Patient Trust

I am grinning reading Nomi's post! Such goodness and light and blessing to hear about on this Love Day. Mazal tov!!

It's been a while since I've spoken with many of you--hello! I miss you.I am currently in Cleveland, training at the Cleveland Clinic to become a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor, teaching clergy to become chaplains/provide spiritual care. I've been working towards this training steadily since the beginning of rabbinical school, and since arriving here, I feel more unsure and in the wilderness than I have in the past number of years. So in this place of the unknown, I share this wisdom from Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit Priest. I read these words quite often, reminding myself to be patient in the surrounding fog. His words are robust for reading aloud slowly on repeat. I invite you to see what phrases your spirit lingers on.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything, to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through some stages on instability--and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually--let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make of you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing that
his hand is leading you, and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.

And here is a video of a goat befriending a tiger. Each time I watch it, I crack up. What a chutzspadik little goat! May we all be so brave! :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6dZs1SvzlE&list=LLwVd7HG2VKUrXjhzawKwV8g&index=2

With love,
Shula