On Patience (or a lack thereof)

When I was young, I wasn’t much of a reader. Now I read all the time. Perhaps I even read a little too much now, but when I was a kid I didn’t have much use for books, didn’t see any real point to reading.

Part of that not reading was due to my suspicion that the really good books would come later, when I was older, abler, whatever it was that I needed to be to read those big books with small print and no pictures. Those, I thought, were what reading really was.

It’s a familiar story, a kid wanting to be a grown up, not content to be just a kid.

I think part of what makes that story so familiar is that so many of us struggle with the patience it takes to live right now without thought to the future or without the expectation that the future holds something better. Or, maybe that’s just me.

The other day in church the sermon was about the Prodigal Son. Actually, it was about several parables, but, as always, it was the Prodigal Son who stood out to me. He is a little bit me, as I am a little bit him, as we all are a little bit prodigal.

When I think of the parable of the Prodigal Son, I’m usually moved by the grace that his father shows; that’s what I focus on most. But, this time I was thinking about something different. I was thinking about patience. As one who has no patience, I think about patience a lot, as one who has lost something valuable remains fixated on that object until it is found. Fixated on the how and why and where that object has gone.

However, I’ve never had patience. My patience is not lost. It is simply nonexistent. And yet, I know it should be there. And so I think about it.

Patience stood out to me precisely because of the Prodigal Son’s lack of patience. He wanted his inheritance. Now. Not later. The son had plans for now, and those plans could not wait for later.

His request for the inheritance obviously goes against tradition. However, inheritance, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. It is what the son would have been entitled to and his father’s heir. In that way, the inheritance itself is a financial benefit for the son and is also more or less morally neutral. It did not cause the moral decay of the Prodigal Son any more than it could edify him.

To me, the problem is not the inheritance. It’s the timing of the inheritance. The Prodigal Son received his inheritance before he was ready for it. Though money alone could not corrupt him, it could give him the means to pursue his baser desires, to move away from the safety of his family to a place where he would be free to do as he chose. He was not ready for such freedom because his heart and soul and mind were focused on his own whims and needs, not on those things that would provide a firm foundation for a life.

In thinking of the story in this way, I’m reminded all the more of the importance of the virtue of patience. There are so many times when I wish for something—perhaps an actual thing or more likely for something to happen in my life. I wonder why those things don’t come immediately, why there has to be waiting. So, now I’m trying (with gritted teeth) to remember that waiting has a purpose. Sometimes God makes us wait, knowing that we don’t yet have the capacity or strength to handle what He has for us, knowing that receiving all of our gifts at once—before our own hearts and souls and minds are focused on what is good and right and true—will lead to a squandering of fortune.

And so, I wait to read the story He has written for me, the one with the words I don't yet understand.

Why I've Gone (just a little bit) "Team Sheen"

By now, the Charlie Sheen sound bites are ubiquitous, quickly becoming a part of our collective knowledge, as Charlie Sheen, via every available media, brings us such terms as “tigerblood,” “rockstar from Mars,” and “winning” (in its new Sheen-ian usage).

We know these terms mainly due to the fact that they’re played repeatedly. Those sound bites are good for ratings. We eat up anything laced with schadenfreude, and, for better or worse, even “serious” journalists are willing to serve up such stories, despite the harm they might do to their subject or to our communal spirit.

We wouldn’t watch it if it wasn’t there; they wouldn’t report it if we didn’t want it. A cyclical argument that gets nowhere fast and bears too much resemblance to the arguments for and against certain fast food chains sporting golden arches. Let’s just say, this media circus is supersized—perhaps because the supply is inflated, perhaps because demand is high. It’s an interesting argument, but I’m not worried about it. Like I said, it gets nowhere fast, and I just don’t want to go nowhere.

I think there’s a more serious issue within this media frenzy, one that is getting overlooked. The fact is, for the past seven or so years, Charlie Sheen has been playing a character not so dissimilar to the man we’re seeing almost constantly on the news—a womanizing bachelor who takes pleasure, even pride, in his hard-partying lifestyle. The thing is, on television, this character is played with a wry smile and hints of a debauched side that the viewer never fully sees, and, though his antics speak to a shallow well of narcissism, he’s the guy everyone likes because he is fun and because, at his core, there is some good.

Conversely, when the real Charlie steps out and displays the kind of behavior that his TV character hints at, the same people who write, produce, and direct his show are quick to distance themselves; they’re quick to censure him, to tell him that this sort of behavior reflects poorly on the show and to, essentially, let the public know that Charlie is acting in ways they do not approve of.

That his behavior is bad is common sense to those of us watching at home, but I do wonder if the outraged parties realize that it is precisely this type of behavior that they’ve profited from for years, even if it was mere fiction created for a sitcom. The antics and humorous asides his on-screen bad behavior leads to is where they get their laughs and, in turn, their big payouts.

Again, that Charlie Sheen is behaving badly isn’t news to anyone. What seems to surprise the powers that be at CBS is that such bad behavior has negative consequences. It’s okay to draw a character that acts like Charlie; it’s not okay when that character is an actual human being, possibly struggling with the physical and mental stresses that accompany substance abuse. The message they send is, “We want Charlie to act like that, not actually be like that.”

But, the character they’ve created, while fictional, survives by perpetuating an even greater fiction—the fiction of a selfish, substance-using playboy who miraculously exists without inflicting lasting psychic damage on those who love and care about him. He makes mistakes; he messes everything up, but, in just the length of a TV episode, everything is back on track. However, anyone who knows, loves, and cares about someone struggling with addiction, sees through that fiction. Anyone who knows, loves, and cares about someone struggling with addiction has had to deal with the very real damage that such a struggle causes. The damage isn’t funny, can’t be solved in thirty minutes, and certainly doesn’t come with the sort of profit a hit sitcom does.

So, maybe in the midst of this media blitz I’ve become a bit “Team Sheen.” Or, if not that, I’m feeling more strongly that the entertainment makers should be a little more responsible with the images they create. Their fictions are some of our real lives, and, as we see more of the Sheen story unfold (or, perhaps, unravel) the only laughter is canned.