LOVE is? PATIENT

Hello again, Dick Foth here with stories from the road. What a week, this is Valentine's week. What is Valentine's week? Well, apparently it's a reminder that love really does make the world go round. When I think of love, not just a romantic picture of love, but when I think of love, a particular picture comes to mind. I happened to be some years ago in Paris with a son-in-law and a grandson, and we went to the Louvre, that famous museum and art gallery, and we're walking down with those streams of people. And most of them are going to see that painting, and what was that? Oh, you know, the Mona Lisa, not a very big painting, but big time in terms of fame and all of that. But on the way, there's a different picture that caught my attention, and it's called Old Man and the Boy, or the Old Man and the Grandson, who's painted by a fellow, and I don't even know if I can say his name correctly, by the name of Dominico Gerlandio. He was born in 1448. He was an Italian Renaissance painter, born in Florence, and he had a large workshop in his painting years and included his brothers and his brother-in-law, and later his son, lots of apprentices passed through Gerlando's studio, including this young guy named Michelangelo. When Michelangelo was a child, or in his early teens, a team of painters had been called from Florence to the Vatican to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel. And one of the persons, one of those painters, was Dominico Gerlandio. And so at age 13, in 1488, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Gerlandio. Of course, later in his career, Michelangelo was called back to work in the Vatican, and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. When you read about this online, it says just this sentence, the student surpassed the master. But this picture of the old man and his grandson, portrays an older man in a red robe embracing a young child who's also wearing red. They sit in a room with a window behind them through which can be seen the landscape, it's a very point in image, and it's dramatic because the contrast between the man's weathered sort of wise face and the child's delicate profile is really something to see. And apparently it's one of Gerlandio's best known works. But an extraordinary feature of the painting is the deformity of the man's nose. He has what is called rhinofima, a skin disorder that causes the nose to enlarge and become red and bumpy and bulbous. And rather than implying a defective character, Gerlandio invites the appreciation of the intimacy it reads between the older man and a child. And here's this little boy with his hand on the man's chest sitting on his lap, looking up at this face that isn't pretty. But the look in the eyes of both the older man and the boy just evokes emotion when you see it. So the look in their eyes says it all. When it comes to verbal description, that's a pictorial description of love. When it comes to verbal, how about this? This is 2,000-year-old ancient wisdom. And it's written to people in a party town. A Corinth back in Greece was sort of a cross between, I don't know, San Diego with sailors on the street and Fort Lauderdale at spring break. But here the Apostle Paul writes this wonderful description of what love is. Love is patient. Love is kind. It is not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It's not self-seeking. It's not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrong. It keeps no record of wrongs. Can I say that again? It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects. Always trusts. Always hopes. Always persevere. Love never fails. Well, we can't take all that at one sort of mouthful, if you will. So I'm going to over the next week sort of unpack that a bit. But for today's podcast, let's just take that first phase. Love is patient. I read that and I say, why that? Why does he put patients right at the front end? Because I'm not patient. I want to be a person who loves, but that may be my greatest challenge, but that's a story for another day. Let me just define patients for you. Patients is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, or trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset. There's a lot of quotes on patients that you can find online in other places. I like these three. These are pretty interesting to me. Patients is when you're supposed to get bad, but you choose to understand. How about this one from Leo Tolstoy? That one was anonymous. Here's Leo Tolstoy, the author of War and Peace and Other Works. The two most powerful warriors are patients and time. How about Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind? This is what she says. We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world. When I think about it, patients is the ability not to react when your emotions tell you to. At least that's how it is for me. How about this? Patients is the ability to see the big picture, or patients comes out of the knowledge that most things in a love relationship, because that's what we're talking about here, can be worked out with time and conversation. Let me say it again. Patients comes out of the knowledge that most things in a love relationship can be worked out with time and conversation. The person in my life who has been most patient with me, a close and personal, is Ruth. She's not real excited about being on podcasts or up in front of people, but she had a weak moment. I said Ruth, I want to ask you this question, and you just respond to me just off the cuff. Here she is. Ruth, when I say, love is patient, what do you think? The first thing that comes to my mind is, are you willing? Are we willing to slow down? I think our fast pace really works against being patient because you have to be able to take a deep breath. Whether you were a project, if you're with people, you have to tune in to where they are, and be able to feel their feelings, and live in their space a little bit. I know, especially with children, and that's kind of my age group, young children. I just, I love being with them, and I love finding out what they're interested in doing, and doing it with them. You are unbelievably patient with a little kid. You're right, little kids walk by me like preschoolers. I often say little kids walk by me like I'm a peace furniture, but they head right toward you, and it's because you engage them with great patients over and over again. I'm in awe of that. I think it's because I love just figuring out what their interest is at the moment, and how can I be involved in that? I think patience is probably being willing to listen more than talk when you're especially with people. There's no need to get personal here. I like the way you use questions to draw people out, and that's another way of being patient in the moment, and that's really it. You have to be in the moment. You can't be thinking ahead. You can't be thinking in the past. You had to be present right then with whoever that is, or I think when I'm quilting, when do I get in trouble? When do I have to take out something that I've just sewn in? It's because I wasn't thinking right in the moment. I was thinking ahead and thinking, I just want to get this done. That's when I need to concentrate and just be present. Take your time. Take my time. That's it. We're done, aren't we? We're done. Okay. Catch you later. I love you. I'm not always patient about love. Well, that's it for today. Thanks for being with us on Stories from the Road. Thanks for subscribing, and we look forward to connecting again next week. I'm going to come back to this theme of love. The first part was love is patient next time, we're together. How about this one? Love is kind. That's it. I'm out. God bless.