My favorite podcaster – and thought-leader – is Rob Bell, and I listen to his RobCast especially when I get mired in the day-to-day stuff and begin sweating the small things. I just listened to his excellent three-part series called “A Brief Guide to the Undernet,” in which Rob fascinatingly muses on and explores the underbelly of the internet.
This morning on my daily walk, listening to Part 3 of this series, he said a few things which really resonated with me. One of the many unfortunate side effects of the internet is that most of us have very little patience for anything. When you can shop, search and order food at the tap of a button, waiting for a 12-minute video to begin makes us itchy, doesn’t it? Even if we know better – that patience and perseverance are two virtues we all need in order to live this life – it’s darned hard to resist “wanting it now, now, now!”
Rob said, “the things in life that matter takes time,” and I wholeheartedly agree. He likes to say that in our society so much is shallow and “treble” – and we have so few “bass notes.”
Just a couple of generations ago, many of our ancestors worked the land. They worked hard and long and, especially when dealing with crops and animals they knew that you had to take the good with the bad, taking the long view.
You would have known that to grow something takes time: you would prepare the soil, then plant seeds, weed the young plants, cultivate the crops, fight off insects, predators, and bad weather and at last harvest what you worked so hard for.
So…let’s be farmers, shall we? If you’re doing something worthwhile – something that matters – give it time, patience and a healthy dose of love!