Patience Grasshopper!!!

I have a love for Kung Fu movies. They are fascinating because although they all have the same plot, and the same lines, and, to an untrained American eye, the same actors; they are never the same movie. Some of the best and worst movies I have ever seen are Kung Fu movies, and in most Kung Fu movies there is this scene.

Master: Where are you going, grasshopper?
Hero in training: To avenge my (Father, mother, brother, sister, honor, school).
Master: You are not ready, you must learn patience, grasshopper.
Hero in training: You don't understand, how can I stay here and do nothing knowing that this crime will go unavenged.
Master: I will not stop you if you attempt to leave but know that if you leave now you will be on your own for this battle.

The hero in training then goes out, confronts his enemy, loses and spends years in shame in some small village where nobody knows him, until one day everything comes together, his training has been completed, and his enemy is delivered into his power and he begins to understand the value of patience. 

This struck me because I have no patience for self discipline. I desire to learn Kung Fu the way Keanu Reeves did in the Matrix, transferred straight to the brain. As a result I never learn any Kung Fu and just play Kung Fu games on whatever game console happens to be available at the time. And I have no patience anywhere in my life. When an email doesn't load in .03 seconds, I am sitting there thinking, "come on, it's not that big a file." I'll be impatient at Taco Bell because it takes them three minutes to throw my tacos together. I don't seem to learn.

And it really is the better things in life that take time. When I have taken time to research a product and its competitors I am always much more satisfied then when I just grab something because it's cool or I need it now, even if I would end up with the same product in the end. Any time I receive a piece of snail mail I feel honoured and have an immense pleasure reading it (not junk mail or bills but real mail from a real person). When I write a letter I always feel like I've done so much more than when I just throw an email together. When I eat a brownie slowly I enjoy it more than when I just pound three down in a couple of minutes. And even knowing all this I still want it all and fast. My stomach rules me to desire shear quantity and speed over any real quality (I am speaking of the stomach as the controller of the sense appetites).

It is speed our culture demands and trains us for; the mass production and use of consumer junk. That makes one of the greatest counter cultural things we might participate in the virtue of Patience. 

Contemplation and Stoplights

     Stopping at stoplights is a fascinating experience. You're cruising along and then all of a sudden, stop. An interruption in your day. It is an inevitable experience when driving and yet it always feels as if you are forced to stop against your well. And people use stoplights differently. Stereotypical traffic light activities are eating, drinking and putting on makeup. One activity I have recently acquired is playing with my son or giving him food or water. The most fascinating thing I have ever seen was a man practicing his trumpet. You can just imagine the thoughts going through his head, "I'm not gonna let these lights cause me to miss my time practicing". 

       Frequently I daydream. I look at the people in the cars around me. The only thing in common between us is this particular stop light. In those people's faces are all kinds of emotions displayed. The focused eyes and set jaws, I imagine that she needs to get twenty things done in the next hour. The oblivious head tilting is indicative that the man is obviously enjoying his phone conversation more than driving. Occasionally I see someone in tears. This is powerful and moving. I don't know what caused those tears in the woman's eyes, but something has touched her deeply. That knowledge causes me to enter into my own meditation. I mummer quick prayer of thanksgiving for all that his been done for me and ask for consolation for the woman crying. It is then while stopped at that light, offering the only thing I could for someone, I don't and can't possibly know, that the stoplight becomes a moment of contemplation. The heart is somehow left exposed, and it is overwhelmed by the goodness of God. 

         This practice of daydreaming has, I think, made me a more peaceful driver. Having those little insights into the lives of those others on the road (whether the insights are real or imagined) turns a totally impersonal encounter into some small encounter with the other.