We'd all like to be saints. It is just that the process is a bit difficult. From time to time I'd like to share a thought or two on it, and, as we travel together down life's road, we all might benefit.

Let's start with patience. In the great list of spiritual practices there is none quite so demanding as its exercise. It is definitely not a virtue of the modern world. No one today names a child Patience, although it was popular in the 18th century. The card game most of us call Solitaire is also known as Patience, probably for those who don't cheat to reach the desired end more quickly.

I thought about practicing it today as I caught sight of the subway platform, lined with the patiently waiting workers for that perennially slow R train. The lucky few sat; the rest of us stood, and we waited, more or less patiently. Does waiting impatiently spur on the process? Of course not, but it does give us something to do as we step to the edge of the platform, peer knowingly down the dark tracks, sigh gustily... you get the picture. We have all done it from time to time.

But a genuine practice of patience was illustrated for me in the local CVS where I stopped to make a purchase. As usual, I had chosen the slow line. (It is one of my skills!)

The first customer took an inordinate amount of time to stow her change in her wallet before collecting her package and moving on. The woman ahead of me took out her CVS card, paid, put the card back in her purse, received her change, and then decided that the clerk had not returned the magical little card. Very gently, the clerk said: "I saw you put it in your purse, ma'am." The woman bristled, searched in the wrong compartment (I had seen her put it in the OTHER one) and the clerk never lost her smile, never urged the fumbling woman to hurry, just waited patiently as the woman searched twice more in the wrong compartment and then—hurrah—found the card where she had put it.

Through the whole little drama, the clerk never stopped smiling, never sighed in annoyance, never rolled her eyes... I marveled at her. Where had she come from?

As we hurry along on our busy and important ways, where does patience fit into our lives? How many opportunities do I miss each day because I brush them aside in my impatience. That clerk is my new model.