Patience is a Virtue

 

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you the following. 

 

Perhaps you are like me and have heard that patience is a virtue when you were growing up. 

 

Yes? No? 

 

Let’s go with yes first for this next little while. 

 

Patience. That bit that I have been given oodles of opportunity to work on and learn since I was knee high to a grasshopper. 

 

That means since I was very young, y’all. 

 

Be patient while you grow taller so you can go on the faster rides at the amusement park. 

 

Have patience while you learn to ride the bike down the steep hill and get stronger to ride it up the even bigger hill.

How fast will the bike go on the biggest swooping hill? Let’s find out.

 

What goes up, gets to come down. Coming down is the fun part!

 

Wait your turn in lines to get into concerts, plays, football games, and whatever comes around the next mountain. 

Is it easy to gather patience?

Is it always easy to gather patience like the virtue folks gather like their laurels? 

 

It may be for you and some around you. 

 

For me it is like growing this Christmas Cactus. 

 

This plant blooms once a year and can become a bright spot of light during the long winter months. 

Here’s the deal. 

 

It takes patience to get the green leaves to reach out, pop with tiny buds and then bring these multiple levels of color. 

 

Know what else?  

Apparently, there are tips and tricks that will help while waiting and being patient. 

More that needs to be done

Well, of course there is more that needs to be done.

 

You can water, mist, add fertilizer and keep this cool plant in a room at the right temperature to help more blooms appear. 

 

I have a friend who does all of these tips, and they work!

Any guesses on how many I do? 

 

You’re right. I forget to do any of them.

 

Here’s the upside. It brings more chances for me to work on my patience as it takes longer for the flowers to arrive. 

 

Is that a good thing?  You get to decide. 

 

There are a few other things that I often think about when looking at patience.

 

Let’s look at a couple more things behind the cactus shown here. 

 

Do you see that fuzzy clock above and to the left of the plant? 

Takes time to create patience

It is a perfect reminder to me that it can take time to create patience.

 

Time. Oh, yeah. That. 

 

Do you have time to drink water, stay at the right temperature and do what you need to develop patience for this part of your life? 

 

I have been in times of life where I want to rush things along and other times when I have looked around and thought that the clock needs to slow down.   

 

Is it the same for you? 

 

Lovely. 

 

The clock is now something I glance at, consider and then keep in my peripheral vision.  

I know it is there. I pay attention to the moment I’m in with whoever is there. 

The quest is to have patience

Move along with time. The quest is to have the patience to let the next moment come. 

 

Swoosh. 

Keep time with the rhythm and let’s two step into this next space. 

 

Here is the piece that I see. 

 

There is a chair on the other side of the blooming cactus. 

 

The back is tall and supports my spine. 

 

A bit of truth comes along now. 

 

I have sat in this counter height chair for hours to listen to the sounds around me.

 

Birds chirping, 

laughter bouncing across the house, 

helicopters rolling above. 

 

This chair has given me time to practice and create patience. 

 

Sitting, listening. 

 

Being.

 

Another space and universe are always near when I see this chair. 

Chair for a specific purpose

We bought the table that goes with this chair, and the other seven that go with it, for a specific purpose. 

For a Tall One who needed this set of furniture for his own chair to be rolled into place. 

 

His wheelchair could slide into place and get him where he needed to go. 

People and places to be, while becoming and doing the things that were on the list of things to get done that day. 

 

Each chair in our house was a place to practice patience every day. It was also the place to create blooms of joy and let the next moment come.

 

Yes, there were always two steps and rhythms as the quest continued. 

Great patience came with this chair. How great is it to have daily reminders? 

 

Incredible and smile enhancing. 

 

The patience will continue for me as I look for the next set up to bloom.

 

What about you? Join me wherever you are, my friends. Patience is a virtue so let’s help each other create it together.