Here in Middle Tennessee, spring fever is alive and contagious. For several days we had temperatures in the 80s and fell under the illusion that summer had arrived early. Today, it is cold and rainy and gray and looks a lot like a winter worthy of our discontent. The new season feels so within our grasp, yet our fingers cannot seem to tighten around its coattails.
This dynamic holds true during any time when we find ourselves within the “seams of change”—those places in-between what is and what is yet to come, where we are sensing the need for closure to one story but have yet to dive headlong into a new chapter. Sometimes the expectations of change concern a current job we are doing, or a relationship, or a community. There are glimpses of exciting new opportunities, yet the ordinary or even tedious tasks of what we have known for quite some time remain at hand.
It can be brutally hard to be patient while stuck in the seams. The temptation to jump the gun is significant, and can involve far more than wearing flip flops when we should still be in boots. Keeping a cool head and a big picture perspective are both necessities.
So what breeds patience? Creating space for times of reflection. Watching the thinker, observing the doer. Being still long enough so that reactionary thinking does not lead to reactionary behavior and unfortunate outcomes.
Desperate for change to happen? Get still…and become the interior change that turns out to be more valuable than the external.
