Patience

This is a poem that I stumbled across in a religion and society class a few years ago. It is by the American journalist Terry Anderson who was taken hostage by terrorists in Beirut, 1985. He lived hand cuffed to a wall or radiator for seven years.

What impresses me most about his story is his rediscovery of God and himself in such a dark place. The depths of his pride, his selfishness in relationships; all this he had to face, alone in a room without knowing if he would ever see the light of day again. I can only imagine the utter despair that must have assailed this man.

And through it all, caged in inhuman conditions like an animal, he seemed to become more human, not less. Faith was reawakened in him, not snuffed out. In some ways, it holds a strange parallell to the imprisonment of the sixteenth century saint, St John of the Cross, who endured much harsher conditions than Anderson, no doubt, but in between beatings, in his rotting rags and tiny cell, composed some of the most beautiful and heart felt poetry ever known.
To learn more about St john of the Cross go to, camelite.com

Terry Anderson's memoir is published by Ballantine and is called 'Den of Lions' - if your interested...

Patience is not a virtue -
its a necessity, a survival trait,
an ever- filling well from which
I sip, or gulp, exhausted
by the desert of this nonlife.
My faith surges and recedes;
hope sometimes abandons me,
leaving only patience.
I kick and scream and flail
inside my head; patience
offers only soft resistance,
washing gently at my rage.
I know if I dive deeply,
I will find patience, hope, and faith
emerging from a single source,
eternal and unchanging.

- Terry Anderson ( Den of Lions)