Tea with Linda - FORBEARANCE
Tea with Linda - FORBEARANCE
Linda Kavelin Popov, Co-Founder of TVP, November 2023.
The musical Man of La Mancha features an unforgettable song: “To Dream the Impossible Dream,” in which Don Quixote sings “To dream the impossible dream; to fight the unbeatable foe; to bear with unbearable sorrow. to run where the brave dare not go.” It was his quest to set the world right, regardless of the cost.
How often have you felt like you were tilting at windmills, calling on deep forbearance to try to set things right in your life or in the world? This character, who held onto hope and idealism despite the odds against him, chose to bear with the unbearable, because he knew his purpose in the depths of his soul. Not all of us are quite as dramatic, but at some point in our lives, we must call on forbearance to survive. If we don’t, we can drown in sorrow or depression or give up on our most valuable teachable moments. I have found that in those testing times, forbearance calls me to the virtues of patience, fortitude, trust, and also purposefulness - to hold a vision or a dream of what could be.
What gives us strength in the testing times is our idealism, to believe that it’s all worth it, if we can stay focused on the why of our life. It may be sustaining a marriage through troubled waters, or sustaining a business or a project, holding to a dream of what may seem impossible but is such a deep ‘yes’ in our souls that, like Cervantes’ Don Quixote, we must give it our all.
Students of higher education know the importance of forbearance, as do people striving to come out of poverty, or folks who struggle with chronic illness, or a disability, or multi-generational racism. Forbearance isn’t spoken of often. It has an old-fashioned ring to it, but it is essential at chaotic times like this, when mental health and wellbeing challenge us all. What helps you to keep on keepin’ on? For me, it is remembering the countless times Grace has carried me across a cavernous divide, made the seemingly impossible happen, and always provided what I needed, including the test itself. Without the teachable moments of life, how would we discover our own strengths and the lessons that give our lives meaning? If you find yourself in a revolving door of suffering, it may mean that you need to step outside of it, detach and take a long, loving look at your life. Often that is the way to connect with your forbearance. Is it worth it to keep going? The angel of forbearance answers us tenderly, “Of course, dear one. You matter. Your life matters. Persevere with me and I will help you to reach the unreachable star.”