Take Time to Smell the "Flour"

The other day, I was making some stew. Over the holidays, I had purchased a type of flour that blends easily in gravy and limits lumpiness, so I decided to thicken the stew with it as well.  As I stood there stirring the pot, I burst out laughing when I read the marketing copy on the side of the can.  It said: “(this) Flour is the quick and easy flour for today’s lifestyles.”

REALLY?  It has gotten so bad that we now need a special flour to fit our busy lives?

Now, I am not criticizing the product at all--it’s actually quite good.  But it is so interesting—sad, I guess—that someone thought to promote the product through the lens of saving us the milliseconds it takes between using regular flour and this ultra fine blend.

I had a teacher in grade school who used to say, “I feel sorry for you kids—you have instant mashed potatoes and frozen orange juice. You don’t have to work or wait for good things.” I wonder what she would say now?  We live in a world of instant gratification. My kids have immediate access to information for school that would have taken me months to compile. We are connected to the whole planet at the touch of a button.

Which is why it’s so important that we teach our kids--and remind ourselves--that the good things in life, the things that really matter—true love and  friendship, real knowledge, discernment, and wisdom— all take time, patience, and often struggle and pain (and a few lumps, I guess!) to grow and bear fruit. Patience is truly a virtue we need now more than ever.

I am reminded of a favorite prayer by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, which I share with you now. 

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
     We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
     We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.

Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
     by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.

Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
      Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on as though you could be today what time -- that is to say, grace –
     and circumstances  acting on your own good will will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new Spirit gradually forming in you will be.
     Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you,
        and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.  Amen.