PATIENTIA

Patience.


“Forbearance and endurance through moderation. Resolving conflicts and injustice peacefully, as opposed to resorting to violence. The ability to forgive; to show mercy to sinners. Not killing or being violent in any way to any life form or sentient being; to practice vegetarianism and consistent life ethic. Creating a sense of peaceful stability and community, rather than engendering suffering, hostility and antagonism.

1. The capacity, quality, or fact of being patient.
2. Tolerant and even-tempered perseverance.
3. The capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations, etc.”



Patience, the Heavenly Virtue to counter act the Deadly Sin of Wrath. Needless to say… this is one of three Virtues I have a hard time with. It causes me to worry how good of a Chaplain I will be.

Two groups of people I know that are blessed with this Virtue are Teachers and Nurses. I am just in utter amazement at how they can do their jobs. I use to deal with Cub and Boy Scouts, and was amazing as a counselor, but part of that was I teach a segment, then move on to another group, then move on to another group, and if one group still needed help, I would send a subordinate to help them out. Unlike a teacher, I could not be in a class room full of whiney lil assholes day in and day out listening to all their pithy comments and such. I am honestly afraid I would go postal. Kids always asking for help all the time, needing to think about so many multiple things at once. Honestly teachers! What is your secret!? How do you do it?! I sit back and watch in amazement like it is some sort of superpower!

Nurses are the other group that completely amazes me. They put up with so much shit (figuratively and literally) from ego driven doctors who “practice” medicine and play God. They put up with the patients they serve. Out of all of God’s creations… I vote that Teachers and Nurses are by far the most patient of them all. In just about every sense of the definition. Take the blood factor out of it. And never mind the crazy amount of schooling it takes to get to that point. PLUS all the different drugs you have to know, and the fact that you have deal with needles and worry about the stress of contamination... Forget all that other crap... JUST the human contact part of the job alone would probably have me quit in my first week. I love people, I want to be a philanthropist... but whiny complaining people just piss me off, I don't see how any of you can manage to deal with it either.

Patience, or the lack there of, I think is the greatest challenge to me becoming a sniper. Certainly not an eye thing or the morality debate between loss of life. Nope… Patience. That would be the main thing keeping two of the other turtles from being snipers. Not Luke though. Luke has the ability to “resolve conflicts and injustice peacefully, as opposed to resorting to violence. The ability to forgive.” In this sense, Luke is the best of us.

But just as good as my friend Luke is at “creating a sense of peaceful stability and community”; my friend Ryan is probably just as equal in this Virtue.

Ryan is one of my Santa Barbarian friends from scouts to all you Civies in Santa Maria. Me and him went on the Indiana and Iowa trip together (yes, the one with the corn). He was a Chapter Chief and a Committee Chairman while I was Lodge Chief, but even more important, he was in my inner circle. He was one of the guys whose opinion I listened to more than others. Whenever I wanted to go into a situation guns blazing, he was usually there at my side with “tolerant and even tempered perseverance” to help keep me in check.

I think though, the people with the most amount of Patience by far… Mothers. Maybe not all of them, but certainly a vast majority. One mother that I know that stands above others, not just because of the great Patience she has with her own children, but also with how she deals with other children and volunteers (who can act like children). Christie, the Children’s Director at Element Christian Church was the one keeping tabs on me when I use to teach Sunday School. Sunday after Sunday, I would watch her be called in twenty different directions at once and still be able to keep up with all of it. “Forebearance and endurance through moderation.” When it came to her staff of volunteers, no matter how frustrated we might have gotten her, she never really showed it… “Not killing or being violent in any way to any life form or sentient being…” Then there was the hands on work with the children themselves… “the capacity for calmly enduring pain, trying situations.”

Christie, for years now, has been an amazing example of Patience, and Charity, to me. As seen above, dealing with other people’s kids does not get in the way of taking the time to listen to her own read. I don’t know if I will ever have that degree of Patience, I would like to. I have gotten better than I was, but there is always room for improvement. Teachers, Nurses, Luke & Ryan, and Christie, though not perfect have their flaws in other areas, are great role models when it comes to suppressing wrath and treating people (especially idiots) with the kindness and compassion which they “deserve”.

For those of you however who confuse Meekness with Weakness… consider this:


“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong”
-Mohandas Gandhi