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 is made by passing through some stages of instability --

and probably taking a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually.

Let them grow.

Let them shape themselves

without undue haste.

Don't try to force them on,

as though you could be today

what time (that is to say, grace,

circumstances acting on your own good will)

will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing

that Gods hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of

feeling yourself

in suspense

and incomplete.

- Teilhard de Chardin

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