“They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young”

—this is how Israel tells it—

“They’ve kicked me around ever since I was young,

but they never could keep me down.

Their plowmen plowed long furrows

up and down my back;

But GOD wouldn’t put up with it,

he sticks with us;

Then GOD ripped the harnesses

of the evil plowmen to shreds.”

Oh, let all those who hate Zion

grovel in humiliation;

Let them be like grass in shallow ground

that withers before the harvest,

Before the farmhands can gather it in,

the harvesters get in the crop,

Before the neighbors have a chance to call out,

“Congratulations on your wonderful crop!

We bless you in GOD’s name!”

PSALM 129

Patience is drawing on underlying forces; it is powerfully positive, though to a natural view it looks like just sitting it out.

How would I persist against positive eroding forces if I were not drawing on invisible forces?

And patience has a positive tonic effect on others; because of the presence of the patient person, they revive and go on, as if he were the gyroscope of the ship providing a stable ground. But the patient person himself does not enjoy it.

PAUL GOODMAN