sounds like the ego to me.

Absolute patience, on the other hand, is the recognition that there is no time and space, no world as we imagine it. ACIM tells us, "The Holy Spirit, who speaks for God in time, also knows that time is meaningless. He reminds you of this in every passing moment of time, because it is His special function to return you to eternity." We are never asked to be anything but real. We are never asked to be anything at all... we simply BE as God created us. This requires no effort, and is why absolute patience has immediate effects. There is no pretending, no false identities and stories between us and Who We Are.

Do we actually imagine that all our posturing and pretending and putting on of identities has any real effect? No wonder we feel guilty all the time and project this out into an imaginary world. It's all so exhausting and intolerable. ACIM says that "Guilt feelings are the preservers of time. They induce fears of retaliation or abandonment, and thus ensure that the future will be like the past. This is the ego's continuity." In the bad dream we call the world, we feel guilty every time we don't act according to the judgments of our family, our friends, or the world as we imagine it. This is THE smokescreen of the ego. And it will go on and on and on, like the energizer bunny, until we decide to forgive our illusions and return to sanity.

We are offered complete release from our delusion, every moment. In ACIM, the Voice for God tells us that "God offers you the continuity of eternity... When you choose to make this exchange, you will simultaneously exchange guilt for Joy, viciousness for Love, and pain for Peace. My role is to unchain your will and set it free. Your ego cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose it at every possible moment in every possible way."

Infinite patience is always available to us, and it has nothing to do with how we act within the world. Because we are Spirit, everything takes place in consciousness. It has everything to do with forgiving and letting go of our projections, the so-called good and the so-called bad. It has everything to do with forgiving and letting go of our projected identities and relationships. Infinite patience is the willingness to let it all go, so Reality can dawn once again on our unclouded and open minds.

"I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him. I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me." -- A Course in Miracles, Chapter 5, Section VII, 6:10-11