on waiting and patience

I love the life that I’m afforded to live. But, sometimes I'm not so happy with my circumstances. I'm sort of in a place in my life that I never expected to be in. I have these dreams, you see, these dreams that I can't get out of my head (not that I want to) and that I'd really love to pursue. These include, but are not limited to, going to seminary, moving far away from the Midwest for at least a short period of my life (1-5 years?), creating music that I'm proud to call my own, becoming a father and being a part of a community that seeks to be an agent of peace, hope, love and reconciliation in the neighborhood, city, country and world in which we find ourselves. These dreams don't necessarily drive me - you know, they aren't "what keeps me going" - but they are what I want to pursue in my life, and in the process, become.

I guess I could say these are dreams because they are not yet what I have become. I believe that with almost everyday I am working towards becoming (realizing) these dreams but I have not yet ushered them into the here and now - that's why I still call them dreams.

I am learning about patience. Not because I'm reading about it or doing a biblical word study or something. I'm learning because I am forced to actively pursue patience in my life everyday. Pursing patience, that's a funny concept. Doesn't the very word, patience, imply a waiting? Can one pursue waiting? I think so.

I'm not simply learning how to wait, I'm learning how to wait well (rather, I should say I'm learning what it means to wait well. I can only hope that I am, in fact, beginning to wait well). When one reflects on the virtue of patience, rarely does this reflection invoke scenes of tapping fingers, cold sweats and pacing around the room. I believe that for a while I've fallen into the trap of waiting in such a way that I live my life as if I am pacing around the room. I just wait for something to happen. Something that too often I believe is out of my hands, out of my control. I don't what to live this way any longer.

I've come to realize that practicing patience does not imply thoughtless, passive living. Patience is an active virtue. Much like self-control, one has to practice it in order for it to have any effect on one's life. Also like self-control (or love or peace or following Jesus) it is easy to talk about how to do it and much, much harder to actually do. Much like parenting and marriage and dealing with death and bread baking, not until one "does" patience can one actually talk honestly and faithfully about the "doing" of patience.

I believe that for to long I've missed something about the practice of patience. Life is sweeter when one has to wait. Not to unlike the adage, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" when one is kept from living life in the exact way that one wants (assuming that what one aspires to do in life is helpful and "a better way to live", rather than harmful) one is forced to wait, have patience, grow fonder of the dream.

I am growing fonder everyday. This scares me at times because the fonder I grow of something the more it will hurt if it never happens. Better to try and fail than not try and just be a dreamer. People say this often - I'm not sure if I really believe it. So I guess there is a good amount of risk involved in actively waiting. What if I actively wait forever? I don't know. Maybe it won't be so bad. You see, the trick (for lack of a better term) is to learn how to live right now, in the moment everyday. Savor life - the life you've been given - the life God has provided. There is goodness and freshness and hope and creativity and relationship and good food and good books and brothers and writing and pauses and sunsets and water and outside and bike riding and yummy smells and colors and provision today. I'm learning to live like today really is special - really is a gift - rather than another day not having the dream in my hands. I'm learning that if I'm always looking ahead then I miss right now. And I don't want to miss right now. Because of brownies and kisses and friends and . . .