By Mickey Dunaway

Our front door has a sidelight on either side, so last week, when the doorbell rang, Boomer and Chloe rushed to the door and announced in stereo that we had a visitor. One of the only things I dislike about the electric reclining sofas is how much time it takes to get my hiney from reclining to moving toward the door. Thankfully they didn’t leave.

When I finally arrived at the door, we had two visitors—church ladies witnessing a familiar denomination. Now some folks make fun of these witnesses. Not me. I have done it before, and it is downright daunting.  Besides, anyone who is willing to walk a subdivision in mid-July’s midday heat has my attention and my admiration. So, I welcomed these two ladies dressed in their Sunday best on this middle of the week July day when the temps were above 90 degrees to my front porch, and I listened attentively to their message.

They invited me to a three-day program their local church of Witnesses was presenting. It was titled Exercise Patience! The first night’s Program was “Learning how exercising patience can help you reach your goals.”The second night’s program was “How showing patience can help improve relationships with family and friends.” And the theme of the final night was “How to exercise patience when we pray to the Almighty.”

After the five minutes we spent talking and sweating on my front porch, I returned to my recliner under my ceiling fan, and they made their way on down the steaming street, I was reminded of an often-used joke: “God, give me patience. And give it to me right now!

Should I be asked to choose one of the dictionary definitions of patience from the Oxford and Webster’s Dictionaries above to demonstrate on any given day, I would be down the creek without a paddle. I have always thought this was a backward analogy because if one is up the creek, one can always float down home. But if one is down the creek without a paddle and home is up the creek, not having a paddle is a much bigger problem.

“So What?” You may be thinking, and I understand your thoughts; however, I believe these two church ladies, on a hot July afternoon, are telling the world one house at a time exactly what the world needs if we are to continue as a world for a lot longer. You can define “a lot longer” however you choose. But according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists who created the Doomsday Clock in 1947 and have maintained it ever since, we are only 90 seconds before midnight, doomsday, or the end of the world. And this is the closest to Doomsday we have ever come.

I expect Mr. Putin’s threats to use atomic weapons on Ukraine have moved the clock several seconds nearer to midnight.

During the cold war, diplomacy between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. was based on MAD—Mutually Assured Destruction. Neither nation would launch a nuclear weapon at the other because it would ensure that both nations would wipe the other from the face of the earth and create a nuclear night for all the world. After the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR shortly thereafter, we believed this kind of idiotic diplomacy was best put aside permanently. This old man, whose thought of “a lot longer” is pretty damn short, is starting to feel chilly again in the middle of the hottest summer on record, and guess what? People do stupid things when it is hot.

Climate Change? Show patience and openness to views other than yours. Nuclear Weapons Again? Be strong but be patient in the face of impetuosity and brutality.

So, if two little old church ladies come witnessing in your neighborhood about Patience, please welcome them on your porch, and when they leave, say a prayer that they succeed in bringing patience to a world in desperate need of their Witness.

__________

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

– Lao Tzu