Adventures in impatience

We are all on our own epic Odyssey

We are all distracted. Interrupted by a hundred things a day.

Texts from friends, family, from work pinging us in the middle of a thought. A stranger’s FaceTime call while we’re selecting apples at the grocery store. A child’s three hundred questions while we’re putting together dinner.

And we’re in a hurry.

Thirty digital tasks to complete every hour. Our days, weeks, months scheduled and marked by Zoom calls. In the busyness we order food from our phones and—miracle of the times—it arrives on our doorstep a little colder and much more expensive than if we’d had the time to make it ourselves, but it’s there.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few months in lines, on planes, in traffic in different cities. Renting cars, booking tickets, boarding flights. A number of times during the government shutdowns in the States when agents aren’t paid, lines are long, tensions are high.

And I’ve observed people. I’ve observed myself. Anger boils over quickly. Kindness is like a cool cup of water. We’re training ourselves to become toddlers who break out in ridiculous tantrums.

This week my soul was pinged with a notification. The familiar (but not familiar enough) impression of the Spirit. When the apps fail, the food doesn’t come, when the line up is too long, and the shuttle is late, there’s impatience. When you’re buckled in a seat above the clouds in a world where planes hit emergency vehicles and drop bombs on terrorist regimes and schools simultaneously, there’s a smallness.

This strange, grating juxtaposition of the troubles in our own life—that whole range of petty to overpowering—with the troubles of the world can draw out various reactions. Anxiety, humour, cynicism, optimism, a little sprinkle of despair, perhaps even a strange lure or desire for more. All these feelings swirl in me and make sense to me.

And, gratefully, another urge pokes through. The desire for prayer.

Venturing out of the swirl of legitimate, corporate emotion, into prayer has been a relief. You’d think I’d stay there given how welcome and sweet it is breaking anxiety like it’s a twig, not a yoke.

Prayer, this week, reminded me of the adventures we all have, always will have, in impatience. This human, earthly reality creates carnage and beauty. I’m shocked by it this week.

It reminded me of a poem I wrote awhile back that I’ve modified for this post today.¹

The gift of impatience

All those years
there, on the ground
his useless body a
mile marker for passersby
on pilgrimage to the
pools of Bethesda
exposed limbs collecting
the dust of decades
kicked up, flung
in the bustle of Jerusalem
his desire to be well
ability to move
a form of entrapment

All those days she spent
hiding from the gaze of
others, shame
like the unstopped flow of
blood a constant effusion
forever on the fringe of connectedness
the yeast that ruins the
bread unleavened

All those countless hours
in a void of perception
speculation about
every perceived and imagined wrong
the soundscape of his blind existence
sooner to choose
deafness
than hear another
question about the reason why

All those hours
in need of a miracle
all those anguished days
never knowing it was on
its way
unaware that on one night
in Bethlehem amidst the
accumulated regrets of
the dirt, the blood
and the darkness
their miracle was
born

As the miracle grew
over all those long years
each painful day
he was one day closer to
standing on his own two feet again and
she was one hour nearer to shedding
her shame and he
was a moment away from
seeing the face of God

The gift of impatience is that
the miracle draws
nigh

What do we do with a problem like impatience?

I'm asking this question now, not with those literal words, but in the way the soul picks up the Amazon package that the unseen delivery man leaves at the door. I can still, faintly, hear the sound of the doorbell before he dropped it and disappeared.

Support Andrew’s work because of your great and steadfast patience for an indie writer.

My body is not lame or bleeding or blinded like those famous characters who received long-desired miracles, but there are ways I'm crippled, unseeing, hemorrhaging spiritually.

How about you?

In what way is impatience a signal of hunger in the Matthew 5 sort of way? What’s the thing, underneath the feeling of impatience, that I need to see?

I’d love to hear from you:

Right now I'm feeling the need and the urge to tune out the noise of the world, change the radio dial that's gummed up but fused into the chamber of my heart, and tune into God, silence, to quiet.

I'm impatient for it, and that impatience feels like the first steps of an adventure.

1. This poem was originally published in 2018 as “The hope of Christmas” and re-emerged in my recent book Gather for Advent. I’ve modified it here with my own permission 😅 for this post.