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 of instability
and that it may take a very long time.
--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Jesuit Priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was trained as a geologist and a paleontologist, and served as a stretcher-bearer in the First World War. He learned a deep respect for the slow work of time, and knew first hand that instability is a painful but necessary precursor of progress.

His words are an important mantra for me lately, as my own impatience with our unresolved political, social, and health circumstances has only increased over the past six months, and our whole society’s impatience could reach a dangerous level between now and January.

“Trust in the slow work of God,” de Chardin, and all of Ignatian spirituality, tells us across the ages, “(this) may take a very long time.” 

Sit with de Chardin’s words once or twice a day; cultivate serenity in your body and mind. Remember that only the peaceful can be peacemakers, and that peacemakers will be sorely needed.   

-- The Rev. Barbara Talcott, St. Mark’s School


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