{"id":12201,"date":"2016-04-29T16:24:37","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T23:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=12201"},"modified":"2016-05-02T11:24:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-02T18:24:45","slug":"i-dont-have-time-to-be-patient","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/i-dont-have-time-to-be-patient\/","title":{"rendered":"I don\u2019t have time to be patient!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Illustration of \u201cBobby Bumps Goes Fishing\u201d, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, bit.ly\/bobbybumpsfishing<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Nurturing Elders and Others:<\/em>
\nI don\u2019t have time to be patient!<\/strong>
\nBy The Rev. Paul Graves<\/em><\/p>\n

\"INSIGHTS_Nurturingelders\"When I was six or seven, I fished for the first time. My parents didn\u2019t fish, so I eagerly accepted an invitation to fish from a friend and his family. We went to a small, shallow lake near our home in north Idaho. Perch were the preferred fish to catch there.<\/p>\n

I was standing on the shore, waiting with my friend for the others who were fishing from a boat a short distance from shore. They had the bait; but I was so eager to try fishing, I dangled my bare hook in the water. Suddenly the line started to get tight. My first fish and no bait!
\n\"LINK_Channels93\"<\/a>
\n<\/p>\n

But it sure wasn\u2019t a perch. It was a small, ugly catfish. I reeled in and dropped it on the beach. My friend\u2019s dad took the fish off the hook.<\/p>\n

This important memory came back to me as I read a gentle story from Sue Monk Kidd. Well-known for her novel \u201cSecret Life of Bees\u201d, Kidd\u2019s first writing effort (1990) was actually an inspiring, well-written book on spiritual direction, \u201cWhen the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life\u2019s Sacred Questions\u201d.<\/p>\n

She introduces this little story by speaking about wu wei<\/em>, a Chinese concept that honors \u201cnondoing, actionless action\u201d. \u201cWu wei<\/em> is based on the idea that God makes available inside of us all that we need to grow and become whole\u201d. (Kidd, p. 37)<\/p>\n

Then she described her grandfather as a lawyer, a judge, and a farmer. \u201cHe was frequently busy and conquesting, but I remember also that he sometimes entered into golden moments of wu wei<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He and I used to go fishing on one of the ponds on his farm. He would sit and hold his cane pole over the water, becoming as still as the stumps that jutted up from the water. I usually tired of fishing fairly soon and went on to other things, like collecting dandelions.<\/p>\n

One day having given up on fishing, I was playing in his old black truck when I noticed his fishing bait was still on the seat. I remember being surprised that my grandfather had been out fishing an hour or more without bait. I grabbed the bait basket and raced over to him.<\/p>\n

\u201cGranddaddy, how can you fish without bait?\u201d He tilted back his hat and smiled as if he had been caught in some delicious secret. \u201cWell, sometimes it\u2019s not the fish I\u2019m here after,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Granddaddy had his wu wei<\/em> moment, though that may have not have been his description. My first fishing experience had no a wu wei<\/em> to it. I wanted a fish!<\/p>\n

Maybe you experience daily life like I do. It seems like every time I turn around — both physically and in my mind — I\u2019m getting impatient about something. Or I see someone else showing great impatience — in his car, in the grocery line, in a disagreeable conversation.<\/p>\n

So I wonder: do we find ourselves and others getting impatient because, well…we don\u2019t have time to be patient? I admire people who seem to be able to take their time in most whatever they do.<\/p>\n

I asked some friends in Sandpoint about this. \u201cWhat makes it difficult for you to be patient?\u201d The examples they gave varied, but the basic ideas were reflected in two words: irritation and frustration. An 81-year-old golfing friend expressed his frustration\/irritation that he couldn\u2019t do the same things he did 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

There is so much could be said about patience and impatience, but my word-limit is closing in on me. So frustrating!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m beginning to think that \u201cpatience\u201d and \u201cimpatience\u201d might well be two other words for \u201ccontrol\u201d and \u201cout-of-control\u201d.<\/p>\n

When Granddaddy was fishing without bait, he experienced an inner control\/patience. He consciously gave up trying to be in control of fish that may or may not grab his hook.<\/p>\n

What daily things control you? What of those things can you release from your need to irrationally control them? We are created to give up control of matters beyond our control. What a challenge to actually do it!<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Paul Graves serves as the chair for The Conference Council on Older Adult Ministries.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Illustration of \u201cBobby Bumps Goes Fishing\u201d, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, bit.ly\/bobbybumpsfishing Nurturing Elders and Others: I don\u2019t have time to be patient! By The Rev. Paul Graves When I was six or seven, I fished for the first time. My parents didn\u2019t fish, so I eagerly accepted an invitation to fish from a friend and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":12205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[111,6,142],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-channels","8":"category-conversation","9":"category-older-adult-ministries"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/INSIGHTS_NurturingElders_Fishing.jpg?fit=741%2C486&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3aN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12201"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12268,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12201\/revisions\/12268"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}