Patience and Penitence

Patience and Penitence, two words which stand for concepts scarcely valued in our modern global-recession-crisis-depression world; the first, a misunderstood virtue and the second, a forgotten route to salvation.

“Patience,” my mother would occasionally chide, “is a virtue, possess it if you can…” and we boys would howl with protest in anticipation at what was coming next, crying foul at the sexism. (For those that don’t know the rhyme it continues, “Seldom found in woman, and never found in man.” Unsurprisingly, in a man’s world, the originator of this blasphemy remains anonymous.)

In a family of four boys and one girl, we couldn’t allow female smugness to enter, especially having a frequently impatient mother and sister to cope with.

Notwithstanding this domestic mantra, we all knew that patience meant allowing for the natural ebb and flow of Time, and that much as we wished to operate the accelerator of events like a racing car driver, this was not only inadvisable, but more often than not impossible.

However, penitence was another matter altogether. In our secular household, paying lip service to the possibility of religious truth via a firm agnosticism was as far as any explicit moral code extended. So, when we were expected to feel remorse – for example, when on my birthday, I broke the window after school in order to burgle the house to retrieve my carefully saved, now augmented money to get to the shop in time to buy my batman car – we just didn’t know what we were supposed to do.

Hanging the head and biting the bottom lip seemed a little bit like being an extra in The Waltons, or Little House on the Prairie, and was more likely to increase parental wrath. It could even on rare occasions lead to actual physical discipline, on the basis that such acting was blatantly insincere and insurgent mockery of the basest kind.

Acting dumb similarly did not work because we were all provably intelligent, and this focus on our brain training – being from a working class background, seen as the only hope for a decent life – was paramount in the family edifice of collective ambition. Offering to make good would go some of the way, but then, the danger was that the sacrifice of time / cash / pride would be further capitalised upon, thus increasing the punishment which was surely coming. Better to say nothing, risking the often shouted line,

“Well? What have you got to say for yourself???”

The fact that at other times showing independence of spirit and the ability to resist authoritarianism brought glowing approval did not seem to affect the expectation of contrition, and as I grew to learn the foibles of the rulers, I learned to subvert any emotional blackmail that whipcracked my way in order to regain a semblance of control.

To the sullen teenager – “Sit down, we want to talk to you.”
Me – “I’d rather stand.”

– thereby instantly turning the tables in the “I-can-make-you-feel-guilty” stakes.

Hours of interrogation, seeking “understanding” (read: bullying into submissive penitence) turned into stubborn battles, during which I made quite clear that the main reason for my being victimised was that they were refusing to address the problems in their marriage, and were using us in general and me in particular as a scapegoat – which was more or less true, but not what they wanted to hear from a 13 year old. It drove them into a frenzy. Victory for me. When I left, I didn’t return for ten years.

I did eventually relent, and they did eventually develop a worthwhile marriage.

Where does this leave patience, and penitence?

Patience, I have a-plenty, but not necessarily of the best kind. Patience to endure, to suffer iniquities, to put up with abuse – I had much of this kind of long-suffering patience, and until I understood, it made me vulnerable to self-sacrificial relationships in which I played a caretaker role at great cost to myself. With genuine self-regard and acceptance came a truer patience. Patience with my own limitations, patience with the fact of the seasons, with the great unseen, barely sensed movements in society, culture, economy, patience being adrift on the seas we navigate, hardly able to catch a wind sometimes, in the doldrums. Patience with the slow speed of my actual learning, as opposed to the speed of my intellect.

Penitence took even longer. As my hero Ian Dury sang, Why should I feel bad about something I ain’t had? Or, something I wasn’t aware of doing, come to that. This was my attitude for a long time. Of course, I knew that causing havoc was wrong, being selfish, mean, thoughtless, was wrong, but learning that being wrong sometimes didn’t make me an irredeemably bad person, and that admitting mistakes was healthy and would (in the right circumstances) allow useful corrections to occur, was a lesson hard won. Thank God for a good therapist, who taught me the difference between embarassment, guilt, and shame. When the time came for me to feel the hurt, I was surprisingly intact and able to say, well, I fucked that up, without needing to bury myself in dung for a decade thereafter. Sure, I felt bad, but this was tempered by my knowledge and acceptance of my limitations and the scope of my capacity to be perfect.

I write this morning in a space of contentment. But, as I made tea first thing, my task was punctuated by a memory of once having, in a childish fit of rage, smashed the nearest cup. It was a beautiful cup, but I was feeling ugly. It had great sentimental value to my lover, and caused her far greater upset than I could have predicted. It was something she had kept since she was eight years old. I still feel guilty about it, and I’m sure that the extent of it would surprise my wronged friend. One moment of selfish nihilism, and a profound regret soon followed, which lingers.

The one positive to come from it is that I felt so bad that I haven’t done anything like it since (it was a while ago). When I remember this act, I don’t hide from it. Nobody is telling me to experience contrition, but I feel it anyway. It was my spontaneous thoughtlessness and lack of respect and self-control which caused the hurt. I regret it. I work to increase the likelihood of my future patience, whatever the provocation or situation. It’s the best I can do.