In The Amish Way, the authors describe patience as one of the key characteristics of Amish life. The lessons of patience are built into the structures of their lives—even the church services are three hours long, with one twenty-minute hymn that always precedes the preaching.
I will admit to a certain amount of anxiety as we await the huge snowstorm to hit here. We’ve lived through worse, to be sure. Last night we were remembering one storm that hit early in our marriage. Snowed in for days in that little apartment. When I finally went out and began scraping off the car in preparation for returning to work, I could see alternating, geologic layers of snow and ice. But, as we concluded last night, we were too young and stupid to be afraid.
Now I have an overdeveloped sense of what could go wrong. “What if … what if … what if?” While I’m aware of the irrationality of some of these fears, fear is not known for listening when rationality speaks. I know from experience that “talking myself down” only has a limited effect.
More effective, I’ve found, is voicing those fears to someone who cares—in my case, Rachel. Simply acknowledging them to a sympathetic person takes the edge off. If the self is a system of selves, then trying to silence one of those fearful selves (perhaps, in my imagination, a little boy who feels insecure) only makes it yell more loudly. Allowing that fearful self to speak calms him a bit.
I’m also trying to learn from the Amish. I am generally a patient person, though not always, of course. When the powers of nature exert themselves, it is natural to feel nervous. (Facebook makes it worse though. Shut that ding-dang app off for the next few days.) Like our ancestors have always known, it does no good to kick against the forces of nature. She will do what she wants, with no input from us. What is called for here is a patient bearing-with.
There’s likely a lot of snow coming over the next two days. There’s certainly bitter cold already here, continuing for the next week. Nothing to do about it except to make reasonable preparations and wait, patiently, for it to pass. It always does, with Spring following on.