Waiting On Patience

A funny thing about "middle age" is that you've lived long enough to gain a little perspective on things and you've lived long enough to remember back when things weren't the way they are now.

A case in point would be that I remember life before microwave ovens. There was a time when reheating leftovers was something of a chore. A famished after-school kid really had to want to eat badly enough to warm up the oven, wait on the food to get warm and then finally eat it. By the time that task was accomplished, it was nearly dinner time anyway! I usually settled for a bowl of cereal or cold pizza after school!

How about life before cellular phones? Instead of having someone "call with directions" (guide us in by cell phone), we actually had to draw maps to new places we had not previously traveled. Merely obtaining an address wasn't enough (this was also before the days of computerized mapping programs or personal GPS devices), you actually had to know where you were going! Getting lost was an adventure I don't miss much and carrying around a large map book isn't high on my nostalgia list either.

One of the favorite past times for my daughters while we're riding around in the car is to shoot pictures of each other on their cell phones. What a funny world we live in where your phone is also your camera. Do you remember the days of Detective Dick Tracy and his cool two-way wrist watch? Now everyone has even more in the palm of their hand (but they don't wear the cool yellow Fedora). My girls fire off dozens upon dozens of potos in a matter of a few minutes, laughing themselves silly all the while. The photos they like, they keep. The ones they don't like get instantly deleted.

When I start talking to them about the "Photomat" store or how we used to have to wait for days (or sometimes weeks or even months because we hadn't finished an entire roll of film and taken it in for developing), they just roll their eyes at my antiquated diatribe. It just makes me feel old when they do that.

They just don't get it, nor should I expect them to get it! They aren't middle aged. They can't remember life without microwaves, or cellphones or any number of new things. I didn't get it when my parents told me their "back in the day" tales either. It is a generational phenomenon that will roll on as long as there is time. I can only imagine what technologically awaits my grandchildren and I can't wait to watch them roll their eyes at my girl's stories, either!

The thing I have to wonder about most is the loss of patience in the wake of it all. With each new technological development, we seem to be moving deeper and deeper into instant gratification and farther and farther away from patience. These days, I've actually found myself standing in front of the microwave oven urging it to "hurry up!" I will let photos backup on the digital camera because I don't want to take the time to download them. It is silly, really. Maybe it is generational backlash of never developing a roll of film before I squeezed that 27th frame out of a 26 exposure roll? I don't know. But I do need to figure some stuff out.

What I do know is that I need to learn a little patience. "Back in the day" we didn't seem to move as fast. If you wanted to get somewhere, you took the time to look it up on a map. And there was a sense of adventure and subsequent accomplishment when you actually arrived. There was also a sense of anticipation when you picked up those developed photos and then laughed because the shot brought back the fun of the moment already beginning to slip away days, weeks or months ago into a fading memory. And cold pizza? Well, reheated slowly in a conventional oven might just actually taste a little bit better than a "nuked" slice with instantly "rubberized" crust.

While I enjoy new technology as much as anyone, I'm finding a need for balance. I'm learning to wait on patience. I only hope I can teach my daughters a little of it along the way. Maybe it would be good to reheat the pizza in the old oven once in a while? Then we could take a picture and instantly remember how good it was!

"And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord
and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work,
growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might
so that you may have great endurance and patience..."
Col. 1:10-11