There is no such thing as preaching patience into people unless the sermon is so long that they have to practice it while they hear...

I saw the strangest sight just the other day, up on Sigman Road. The traffic was halted in all directions at a four-way stop as a limping turkey veered back and forth into the intersection. Normally, traffic snarls give me a pain, but there's just something gratifying about the sight of commerce brought to a dead halt by a goofy gobbler. Besides, I'd already paid some real dues that morning; I'd already been through the traffic gauntlet, attempting to cross over I-20 on Highway 138, an accomplishment that took a very long time.

            Of course, I can think of much worse traffic than we have these days in Conyers. Gridlock on the beltway around our nation's capital easily comes to mind, as well as long stretches of idling the engine while at a complete standstill on Connecticut's Merritt Parkway. And I still awake in a cold sweat some nights, after reliving the nightmare of driving through Long Island on Mets game day. But what tries my patience sorely is that this isn't D.C. or suburban New York; it's Conyers, and it shouldn't take half an hour to make the five-mile commute to work. I confess: I am impatient.

            Patience must be a blessed and holy commodity, though I have run short of it in traffic lately. And while St. Paul reminded the Galatians that it is a fruit of the Spirit, it was probably because he'd never been cut off by a slow moving eighteen-wheeler while on his way to the church at Corinth. Of course, I try to remember that impatience isn't a virtue, and that maybe I should amend my ways, (Psalm 37 does mention that evildoers will be cut off.) but patience is far easier to talk about than to perfect. I suppose the true fact is that even if patience is a gift, it's still a gift that must be mastered.

I had a long-ago friend who liked to joke about patience and prayer. He'd say, "Don't ever pray for patience...for God just might answer your prayer!"  I seem to recall feeling slightly impatient with him when he'd say that, but in those days I had no need for patience. In those days, I felt I had a lot of lost time and ground to make up...what I had was a need for speed. But God had the need to teach me patience, and it wasn't always pretty. Eventually, though, I remembered what St. James had to say: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." But, while those years of trials taught me a lot, my patience has yet to be perfected. I'm still a bit like Margaret Thatcher, when she said, "I'm really quite patient, providing I get my way in the end."