Lenten Patience

Lord, make me chaste, but not yet. 
St. Augustine

Lord, grant me patience, and give it to me NOW! Goddamn it!
The alcoholic’s prayer for patience.

When I was ordained, in the “good ole days” when priests sat in the confessional from 3:00 to 5:00 on Saturday afternoons, a standard item on the shopping list was “I lost patience with my husband/children/brother/sister (fill in the number of times).” 

The virtue of patience is not something we lose; it’s something we gain. With prayer and practice.

Unlike Augustine, we don’t want any delay in achieving it. Like the addict, we want it NOW!

Newcomers to South Florida pretty quickly learn the “rules of the road”: Stop signs are suggestions – they really mean “roll.” Traffic lights have two-second options – the two seconds after they turn red are optional, anticipate the green by two seconds, and yellow is just a nice color. Yield signs apply to the other guy. A new and recent rule: If you’re driving a Beamer or Audi or a Hummer and talking on your blue-tooth in-car cell phone, be sure to toss your hair once or twice before you go on green.

It’s about five miles from my residence to the Wellness Center on campus. A great opportunity to work on patience.

Yesterday, I followed a new, black Jaguar that never stopped – not for a second – through six stop signs. How important, how urgent can that driver’s mission be? How important does he believe himself to be?

• (In my imagination) I’m occasionally – probably twice a week - followed by a string of police cars. The first one usually appears from behind a tall hedge and follows at a discreet distance, until joined by two or three others – some unmarked. Up streets and down, ‘round corners; they generally wait when I turn into cul-de-sacs, ‘cause they know I have to come out. 

I’m pretty sure they think I’m casing-out neighborhoods looking for a home to burgle. It’s sort of a cat-and-mouse game that can run ten to fifteen or twenty minutes and ends when I pull into my condo complex or my 101-year-old mother’s front lawn.

In truth, the bit about being followed by the cops is a line I give to patients and friends who call when I am driving and with whom I become involved in a – sometimes very long – conversation. A patient calls and I will just slow down and drive through the neighborhood until the conversation has finished. There’s no rush and nothing more important than the person with whom I’m speaking.

On other occasions I get caught-up in what National Public Radio refers to as “a driveway moment.” NCR may be covering a specific news issue or providing in-depth coverage of an event I consider really important. On weekends, they have a number of comedy and news/trivia-based question programs. And, I’ll just drive slowly around the neighborhood – not holding-up traffic – or sit in the parking lot until the story or game segment is over. 

And Publix!?! Don’t get me started on Publix! (For non-Floridians, Publix is a huge statewide grocery chain. They’re everywhere.) 

In ole time Catholic theology, we spoke about “near occasions of sin” and, especially in parish retreats by hell-and-brimstone preaching Redemptorists, who somehow managed to always preach with a crucifix in one hand, we were constantly admonished to “avoid near occasions of sin.” 

Publix can easily be a “near occasion of sin.” 

And prayer. And the practice of patience.

Publix has taught me to slow down. God loves the person much older than myself who trades his or her walker for the grocery cart they are pushing down the aisle in front of me – slowly, ever sooooo ssslllooowwwly. I pray for their continued independence. I pray in admiration of their strength and courage in confronting the day-to-day aches and pains that come with being our ages.

For the University students – 18- and 19-years-old, clearly roommates trying to figure out life on life’s terms (as in you have to buy your own laundry soap and you can’t boil water without a pot) and just beginning dorm and away-from-home life – as they crawl the aisles with shopping lists of everything they never knew they needed before. Who knew that they’d one day need a mop and broom and dust -pan? God, grant them the grace to celebrate these magical years.

For the parent or parents with two barely-toddlers in the cart and still trying to plan a week’s worth of meals, while making the budget and coupons stretch as far as possible. God, in your goodness, allow them to love with gentleness and kindness.

For the mid-50s parent walking slowly up and down the aisle with his profoundly Down Syndrome child and patiently teaching him – for the twentieth time – to find items he likes and wants and how to gain more independence. Dear St. Joseph, accompany them in their journey.

It’s hard to pray for the incredibly self-important and feeling-oh-so-entitled man or woman with 17 or 18 or 20 items (and that’s not counting a dozen eggs as 12 or a bag of hamburger rolls as 8) in the “10 or fewer items, no checks” aisle. So, I pray for their victims – husbands, wives, children, the folks with whom they live and work. I know that when they fall from so high, they will fall hard and I pray that Mr. or Ms. The-Rules-Don’t-Apply-To-Me has someone to pick them up and redirect them when the time comes, as surely it will.

Over time, I’ve come to appreciate shopping at Publix and these imaginary processions of cop cars following me. They’ve taught me that I can be present to the patient or student who is calling. They’ve taught me to slow down and enjoy the drive – or even sitting in my parking lot – and know I will get where I am going – eventually and almost always right-on-time. They’ve taught me that, no matter how long the lines, I will get out of Publix and get the ice cream in the freezer before it melts.

The truth is this is just another way of saying they have taught me patience.

A suggestion: Driving (and here I will deliberately exclude uncrowded expressways) and Publix check-out lines are great opportunities to learn and practice patience. Actually stop – a full stop with a count to five – for stop signs; yield to the other driver – even if you have the right-of-way; obey traffic lights. Remember that Publix will not run out of whatever you’re shopping for - except 12 hours before a hurricane is set to come ashore. Know that you will get where you’re going, even if you don’t speed. 

Practice patience. Practice patience! Practice patience!! Patience while driving or when the fourth person in the “10 Items” line at Publix will become a part of your life. 

And if Patience is a part of your life in South Florida traffic or in the Publix check-out aisle, it will be a part of your life just about anywhere.