Prelude to conversation…

Patience is a virtue… possess it if you can…

Really!
COVID…  still?

We are ready to take off our masks…to leave off with all the hand washing…to return to normal.
We are ready to return to school…even as the news tells us that increasing numbers of children are contracting COVID.

When a world catastrophe, like a world war or a pandemic strikes, there is no going back to normal for a long time.  Review history.

When a new disease ravages the world, there is no normal for a long while…and medicine, (science) has always, eventually, found an answer.  Again look at history…and realize the historic results did not happen overnight.

Patience does not mean inactivity.  In this case, it might mean an increase in scientific activity which brings an answer, a vaccine, a solution.  But patience does mean realizing we can’t expect to live like usual.  Patience might mean… no football this fall…no long trips…a different way of learning for people of every age…a government which looks out for every person…staying home.
Patience might mean… no groups…no clubs…no church…no concerts…finding joy in each day… reading more…relaxing more…meeting on line more…talking more on the phone.
Patience might mean…more letter writing…more time in the back yard…more time in prayer.

Patience in this and any time is a virtue worth possessing if we can.  The dictionary says that virtue is an excellence…a goodness… something which makes life more whole.
Patience in our time might mean … waiting without anxiety for medicine (science) to do its job.
Patience might mean… kindness toward others.  It might mean being still.  Patience might be using our abilities and talents to benefit others.  Patience is surely adapting to what is developing as normal right now…even if going back to the previous “normal” ever happens…we need to live in the experience of the now…now.

Patience is a virtue…possess it if you can.   Patience is a virtue…choose it if you can…

May it be so!

– Rev. Ted Anderson