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Attentive Patience

Only through patience with ourselves and one another can we can grow in other virtues. In this issue our contributors explore the distinctive features of attentive patience, its central role in our discipleship, and why its practice is so difficult for us today.

Kelly Johnson diagnoses our busy scurrying as "anxiety about time." But time is "not a scarce resource slipping away," she counsels; it "is God’s terrible, mysterious patience, in which we meet what is beyond us and come to know ourselves as beloved creatures." Charles Pinches explains how patience protects us against the sorrow that can overwhelm us when we face brokenness in ourselves and the world. Its distinguishing mark, writes Heather Hughes, is not teeth-gritting endurance, but "the hope of Christ who was crucified and is now risen from the dead."

How can we cultivate hope-filled patience? For clues, Melinda Creech examines the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Brad Hadaway reviews the counsel of Simone Weil. Carolyn Blevins recalls how she learned patience through grave personal suffering. Taylor Sandlin suggests our preparation to face such suffering occurs through small acts of patience in worship, oft-repeated, like waiting upon one another at the Lord’s Table. To such exemplars and personal narratives, Heidi Hornik adds the depiction of biblical stories about Jesus and Job in art.

The study guides and lesson plans integrate Bible study, prayer, and worship to explore the role of patience in our discipleship. The guides can be used in a series or individually. You may download and reproduce them for personal or group use.

Download the entire Attentive Patience issue and the set of five Study Guides. Or, download individual pieces by clicking the titles below.

Articles

  • "Hurry and the Willingness to Be Creatures," by Kelly S. Johnson
  • "Time for Patience," by Charles R. Pinches
  • "The Education of Attention," by Bradford S. Hadaway
  • "Practicing Hope through Patience," by Heather Hughes
  • "Hard Patience," by Melinda Creech

Art

  • "The Patience of Job," by Heidi J. Hornik, on Georges de La Tour's Job Mocked by His Wife
  • "Christ’s Patience in the Garden," by Heidi J. Hornik, on Matthias Stomer's Christ at the Garden of Gethsemane and Jacopo Marieschi's Christ on the Mount of Olives

Hymns and Worship Service

  • "To Know That You Are God," by Jonathan Sands Wise and Kurt Kaiser
  • Worship Service by Elizabeth Sands Wise

Inspirational Pieces

  • "The Difficulty and Beauty of Patience," by Carolyn Blevins
  • "Waiting to Eat," by Taylor Sandlin
  • "Other Voices," Quotations on Attentive Patience

Book Reviews

  • "Where Does the Time God?" by L. Roger Owens
    • Mark C. Taylor, Speed Limits: Where Time Went and Why We Have So Little Left
    • Judy Wajcman, Pressed for Time: The Acceleration of Life in Digital Capitalism
    • Paul Roberts, The Impulse Society: America in the Age of Instant Gratification
  • "Toward a Slow-Enough Church," by Sarah Klaassen
    • Philip D. Kenneson, Practicing Ecclesial Patience: Patient Practice Makes Perfect
    • Jeffrey L. Bullock, Practicing Christian Patience: Encouraging Community, Establishing Peace
    • C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus

Study Guides and Lesson Plans 

Download All Five Study Guides Here

  • "Hurry and the Willingness to Be Creatures"
  • "Time for Patience"
  • "Practicing Hope through Patience"
  • "Hard Patience"
  • "The Education of Attention"

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  • About
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      • Dr. Bill Sterrett, Hale Endowed Chair of School Leadership
      • Dr. Holly Oxhandler, Professor, Associate Dean for Research, Diana R. Garland School of Social Work
        Back
        • Faith and Learning at Baylor
      • Dr. Larry Lyon, Vice Provost, Dean of the Graduate School
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      • Dr. Tom Hibbs, J. Newton Rayzor Sr. Professor of Philosophy and Dean Emeritus
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        • Video Archive
      • 2013 Kierkegaard: A Christian Thinker for Our Time?
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2012 Technology and Human Flourishing
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2011 Educating for Wisdom in the 21st Century University
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2010 Human Dignity and the Future of Health Care
        Back
        • Featured Speakers
        • Video Archive
      • 2009 Secularization and Revival
        Back
        • Video Archive
      • 2008 Bottom-Up Approaches to Global Poverty
      • 2007 Friendship
    • Bill and Roberta Bailey Family Lecture in Christian Ethics
      Back
      • Bailey Lecture Video Archive
    • Other Conferences and Events
      Back
      • IFL@25
        Back
        • Select Pictures from IFL@25
      • 2019 LFP National Conference
        Back
        • Presenters
      • Art & Soul
      • Pruit Memorial Symposium
        Back
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        • 2004 Slavery, Oppression, and Prejudice
        • 2005 Global Christianity
      • Baylor University Medical Ethics Seminar
        Back
        • 2016 Medical Ethics Seminar
        • 2017 Medical Ethics Seminar
        • 2018 Medical Ethics Seminar
      • One-Time Conferences
    • Baylor Symposium on Nicaea: Creed, Culture, and Christendom
  • Programs
    Back
    • Communio: A Retreat for Baylor Educators
    • Crane Scholars Program
      Back
      • Application Requirements
      • Program Activities
      • Program Leaders
      • Media
    • Missio
    • Forming Character in the Classroom
      Back
      • About the Program: Called to Character
      • Past Workshops
    • Reading Groups and Guest Speakers
    • Soundings Project
    • Conyers Scholars
    • Vocare
  • Events
  • Media and Resources
    Back
    • Faith Animating Online Education
      Back
      • Starting Points
      • A Christian Imagination about Online Education?
      • Cultivating Character and Online Learning
      • Additional Resources
    • Institute for Faith and Learning Video Archive
    • Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture Video Archive
    • Bill and Roberta Bailey Family Lecture in Christian Ethics
    • Recommended Reading
    • External Resources
    • The Christian Reflection Project
      Back
      • Acedia
      • Advent Ethics
      • Aging
      • Anger
      • Apocalyptic Vision
      • Attentive Patience
      • The Book of Acts
      • Caring for Creation
      • Catechism
      • Chastity
      • Children
      • Christianity and Islam
      • Christmas and Epiphany
      • Cities and Towns
      • Cloning
      • Consumerism
      • Death
      • Disability
      • Easter
      • Food and Hunger
      • Forgiveness
      • Freedom
      • Friendship
      • Gambling Culture
      • Generosity
      • Global Wealth
      • Health
      • Heaven and Hell
      • Hospitality
      • Immigration
      • Inklings of Glory
      • Lent
      • The Letter of James
      • Marriage
      • Membership
      • Monasticism Old and New
      • Moral Landscape of Creation
      • Mysticism
      • Parables
      • Patterns of Violence
      • Peace and War
      • Pentecost
      • Pornographic Culture
      • Prayer
      • Prison
      • Prophetic Ethics
      • Racism
      • Sabbath
      • Schools in a Pluralist Culture
      • Scripture
      • Sermon on the Mount
      • Singing Our Lives
      • Sports
      • Suffering
      • Traveling Well
      • Virtual Lives
      • Vocation
      • Where Wisdom Is Found
      • Women and the Church
      • Women in the Bible
      • Work
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