Impatience Unlearned

 

As we travel down the road we listen to music on Pandora. We enjoy listening to all kinds of music. We sing (or try to) and I usually dance a little. Listening to Pandora music is also how we know if we have cell service or not. When we pass over the mountains and through the valleys, we occasionally lose service, especially out west. As we neared our campground right outside Yosemite National Park we were delightedly listening to music. However, as we descended into the valley, we started losing it. By the time we parked the RV and set up, cell service was no more. We raised the antenna on the rig and searched for “over the airways” tv channels, but had none. Our MiFi device was of no help either. No cell, no tv, no internet. This would be a long twelve days.

There is a certain quietness that goes along with being disconnected from the world. And also, a good amount of patience. Once or twice a day we would either drive up the hill or go to the campground office to get service, check emails, text messages, and make phone calls. We would have to make lists of all the things we needed to research and then wait…and wait…and wait.  I don’t know about you, but our two main reasons for having smart phones is to look at Apple or Google maps for destination places and travel times and also to find out the different shows/movies a certain actor has been in. You know what I am talking about, we watch tv shows and movies and a certain actor looks familiar, so we pull up IMDb to find out their other performances. Without cell service we cannot do this, so we must wait. As for the maps, we had to pull out old Rand McNalley to check distances and find other cities to visit. Unfortunately, old Rand does not have the capability of telling us where the nearest Walmart, Sam’s Club or Total Wine are and so we must wait.

But it got me thinking about patience. The world does not have much of it these days. In fact, as a society we grow more and more impatient every day. We get angry when the person in front of us is going two mph under the speed limit or they do not jump on the gas as soon as the light turns green, as if getting to our destination three minutes sooner makes that much of a difference (except in medical emergency situations, of course). We get frustrated at restaurants when we are not immediately served. We start to tap our fingers when we pick the wrong line at the grocery store and must wait for the person in front of us to find the correct change or write out their personal check. And do not get me started on the fidgeting that happens when a church sermon is going a little longer than normal.

Today, everything is at our finger tips. We have InstaPot for quick and delicious meals, groceries brought out to our cars, any tv show, news or movie to stream at the touch of a button. We find out what is going on in the world as it is happening. We do not have to wait for the newspaper to be delivered the next day. But when things do not go that way, we get impatient, and the impatience leads to anger, and anger leads to all sorts of woes.

Proverbs 15 gives good advice for patience with others. Verse 1 says, “a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” and verse 18 says, “a hot-tempered person stirs up dissension but a patient person calms a quarrel.” If we could just stop for a little bit and embrace what is before us. Enjoy the pause in life. When we are behind a slow vehicle, maybe we need to take in the scenery and the beautiful created world around us. While we are waiting at the restaurant or in the checkout lane, maybe it is time for a quick prayer for the server that is probably very busy, the grocery store clerk exercising their own patience or for the person writing out the check.

Let us learn to be patient with each other. We do not know what is going on in the lives of those we encounter for just a moment in time. Chances are they are going through many of the same things we go through each day. They might be going through something worse. While we camped in Yosemite and were disconnected from social media, we became social with those around us. We met those who were enjoying life for that moment in time despite the tolls life had taken on them. Loss of loved ones, numerous surgeries, auto-immune diseases, and cancer to name a few.

After twelve days at the campground, we decided to extend our stay an additional five days, finding this peaceful way of living more relaxing. We were able to slow down, read more, talk more, meet more people, and we definitely made more to do lists of things we needed to look up when we did have cell and internet service again. We allowed our patience to grow and our hurried, impatient, angry attitudes to subside. We needed this time to unlearn the impatience that constant connection to the world encouraged, and we cannot wait to go back again.