Love is patient...But I am in the fast lane

In 1943, while on vacation with his family, Edward H Land's 3-year-old daughter asks him why she couldn't see the picture he has just taken of her. That day, Land conceived the instant camera. This was the start of the instant camera which Polaroid "developed". 

What a marvel it is that we live in an instant age. I don't know of anything that hasn't been affected by the instantaneous psyche of the 20th and 21st centuries. Take the simple idea of coffee. We do not grow the bean, pick it, roast it, and do the magical wizardry stuff that makes instant coffee. My job in this production line is to add water and enjoy. The length of time I have to wait for a cup of coffee is the length of time to boil water (which is boiled by an instant thing called an electric kettle). 

This longing for instant has even affected the way that we shop. We now get bored very quickly. Not only do we want our product yesterday but we want our new product today... We seem to discard the product as quick as we got it. The latest buzz word in the clothing industry is fast fashion. Cheap fashion that is in today but thrown out tomorrow. 

Instant is time and money. It is quick and lavish but easily loses it significance. It's value is not in its quality but in its time. I think that we have made some of our emotions into instant-ces. Anger must be quick, love must be a swipe away, self-gratification must be here now. The problem is that it can lead to surface level experiences. Where we taste the apple but we don't really taste the apple. 

In the midst of the Pauline letters in the New Testament (1 Corinthians 13) is a beautiful description of what love is. "LOVE IS PATIENT," This new community was learning to live together. What does it mean to live with differences, live with mutual hope, live with care. The answer to this is not a quick fix, but a patience. 

Patience means that I have to wait on it. It doesn't work on my agenda but it waits. Anxiously... Not knowing what it will become. It has no place for self interest or self-propaganda. Patience in some ways requires a loss of power. I do not control the speed at which it grows. Living in community, especially in an instant coffee community, requires that we allow others to fully develop. That we journey together, not trying to manipulate it. It requires that we allow it to flourish because we have given it the time it needs. We have waited and trusted. 

Instant coffee communities are built on short term goals. Built on quick benefits. Maybe that is the trick in any form of ministry/community development. Is not to tap into quick gains but maybe to tap into the tradition that was before us and will develop post us. That we are not the sole bearers of truth, but rather we are part of a community that seeks truth and has been doing so for over 2000. Seeks to love for the long run and not for the quick fix (When the Church throughout history has sought quick fix answers it has had disastrous consequences).

In the world of instant, maybe we of of that world but not in it. We partake in this world but we choose to live in radical patience. Where following Jesus is not an instant fix but rather seeps into the life of our daily existence and stays with us till our end. Despite how hard patience is I really think we have to choices. We either fight it (and loose) or we embrace it. To swim with current. Things if they are going to last need time.