July 23

PATIENCE MONTH: DAY 23: “Patience is not passive waiting. Patience is active acceptance of the process required to attain your goals and dreams.” ― Ray A. Davis
Was at a prison meeting last night and talking to a man whom I have come to know in the times I get to go into that facility; asking him about his options for possible early release (after over 30 years locked up), and he said; “I don’t know, another year or so, I am being happy and patient.” Ya know, this shit just puts me right in my place! Oh! My avocation, and sometimes my vocation, is to work with imprisoned addicts, because we have prisons and jails full of people who are just like me and who committed crimes under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I did so much crap that it is amazing that I am not in there with them. I should be and I am not.
They teach me more than I can ever say…and I feel blessed and privileged whenever I get to go in and see these men. Their devotion to recovery and to the meeting they only get to attend once a month is stellar and SO hard to find in the meetings on the outside. It inspires and lifts me up…then they thank us for going in to share with them, and I just don’t know how to convey how much I get out of it.
And talk about patience! That is a life where there is little that can be done to fill up the hours and the days and the years they wait to come back into a world that we all take for granted. Like most of life, we have the uncanny ability to not appreciate so much of life until it changes or is gone from our experience. Then we act all kinds of angry and sad that it is gone.
That is one of our greatest defects of character, as far as I am concerned. The lack of acknowledging how truly blessed we are, within ourselves, continuously and daily. Our belief that we have some kind of entitlement to health and family and friends and the things that we do nothing to appreciate as much as we do the minute they are gone. I get reminded of that when I go to the prisons and jails, because there is so much life that we do not remember to thank our Creator for on a regular basis. Chronic malcontents, as the BB says. And we are!
I am a huge fan of some technology. My computer lets me do things I could not have dreamed possible in my early years. Most folks are dependent on cell phones, a product I seldom use at all. And those who do not remember a time when these things did not exist are hard-pressed to be grateful for the ease of life they can provide. We are blessed with material possessions that we take entirely for granted. I had to live (twice!) in recent times without electricity for a day and was totally hard-pressed to know what to do with myself. Of course, it took me no time to realize I could spend the day in my garden, and I did. But thinking about life without the bare essentials (or so I think) is hard to contemplate. I walk into a jail or prison and realize there is a whole life I forget about that is the daily reality for a lot of folks…who have, yes, committed crimes; but who are just like me and I have no moral high ground on which to stand. I am only inches away from their lives at all times!
So today I am more mindful about patience and what it can and does do for this addict. And grateful for the reminders of what goals and dreams really can be and are.