Ponderings about Old Cigars, Being in a Hurry, and Jumping off Roofs

Due to my family's sad lack of an automatic coffee machine, we are subjected to using a ceramic, single-drip, extremely inefficient contraption, great for one person and an utter wreck of an idea when there are four people addicted to caffeine in the same household. My aunt Karen, who is visiting for an indefinite number of days, is accustomed to making coffee in a large metal kettle, dumping in half a gallon of Folgers, letting all the grounds settle to the bottom, and then drinking it. We have been forced to watch our coffee supply dwindle rapidly, and even Dad's indomitable digestive system cannot withstand the syrupy mixture.

Other than that small curse, life is chugging along quite nicely. Dad's Jeep is broken, and you can often find him under the hood on a hot summer's day, covered in engine oil, mumbling curses under his breath and throwing random parts over his shoulder as he deems fit. He took it upon himself to cut his own hair, and since he couldn't see the back to cut it, the result is a scary, adult version of a mullet from the 90's. Since Mom is working overtime, our diet has consisted mostly of hamburgers and ice cream. Since I am exiled to sleeping on the couch while my relatives are here to visit, my patience is even shorter than normal, (and it's already pretty short). I often find myself in ridiculous situations as a result.

Why, just the other night, I became so frustrated that I went upstairs and sat on the roof. It was supposed to function as an act of independence, but soon the bugs started biting me and I got cold and my iron resolve started to rust a little bit. However, my pride would not allow me to return downstairs and let the other person feel the satisfaction of being right. I felt trapped and started to panick a little, for there was nowhere to go, no way to escape humility by trudging dejectedly back downstairs.

But where there's a will and a Reams' ingenuity, there's a way.

So I strapped on a pair of my brother's Tivos and jumped off the roof.

It probably wasn't the wisest idea, and it was a lot farther down than I had suspected in the dark, but in the line of duty to protect one's freedom (pride, ego?) one will do unwise things. I went on a walk and cooled down. Once my parent's realized I had seemingly disappeared into thin air, they did what any normal parent would do: wash the dinner dishes, put Braveheart on VHS, and let me be.

I have no awesome, deep spiritual analogy to go with that story, I just thought someone might relate. Being at this stage of your life is exhausting. You have to simultaneously figure out what you're going to do for a career, what kind of people you should be hanging out with, and the most difficult, who the heck you are. Sometimes you just need to jump off a roof. And that's ok.

After a rather long day at work, I cleaned out my car (long time overdue), and what would be sitting in the back seat but an unopened cigar? I was elated. I shared it with my brother. After all, you must give freely of what you have freely received, and he needed to learn how to puff. I am probably breaking so many rules by saying this, but I am firmly convinced that the Lord knew that I needed a smoke right then. He cares about the little things, and He knows our every need. 

Speaking of little things, (really, I am so sorry for my raging ADHD), I am starting to see the Lord in everything. I realized recently that I am and have been in a hurry for quite some

time, perhaps my whole life. I am always anxious to move onto the next thing and be with the next person and the next place, but after a time of doing that people start to not want to be around you anymore. They know that you are thinking about something you deem as "more important" than they.

Then I started thinking about Jesus, and how he was never in a hurry. He was busy, that much is certain. But he was never hurried enough not to notice the people who needed him. He stopped in his tracks to talk to the Samaritan woman at the well. In a throng of people, his apostles thought he was crazy as he noticed the woman who touched the edge of his robe to be healed. He sat down the night before he was crucified and ate dinner with his beloved friends. He ate dinner with them. I’m pretty sure if he thought being in a hurry all the time was a good idea, he could have justified it. After all, he was on the way to saving the human race. Pretty important deadline, if you ask me. But He was always focused on the task at hand, the person He was with, the place He was at. 

The thought keeps crossing my mind that there may not be a harder thing in the world to do than to not be in a rush, for that is how we miss the character of God. I could go on about how our society’s mentality is to be hurried, that it has classically conditioned us to be always looking forward to the next thing, but I know that it would be dismissed immediately. After all, we’ve heard all that stuff before. I think it's more than that. I think that hurry is slowly killing us. We need to ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives. If we were to slow down, to be present with the person we're with, (after all, to really care about someone means first of all to be present with them), radical things would start to happen. When our hearts are at rest, it invites others to come in and to discover the source of rest... the Almighty. It makes people feel like we want to be with them, allows their hearts to be at peace and whispers that everything is ok. The Father's heart is like that, I think. No striving. You don't have to be anyone you're not nor do anything special. Just be. Live.  And it is a wonderful person to be around indeed who has grasped that concept. You start serving the Lord in the small things… and then bigger things start to happen. When you stop and be with His children, you end up stopping to be with Him. You start to find out who He really is, what real love is.

So anyway... I am starting to see God in places I never have before. He's in the simple

things, the seemingly small and insignificant things the world passes by in their rushing about. He's in good food and fellowship, awful coffee, the sunrise, the cigar that you find under the seat of a car, the muddy footprints on the floor, jumping off the roof just because you feel like it, and the chaos at the dinner table. He's in sincere conversation and the giving of your heart and your possessions freely, and in a kind word that touches the coldest parts of the heart. I am humbled by what I see when I slow down and just look at life. I see hurting people that need Jesus and I see the opportunity to speak of him, but even more than that, I often see just how much love is around me that I have ignored in my hurry. 

The air is cool tonight and smells like fresh cut hay. I think I'll just sit for a while.

With all my love,

B

Late night at the Beanery...

Day at the County Fair!