Episode Seven

Patience is my spiritual practice. The emphasis here is on the word “practice.” I once wrote a poem that started, “I am not a patient person, like red sassafras rising with gracious tradition…” and that’s pretty much still my story except that I am, at least, aware that I’m supposed to be patient now, when back then I was rather proud at my impatience. Back then I was upholding a tradition in my family history of leaping first and looking later. Now I see what impatience has cost me, and it is not as pretty as that red sassafras on ice.

How am I to practice patience when impatience has been my creed then? Sometimes I just want to scream at the pace of things in this world. It’s not that I’m an early bird. It’s more that I am a late bloomer…I’m still a tightly wound bud and I’m just a little afraid that I’m not ever going to bloom again. But, it’s something I have to face. There is no forcing things to happen in life. I'm like that weird flower in the London Arboretum that blooms once in twenty five years.

I am infinitely patient with most people. I give second, third, twentieth, and more than a thousand chances to others. But, to myself, lucky if I get one chance at a new activity. Learning is painful. This makes me think of my short stint with Argentine Tango. Oy! Imagine a lovely lady dragging the poor guy around the floor – yes backwards, high heels and blind sided. That gives you an idea of my level of patience, but by the end of my time in tango I learned to wait…a bit. And, I appreciated the outcome of that waiting so much that it has been a lesson that spilled into the rest of my life. So, I PRACTICE patience, and I pray that someday I will master it…someday…someday...