Patience

          

 Patience			 	

Patience is exploring God’s
fascination with the number 12:

	The twelve tribes of Israel
	The twelve Apostles
	The twelve baskets that fed the multitude
	Jesus, at twelve   .   .   .

And the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost to be 
sanctioned in each moment in time. 

The Curator’s Notes: This quiet, profound little poem is essentially a definition followed by a list, then a conclusion. The extreme simplicity mirrors the virtue itself: patience doesn’t rush, doesn’t elaborate unnecessarily, doesn’t force meaning. The generous white space and minimal punctuation (note the ellipsis after “Jesus, at twelve . . .”) create pauses as literal moments of waiting within the poem’s structure. “Patience is exploring God’s fascination with the number 12”: This is a beautiful reframing. Instead of defining patience as endurance through difficulty (the usual approach), the speaker defines it as contemplative attention—taking time to notice patterns in Scripture, to wonder why God repeatedly uses twelve, to sit with mystery rather than rushing to conclusions.