I am not, by nature, a very patient person, which means that I tend to jump before I think and talk before I think. However, this lack of “thinking” is not the real essence of patience. Patience is much about feeling. If you have followed our recent blogs, specifically over the past year, you have noted that we have put a central emphasis on this whole matter of feeling, noting importantly that feeling is very foundational to who we are as humans and even more central in our relationships. Feelings, however, are impossible to define and very hard to describe. Yet feelings affect all that we do, whether work, play, thinking, planning, executing our plans, or just hanging out. I invite you to note your feelings and how they affect what you think, say, and do. Importantly, feelings are not the same as emotion, as we describe in our recent book, I Want to Tell You How I Feel. Rather, emotion is a subset of feelings. specifically, I “feel” something in my inner core which first has a physical/body effect, then an emotional effect, and then a thought, which can then be reflected in what I say or do. We all have this same process: physical, emotional, cognitive, and active, but depending on our psychological natures, we tend to express our feelings in one of these genres. I will leave this discussion and focus on the emotional part of “feelings” as I attempt to describe this important “feeling” of patience.
It’s all Greek to me
Deb and I had the privilege (and chore) of attending seminary where we learned Greek, which was the original language in which the New Testament was written (The Jewish Scriptures, often called the Old Testament, was mostly written in Hebrew). So, to really study biblical statements, one needs to have at least a rudimentary understanding of Greek, which by the way is quite easy to learn once you learn the Greek alphabet, which by the starts with the letters alpha and beta. In my study of the New Testament I ran across many significant differences in words that when translated into English, sometimes lost their original meaning. For instance, there is a passage in the New Testament book of Galatians where the Apostle Paul says that we need to be careful not to have too much pride, but 3 verses later says that we need to have pride. A quick study of the passage, however, reveals, that the author actually uses two different Greek words that are both translated “pride,” but are, in fact quite different. The first “pride” word means thinking you are better than someone else, whereas the second “pride” word means thinking you are better than you were in the past. So Paul is not saying that you shouldn’t have personal pride, or confidence, but rather that we should avoid comparing ourselves to others, as the anonymous author of Desiderata says, “…and don’t compare yourself to others or you will become vain or bitter.” Enough of pride. Now on to patience. There are two words translated patience, and they are profoundly different: makrothumia and hupomeno.
Makrothumia
You can actually pick out what at least part of this words means, namely the “makro” part. Makro in Greek means “much” or “many”. What does thumia mean? It means passion, or it could be translated as purpose, desire, or even lust. The most dramatic use of the word makrothumia occurs in a very well-known biblical passage in another Pauline book First Corinthians, namely the beginning of chapter 13 where Paul says, “Love is patient and kind (and a few other things). This “patience” word is makrothumia. In fact, in the Authorized Version of the Bible, usually called the King James, the translators translated makrothumia as “long suffering,” which is actually closer to the meaning of makrothumia than what we think of when we talk of patience. So what?
So, if you follow me, to be patient, at least in the biblical view of patience, is to suffer. Wait a minute, isn’t patience a kind of peace of mind, careful thinking, and just waiting your turn. Nothing of the kind. Patience, at least in I Corinthians 13 is quite the opposite. It has nothing to do with peace of mind and waiting “patiently.” Makrothumia is wanting something very much and suffering in the wanting, in the not having, and in the unknown factor of when you will get what you want, or if you will ever get what you want. So, forget about being patient if you think patience is just thinking and sitting on a rock. It is nothing of the kind. Patience, real patience is truly passionate. It is often filled with love, potential loss of love, and feeling quite upset that you don’t have what you love.
You want to be patient? No, you don’t. You want what you want, and you want it now. Sound familiar? Nothing wrong with wanting, nothing at all because wanting is love-based. I love something and I want it, or I don’t want to lose it. Join the crowd. This wanting, craving, desiring, and passion doesn’t mean you yell and scream (unless you are acting like a 4-year old who is learning that she can’t have most of what she wants because she wants too much and is just out of the first couple years of life where she got pretty much all she wants). Patience is suffering; it is painful; it can be awful. And it ends. How it ends is not necessarily up to you, but patience ends calmly, but most importantly, you can be patient for a very long time, even years. not so with hupameno.
Hupameno
This Greek word, usually translated “patience” probably should be translated “endurance” or even “surviving.” Note that hupomeno is much different form makrothumia. The word hupameno is comprised of two other Greek words that make understanding of the word much clearer. Hupo means under, while meno means something like standing. So the visual picture of hupameno is standing under something, like a weight. Consider the picture of your standing under some kind of weight, like a big huge sack of bricks, or worse yet, something that is so heavy that you will most certainly be able to stand under the weight for very long. This is the essence of hupameno: you can’t stand it forever. Rather, when you are exercising this kind of patience, you are surviving, perhaps for some good reason or unforeseen reason, but you most certainly are not looking forward to anything other than getting out from under this weight.
This kind of patience, or endurance, calls for stamina to survive under the weight of something that is very heavy or even dangerous. The heaviness or dangerousness of this weight could, indeed, be physical, but it is more than likely personal or interpersonal. Personal weights could be as simple as working hard for an exam that is coming up, dealing with an intolerable boss at work, or waiting for some kind of danger to pass. Interpersonal weights could be as serious as a divorce action that is being brought against you against your will, or some kind of intolerable marriage that you must survive for some good reason. You might need to survive a time when you are living on little or nothing because you can’t afford it, together with all the bill collectors calling you daily. You might need to endure the cold in your house because you can’t afford to turn on the furnace or perhaps because you don’t have a furnace. You might need to sit before some kind of panel of individuals who judge you unfairly where it is unwise for you to say anything in your defense. All of these examples, and many more that might have happened in your life are weighty, or even dangerous. An important ingredient of this hupomeno kind of patience/endurance is that there may be no visible end to the suffering that you need to endure, which only makes this kind of patience all the more difficult. It’s not always easy to see the value of makrothumia kind of patience, but it nearly impossible to see the value of hupomeno kind of patience. In fact, both have profit
The profit of patience
Get the picture of these very different kinds of patience? One kind of patience is love-based and looking forward to having something that you want, and perhaps need, and this is a time that is very passionate. We can patiently wait until the date of a wedding, graduation, or the teenagers finally going to college. This is waiting for something to happen that is worth the wait. It is much harder to patiently wait for something to end that has no intrinsic value. It is valuable for kids to wait until Christmas to open presents as it is good for kids to learn to wait for dinner, for school to end, or for a vacation. The profit in waiting for something good to occur builds character and allows you to muse about what you love and what you can love. At this very moment I am waiting to see my daughter, Jenny, who we will be seeing tomorrow (if the snow lets up). This kind of patience only endears me to Jenny and broadens my love for her. In fact, all makrothumia kinds of patience are good for you, if not easy to wait for. The more important the goal of waiting, which usually means the deeper the love we have for something, the greater is the value, the profit of patient waiting. Recall, however, that makrothumia kind of patience can be very difficult, even the cause of suffering.
Hupomeno-like patience, endurance does not have such a lofty goal. Endurance is difficult and weighty, and perhaps it is just surviving until the wait is over. This kind of patience is surviving, not thriving. Yet there is profit in hupomeno patience. It teaches you the occasional necessity of survival for its own sake. I had a tooth extracted a few weeks ago, not something that I looked forward to, and not something that I could really profit from except that my infected tooth might now be tone. For the most part I endured the experience because it was necessary. I can now look back at this experience and see that I could do it again if necessary, which might very well be given that old men tend to lose their teeth. If you ever played high school football, you might remember the August football practices in 100 degree heat that you needed to endure. Not pleasant, but there is profit in some things. While football practice or losing a tooth might have some visible profit in the end, there are times when you simply need to endure something that has no profit but to stay alive. There is an important element of psychological literature suggesting that some kinds of endurance of awful things can built self-confidence in the face of adversity. Perhaps you survived poverty, an authoritarian boss, or even an abusive parent, and as a result you have a certain resilience to adversity in general.
I must comment on the obvious: things are not so clear as to suggest there is no overlap between makrothumia and hupomeno kinds of patience. There are occasions where they combine in some areas of life or even co-exist. I find myself experiencing mostly hupomeno patience during the wait until the presidential election and installation is finally over. It has been a challenge, something that I have endured for the most part, but I think this wait has also been good for me as I have had to challenge the useless anxiety and worry about the final outcome.
One final thought regarding this murky distinction between these two kinds of patience. What I call makrothumia patience is always good for you. This means that it is always good to wait for something that is good. There is a danger, however, of engaging in patience when you should engage in action. You can wait all day for the guy to call you, but maybe you should call him. He just might have lost your number. You can wait for someone to knock on your door and offer you a lucrative job, but maybe you need to go to work at the Kwik Trip until you can find that perfect job. On the other hand, hupomeno is not always good for you and not always necessary. There are times, places, and people who are truly dangerous. You might need to back out of such things for your survival. It might be good for some people to like on a plank of nails, but it might not be good for you.
Take care, be patient as much as possible and as much as necessary. Endure what needs to be endured and in so-doing develop self-confidence and resilience. You need to know “when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em.” Or as AA suggests, “change what you can change, accept what you cannot change, and develop the wisdom to know the difference.”
And, Happy New Year!!