Infinite patience

Rudiments #02

Gazing into the campfire, I ask my friend: “What’s one virtue older generations possess that our generation lacks?” He ponders for a moment, then says: “My dad has infinite patience. My mom will ask him to run all kinds of ridiculous errands, and he’ll just do them without complaining.” Grunting with approval, I begin to brood on my own woefully finite supply of patience. Augustine called it the virtue “by which we tolerate evil things with an even mind.” These days, I struggle to tolerate trivial inconveniences with an even mind, let alone actual evil. I am both the byproduct and progenitor of a culture bent on eliminating the timeless human experience of waiting. We loathe boredom. And yet, conditioned by constant digital stimulation and “high-speed” entertainment, we find ordinary life bland. (The root of the noun “boredom” is the verb “bore”: to make a hole in something, especially with a revolving tool.) Time itself seems a void, so we flee to our screens. Thus the words of Blaise Pascal: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” To sit quietly in a room alone is to tolerate being and time—being in time—with an even mind, a prerequisite of patience. Patience helps us inhabit the present, which is the only place-time we have to choose the good. God alone has infinite patience, of course. But my friend’s dad reminds us that there is something truly eternal about selfless errand-running, as if his patience not only inhabited the present, but expanded it. “Love never ends,” wrote Saint Paul. You always have time to serve your neighbor.