Love is not Quick-Tempered

One or two-day road trips are a great way to see the local area, experience something new, or savor a place we’ve visited before.

My wife and I drove to the Amish country of northern Indiana for a two-day visit.

We drove to Nappanee, Goshen, Middlebury, and Shipshewana.

The pace of living in those places is slow, sweet, and straightforward.

These small villages feature bakeries, quaint restaurants with Amish cooking, gift stores, antiques, and many quilts.

Decorative wall art with scripture verses fills every wall in the hallways of shops, inns, and eateries.

The Amish drive horse-drawn buggies to get around the area.

On most roads, the shoulder is wide enough for the buggy, so that car traffic is not slowed down to wait for an opportunity to pass.

Depending on the road, of course.

We used Google Maps to navigate from Nappanee to Goshen, and the “Googlely Girl” sent us on the scenic route through the back roads.

I keep my eye on cars approaching from behind, especially when they start tailgating.

I’ve come to recognize that some drivers are ‘gators – they speed up and drive right behind your rear bumper, just waiting for a chance to pass.

Some of the ‘gators look quite agitated when they have to slow down and can’t pass a car immediately. 

Glancing in the rearview mirror, I can see contortions on the faces of those following very closely, and it looks like their lips are moving.

It could be that they are singing rock music.

I often think, rightly or wrongly, that they are angry with not flying faster down the road, and now they have to wait for a slowpoke driver, like me.

I confess there are times I get that way too – quick-tempered, without slowing down to see what is really going on. I get too focused on hurrying and getting someplace quickly.

Love is not Quick-Tempered.

Here are several synonyms from an online dictionary for quick-tempered: annoyed, irritable, short-tempered, ill-humored, argumentative, belligerent, combative, quarrelsome, and contentious.

Those synonyms cover a spectrum of being quick-tempered.

Becoming quick-tempered is a process.

It starts with becoming annoyed, getting irritated, losing one’s temper, arguing, belligerent, combative, and the rest.

I suppose that the process of becoming quick-tempered is like a tempest blowing in.

That storm may have been a whisper of the wind at one point, yet somewhere, the winds and noise accelerated and didn’t hit the brakes.

Words that describe the opposite of quick-tempered include synonyms like affable, cordial, sweet, agreeable, amiable, friendly, genial, good-natured, gracious, mellow, pleasant, accepting, and polite.

The Amish folk drive buggies on the shoulder.

Their carriages have the orange-and-white Slow-Moving Vehicle triangle sign on the back.

There are road signs with a picture of horse-drawn buggies to alert other drivers to be alert and slow down to respect Amish drivers’ slower pace.

Love takes its time without getting upset at the prospect of delays.

Life’s journey is a series of delays, progress, sitting stuck in traffic.

We do have the power to choose; we don’t have to get quick-tempered when things take longer than we think they should.

Maybe we just need to drive a buggy once in a while to remember.

Click on the underlined text to read about the next attribute of love, “Love Does Not Brood Over Injury.”