Two days after I turn 21 I’m sitting around a table cluttered with at least seven beer bottles. Three Coronas and four Heinekens. They’ve all got slivers of lime floating in the foam. A can of Pepsi is sitting in front of me, and I feel like an outcast. Having grown up in the church, I have a tremendous stigma associated with alcoholic beverages. It’s to the point of lunacy. Most people who’ve grown up in the church have this overblown defense mechanism for anything that can be remotely considered a sin. And it’s usually the trivial things. It’s evident when I assume that anyone who smokes or chews tobacco simply cannot be a Christian. It’s evident when a pastor gives a sermon about how husbands and wives relate and uses whatever awkward technical words he can to avoid saying “sex.”
Books with all the Answers
It’s really embarrassing when you see some of the books that get published. Especially when you know they’re full of bad advice. It’s especially embarrassing when these are Christian books. Why is it that Christians always have easy answers for everything? No matter what problem you’re having you can find a book for it at your local Christian bookstore. It’s probably right next to the Left Behind Headquarters display. Jesus never gave easy answers. Sometimes we like to act like we understand Jesus’ words, but we really don’t. We can study his words all our lives and probably never grasp what he really meant. We continue to pass by the stranded motorist and look the other way. I think if people really grappled with the words of Jesus they wouldn’t be so quick to pump out books of answers. I think people would be dumbfounded and wouldn’t quite know what to do. It’d be quite a sight.
The Least of These
It was 5:20 PM and a man stopped me on the Roberts Street bridge. I was on the brisk walk from my office to my truck, parked across the river in the $1.75 lot. His girlfriend has passed by first, leaning on the concrete rail to rest her tired body. I nodded my customary hello to her, but she wasn’t looking. I nodded to the man and he smiled, then waved to stop me. He started his speech by saying that he wasn’t homeless or anything, his girlfriend and him just needed some help. 30 cents would do. I had to cut him off to tell him I had no money, which was true. I spent the last of my money on a Father’s Day card. My wallet was empty and I was going to have to go to the bank so I could pay for parking for the rest of the week.
Traffic Time Thoughts
Traffic time thoughts are so scattered. The traffic is buzzing by, the accelerator is getting closer and closer to the floor, and you’re watching the minutes tick by on the clock. You know you have to be on the freeway by 8:17 or you’ll be late. It’s 8:19. Maybe if you walk fast you’ll make it. Maybe not.
I always feel bad when I’m driving. Especially lately because my commute takes me on the freeway and downtown St. Paul. I always feel like I’m making people angry. I’m not actually doing anything wrong, it’s just the tension level. There’s such a tension to commuting. You don’t see too many people taking a laid back commute. Sitting back, laughing, smiling. Those people are usually riding the train or the bus. Everybody’s sitting alone in their vehicle, flipping radio stations and switching lanes. It’s a pretty odd way to work things. But that’s the American way, so it has to be the right way.
Today’s traffic time thoughts were brought to you by Joe’s Transmission Service. Keep on commutin’, and keep us in business.
Slacker
Two weeks. I’ve never gone that long without pondering before. For the first few days it was a nice break, but since then I think it’s been driving me crazy. When writing is what you do, it starts to get to you when you don’t do it all the time. You can tell I haven’t been writing lately.
As a word of explanation, I had to move out of my regular college housing and into my summer housing two weeks ago. Hence I had to pack up my computer and go through the fun of moving. Then they took two weeks to get our internet connections turned on, and that’s how I became a slacker.
College Fire Alarm
When the fire alarm goes off in a college dorm, nobody really cares. Between fire drills and people who think they’re funny, it gets old real quick. So it goes off and you stand there scratching your head for a few minutes trying to figure out if that’s feedback from your roommate’s stereo, or if that’s actually the fire alarm. When it doesn’t shut off after several seconds you shrug your shoulders, glance out the window to see if you need a jacket, and nonchalantly head to the door. If it was a real fire we’d all be in big trouble.
Is This Really About Sports?
After going down three games to one the home team battled elimination and came back to force a game seven. Game seven wasn’t looking good until the home team sunk a power play goal and came charging back. It was all tied up at the end of regulation and sudden death overtime began. And in the closing minutes of the first overtime the captain found some open ice and sunk it through the five hole. Game over. The home team wins. It’s all over folks.
After all, it’s not finals week, it’s the playoffs.
And when it’s all done, the children will frolic in the streets.
“Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
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P.S. – Remind me not to be a sports writer.
Summer Reading List
I said this yesterday, but it’s really hard to reflect seriously during finals week. I didn’t do anything that tremendously taxing today, but I still don’t feel like seriously thinking tonight. I didn’t even take the garbage out today. So rather than give a poor excuse for a pondering, I’m just going to share my summer reading list. Everyone should have a summer reading list. Here’s mine (in no particular order):
Finals Week
There’s something very consuming about finals week. I’m finding very little desire to do any more than I have to. Writing this seems to be a chore my brain doesn’t want to do. Apparently it’s reached it’s saturation point and will function no more. I can’t be held responsible if it suddenly goes on strike in the middle of this reflection. Every little thing accomplished this week brings immense satisfaction. Half a laundry basket of clothes have been sitting in the middle of my floor for a week and today I finally got around to putting them away. It felt so good to get that done, even though it only took a few minutes. Next thing you know I’ll take out the trash and call the rest of the day off for celebration. After school’s out this will get better, I promise.
Finals Week Haze
The freeways were empty tonight. It rained and stopped, rained and stopped, rained and stopped. But I only felt the rain on my toes. The sun rose on my evening, and I’m eagerly awaiting the setting of my current responsibilities. There’s a finals week haze in the air. It clouds the eyes, blurs the senses, and brings extremes of fury and laziness. At this point planning is useless, doing is the only appropriate option. Sleep is the third, often alluring option.