Friday, March 10, 2006

the p-word

Is patience a tiresome drudgery to which we subject ourselves only to secure a privilege or payday of some sort?

Is it more or less a chore -- on par with bill-paying, clock-punching, gutter-cleaning, dog-bathing, etc.?

Or is patience, in and of itself, a sweet thing?
Is it a component of personal formation?
Is it a change agent?

[Do you find yourself exercising an inordinate amount of patience just reading through this blog entry?]

Patience seems to be a critical attribute of presence -- the art of being where I am... of feeling the feelings of my life... of becoming present. To me, this is one of the most remarkable things about Jesus. It's a characteristic of his that I long to emulate.
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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't know. I think patience is what we make it. An interesting concept would be how patience is affected by who it involves- if you are alone or if you are having to be patient with other people.

Sat Mar 11, 01:25:00 PM 2006
Scott said...

In my opinion, whether the challenge is to be patient with somebody else or my own self, what's required is a sense of God's redemptive intent in the big picture.

In other words, I have to be able to believe that the Creator is at work in us from the perspective of a good conclusion to which He is already present.

Sun Mar 12, 11:30:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...

I believe it was my colleague, Rev. Blackie White who once told me that "The Spirit is patient; the flesh never has time for nothing, or nobody but itself."

Mon Mar 13, 11:47:00 AM 2006
Scott said...

Yeah, but until my skin cooperates with the Spirit patience is not much more than a concept. It has to be a whole-person venture.

Mon Mar 13, 05:33:00 PM 2006
Scott said...

Zach, you bring out an important nuance. Is patience the same as passivity? Or co-dependency? I hope not, but there does seem to be a hazy border between them.

IMHO, patience does not necessarily demand inaction. Some actions require a lot of patience, and some patience is very active. (One example might be continuing to choose to invest kindness and acceptance into a relationship that doesn't reciprocate.)

What do you think?

Tue Mar 14, 06:06:00 PM 2006
Anonymous said...

hmm. I agree mostly. but going back to your other comment in reply to my other one (see? this is why you need threads haha) I think that you are right but sometimes we definitely can't see what God is doing; all we know is that he is there. Even when it doesn't make sense and we can't catch the vision patience is still worth working at.

Tue Mar 14, 10:20:00 PM 2006
Scott said...

This makes me think of Holy Saturday: the bleak hours between the Crucifixion and the Resurrection of Jesus. God was at work, invisibly.

Thu Mar 16, 05:45:00 PM 2006

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