It's 29 degrees!

We're over the January hump, reader friends.  And it's five months to strawberries!  Am I looking forward to spring?  You betcha!

One of my friends from our folk group at church was telling me that years ago Father Chuck was saying Mass.  His normal procedure was that he would nod to her when he was ready to start.  On this particular Sunday he appeared ready but he never nodded.  So she waited for a while.

Finally, thinking that surely it was time to start Mass, she gave the signal to the folk group and they started to first song and Mass began.  When Father Chuck gave the sermon, she got a huge shock.  The whole sermon was about patience and he used her as an example.  She couldn't wait; she'd been impatient.  He knew she would do what she did.

I know she was really embarrassed by this incident, because it is etched in her memory.  But she'll never forget the lesson on patience.  We are an impatient people and there are signs to me anyhow that it is getting worse over such silly things as shoes, cell phones, and driving manners. 

And while we are impatient, God is infinitely patient with us, giving us every chance to see Him, to follow His ways, to hear His voice.  It is humbling to compare ourselves to God, isn't it?  There is no way we ever win that argument.  So while it is the human tendency to do as the Pharisees, and compare ourselves to other humans who seem so much worse than we are, it is not the other human beings that we have to reconcile ourselves with.

Having patience with children is very important.  By not rushing from this to that, we give them the time to react to things, to talk about what they've seen or done, and to get their perspective on life from an early age.  And by doing this, we show them that what they think and feel is important to us, important enough that maybe if we are lucky they will continue to share with us through those rough teenage years.

Advice people say take a deep breath.  Breathe in deeply, expand the lungs fully, and then slowly let out the air.  Breathe out the stress.  Just doing that here and now was very relaxing.  It stands to reason that at the high point of stress, taking those few moments to take deep breaths would help us cope, would help us regain our balance, and would help us be patient.  And then the next step we could take would be to breathe in deeply, thinking of someone we want to pray for, and then as we breathe out, meditate on that person, on their needs.

I'm going to take my own counsel today and try to do the breathing thing.  Won't you join me?

Thanks for reading.  See you tomorrow.