I love, love, love being a saint...

I had a friend here Saturday who had an opportunity to sit in my living room and watch basketball with my mother while I worked in my office downstairs. He loves basketball and played it in his long ago youth. My mother, being the gracious hostess that she is felt obligated to entertain him in my absense. Heheheheh. Yeah. You know how much jocks love to be interupted during a game? She asked him if he ever played basketball and when. She asked him who he was cheering for. She asked him if he wanted something to drink or eat, then followed it up with two or three, "Are you sure?"'s She asked him if the sun was too warm or in his eyes and she asked him to repeat himself, as her hearing is failing. She told him that she played basketball when she was in high school and how hard it was. She told him she likes football so much more. She punctuated the game with "wow's and ooh's and yeah's" inappropriately timed. She ran the garbage disposal in the last few minutes of the game, unconscious of the importance of the two points that carried his team to victory. He was more than just a little bit annoyed. The veins in his forehead were rather enlarged when he finally came downstairs.


When he left that afternoon, he looked me in the eyes and said, "You are a saint!", referring to my patience with Mom. I had to laugh because I recall people calling my mother a saint for the patience she practiced with me when I was 17 and 24 and 29 and 32....

Is patience contagious or is it a practice? Is it learned or earned? I don't know, but I thank all that is responsible for bringing me to this experience of patience. I've prayed for it, affirmed for it, practiced it and often fell short of it. At least this weekend, I managed to experience it. For a brief period of time, I really felt like a saint.