Patience

Whenever you ask for “patience” know that you are going to get opportunities to learn patience. Having children, training pets, growing plants and living with someone all involve having and learning patience.

Taking a trip also involves patience. You have to wait in line, wait in another line, deal with communication issues which may include another language, and tons of other situations.

The pilgrimage also provided opportunities to have patience with myself, not to beat myself up but to give myself lee-way and breathing room. You learn to do with what you have and make the best of what is available.

When we were walking there were times when the path was so steep that all I could do was to put one foot in front of the other and hope for the best.

After awhile they became the “kiss the earth” hills. I was bent over so far that my face seemed to be only inches away from the ground, so close that I could kiss the earth. When you finally make it to the top you want to fall to the ground and kiss the earth.

So as I was crawling upwards I would glance up from time to time to see how far I had to go. I would look up and see a curve and sky and know I was about to reach the top. Yeaaa! I could make it to that curve, I knew I could. Guess what I saw when I went around the curve? Right. Another curve. And another curve and another curve.

When I finally got to the top, on this one particular day, I threw myself on the ground and announced, “I’m not moving. When you’re ready to go, roll my body down the other side.”

Walking every day gives you plenty of time to contemplate. Sometimes, someone would bring up an issue or say a particular word or phrase that would pinch a sore spot prompting tears to flow. You ask yourself how that could be.

There is nothing wrong. The wound is healing. What is occurring is that this is the time for the next layer, a deeper layer, to come up to be healed. We all have wounds, scrapes and cuts that need soothing. When they are stuffed down and ignored they don’t go away. Hiding hurts does not make them magically disappear. When the time is right the bruise will surface to be transformed.

Patience has to be one of the requirements of a bus driver. Our bus driver had patience oozing out of his pores. More than once when he was driving our 4 lane wide bus down the driveway size mountain roads we would come to a mere crawl on a hairpin curve.

The fourth day of the journey, careening toward us down the hill was our mirror image. Could these gargantuan vehicles succeed in slithering by each other? The buses met, whispering to each other but never touching and then lumbering on to their private destinations. I think the buses may have been made of rubber.

I’ve often found that patience is doing something else in the meantime.

That reminds me of a politically incorrect story that happened while waiting in a lunch line in a little teeny Italian village. I don’t think this small store ever had 40 people trying to cram into it in its entire existence. They were definitely not set up for a group experience.

We lined up about 10 at a time with most of us waiting outside the establishment. After about 15 minutes my buddy and I squeezed inside to wait a little longer. The first item that caught our eye was a small bottle of wine right there in front of us on the shelf. It very well could have hit the floor and shattered if we had not quickly grabbed it.

Some how the top came off and again we rescued the floor by consuming the contents. We still had to wait in line but we were happy while we waited. I did say we were in Italy. They have wine with lunch in Italy. We were only keeping up with the locals.

I am now an expert on patience. I’ve been stretched, pulled, pushed, ignored and applauded. Is there anything left that I can’t handle? I don’t know but I’m sure I’ll find out.

Oh yes. While waiting to go through Customs back in the States, I was sniffed out by the Security dog. I had to fork over my apple and pear that I was saving for a snack. No sweat. I felt Phrantastic!