Janathan Grace Reflections   This is my journey of self discovery shared with you

I hate waiting.

I hate it on the telephone, I hate it at the traffic cone;
I hate it at the DMV–I’m what? two hundred eighty three?!
I hate it now, I’ll hate it then. You say I have to wait till WHEN?!
I hate it here, I hate it there; it chafes me like wool underwear.

Waiting is worse than death.  When you’re dead you don’t know you’re stuck in the universe’s time-out corner, suffocating on your current meaninglessness, accomplishing squat.  Time squandered at least brings pleasure, but time waiting, minute by minute, is a complete loss, like setting fire to money… slowly… one bill at a time.   If you tolerate delays, you clearly don’t value time.  Unless you have the silly notion that waiting is itself a benefit, which is as crazy as valuing an empty wallet!  I’m sure you’ll get a lot of people buying into that motto.  What would your bumper sticker say, something cockamamie like “Blessed are the Poor”?  Next you’ll tell me that being comfortable with waiting is not a vice of the lazy but a virtue of the wise, and that pre-moderns called it “patience.”  Well, patience will get you nowhere, and it will get you there late.  If you want results, try yelling.

Is there any benefit to me for being patient, or is it just to benefit God because he’s tired of hearing me whine?  Is God losing his cool with me, telling me to shut up, impatiently demanding I be patient?  Does calm waiting do more than give me brownie points with God?  If virtue is its own reward, what reward does patience give?

For instance, as a hypothetical, suppose there is a lady in front of me in the fast lane at Food Lion and she waits until all her groceries are sacked and each sack placed in her cart before she thinks about her payment.  She opens her pocketbook and rummages around, shoving things this way and that until she pulls out one crumpled bill, straightens it out, and hands it to the store clerk.  She dives back in looking for another bill.  After she passes that over, she re-checks the total on the display, and goes looking for her change purse.  There must be a dime in there somewhere, she’s sure of it.  A quarter will not do.  She pulls each coin out of her purse to get a closer look before putting it back to scrummage for another.  Then the receipt must be carefully folded and the right spot found for it in the pocketbook and a place for the pocketbook in the cart.  Pretend that my smile slowly turns into a clenched jaw, my friendliness grows sullen, and my thoughts uncharitable.  Can waiting really be beneficial?  How is postponing good ever a positive? Patience is simply an unwanted chore if I cannot find a reason to value delays.  I have some thoughts to share, but you’ll have to wait 😉