here’s life

It’s been a while since I was home. I spent the week before Christmas working, but rather than being at my regular location, I was in Connecticut, “coordinating” with our customer. Unfortunately, many of the people I would have needed to talk to were already enjoying their vacation with their families. They have to use-or-lose their vacation by the end of the year, so there was a good bit of that going on. Seems to me that like cell phones, companies would do well to offer “Rollover Vacation” since leaving for the last couple weeks of the year may not be most fun for the employees, nor may it be the most convenient for the company. I’m glad my company lets me store vacation from year to year.

After working all week, and battling a sore throat, I packed my items as well as I could, and drove my rental car back to the airport from which I came. But, instead of boarding a plane, I barely made it onto a bus heading to the railroad station. I needed quarters, so I ran to the snack counter in the airport, got some change, and hurried back to the bus, where the driver was still waiting.

At the railway station, I pulled out the ticket I had had mailed to my hotel room, and waited for the train south. It arrived, and I was whisked toward NYC, the automated voice announcing each station as we approached. Long before we got to Grand Central Terminal, we went underground. There we bumped along in the dark, surrounded by dimly-lit arches and pillars which held up New York City. I was struck by how much permanent infrastructure there is, supporting the world as we know it.

Eventually we reached the end of the line, and I followed the crowds toward the surface. I came out in a huge, ornate room, with tiny lights in the ceiling, as far away as the stars. It seems I have seen this important part of Grand Central before—probably in a movie.

I bought a 6-ride pass, and headed to the shuttle. A little train that went to Times Square, and then, as I found out, right back again. (I misinterpreted the signs, and jumped back on the shuttle I came on) So, I took an extra round trip back to Grand Central. Then I found the “3″ train,,,and went north instead of south. I actually set foot top-side in New York City, crossed Broadway, and went back underground. Finally, I got to Penn Station, and rushed over to the Amtrak station, printed my ticket, and found my gate. It was 9:03, and the train left at 9:09, but it seems it was slightly delayed—there were still masses of people waiting to get on.

I found a seat—it was like an airplane, but quieter, roomier, and I didn’t have to turn off my cell. And I didn’t have to fasten my seat belt, and there was a water faucet with cups at the end of the car. Amtrak is a very comfortable way to travel. People talking in hushed tones, or sleeping, and the countryside sped by. I think it was faster than a car. Once again, the huge amount of ancient infrastructure surprised me: all along the way, huge rusted towers held electric wires that feed the train.

Eventually I moved up a couple cars so I would be near the short platform at my destination, and then we pulled up, and I got off. I walked into the parking lot, got into a car I had never seen before, and drove off to the church, where my cousins and their cousins were having Christmas dinner.

It was interesting to blend in with people, a few of whom I had met before, and many who were new to me. But, we had a good evening of exchanging gifts, playing games, and discussing deep subjects of citizen responses to violence and safety.

It was late in the evening, and I finally was “home” to a place I knew, after jumping from ship to ship since 5:30 am.

The rest of the weekend was fine, drove to Delaware, and ate food, and again exchanged gifts (I liked the white elephant method used in DE better than the PA family version). Monday we went to the beach. We walked in the sand, toward some towers at the end of the beach. They looked closer than 10 miles away. But we walked and walked and didn’t seem to get much closer. Sim ran down to them and back. He found a green plastic item that seemed to be a “pull ring to light fuse” pyrotechnical device. Garret found some rocks and shells. I didn’t get any sand because I had already collected some a few miles up the beach. And I wasn’t carrying a ziplock.

Tuesday was Christmas day, and Uncle Charlie invited me and Jonathan to take part in their morning ceremony. It was interesting to see a real Christmas for the first? time. And I kind of understand it now. It is really exciting for the kids. And we read Luke 2 again (while we were waiting, Jonathan suggested we read Luke 1 so we would know the background). I’m not sure what I’ll do when I have kids. Will we celebrate Christmas? I guess if I’m going to start, I could before I have kids. I’m sure I won’t tell my kids that Santa Claus is real, but what about a tree? Seem still too pagan for me. Gifts aren’t very pagan, the devil didn’t invent giving. Oh well.

Once there was a guy sitting on his front porch, when a car screeched to a halt and the passengers yelled out the window “A flood is coming! Jump in and we’ll drive to the city!” But, the city was not where he wanted to be. He knew that once he got there, he would get sucked into it’s petty ways and would forever mimic the artificial bustle of it’s manufactured reality. “No” he replied to the carload, “I’m waiting on the Lord!”

A few hours later, the water came. A trickle at first, and then the waves started to lap at the edge of the porch. So, he moved his belongings into the attic, and nailed cross braces on the walls. He was sitting cross-legged on a chair when a boat pulled up to his second story window. “Hey! A survivor! Quick, get in! We’ll take you to safety!” They say beggars can’t be choosers, but this boat had clearly seen better days. “No thanks” he replied, “I’m waiting for the Lord to SAVE me!” The boat pulled away, but it was not out of sight before the water that had been filling the hold caused the engine to seize, throw a rod, kill the occupants, burst into flames and sink into the murky water.

He had just climbed onto his roof when a barge came by. It was swarming with lawn chairs, and people. Someone on the barge spotted him through the haze. “Dude! There’s a guy on that roof! Hey Roof Dude! You wanna come join us! This is the most awesome (*)^*(& you ever seen! It’s a great way to travel in a flood!” Umm, yeah. “No thanks,…Dude!” He shouted back to the floatilla. “I’m going to see what God has for me.” “Whatever, that’s awesome dude! On a roof! Hey, let’s go join him!” “Dude! we’d get wet, dude.” “Yeah, couldn’t risk that, dude….” They faded off into the distance. He finished tying his safety cable to the stovepipe.

He was standing on the left side of his roof to balance it, when a helicopter hovered overhead. They threw out a rope and were yelling something down. Seems they wanted him to grab the rope. He was just about to when he blinked and realized that the ‘copter was missing a blade! The vibrations would tear it apart any moment! Maybe they were yelling for help! He motioned to them to jump out, but they thought he was just waving them off. “Well, we’ve got others to save!” said the pilot, and he tipped the nose down to fly off…when the rotor hit the tail and the whole airframe shattered. The flaming schrappnel whizzed past as he threw himself flat on the roof. He stood up, and beside him a smoking turbine blade was impaled in the roof. “Thank you Lord, for saving me!” he said, looking up a the empty sky.

For a couple days, he floated on his rooftop. On top, he struggled to keep his house balanced by moving from side to side. Underneath, God guided his frail craft around the sunken trees that reached up to pluck it from the surface. And often, he was acutely aware that God was saving him, and all would be well, even if he drown.

On the morning of the fifth day, he felt a tremor ripple through his knees. The house had hit something. He jumped to the other side of the roof, and the scraping stopped…for a moment. And then with a THUD, the house stopped moving altogether. The impact made him lose his balance, his feet slipped, he fell over backwards, hit his head on the stove pipe, and lay motionless.

He saw a light, and opened his eyes. It was beautiful, and blinding. The light was at the crest of a range of mountains. He became more aware of his senses, the breeze touching his face, the smell of spring flowers that dotted the green hillsides of fresh grass, the sound of a brook trickling nearby, and a hunger…for food! Like he hadn’t eaten in a day and half. Wait, I’m not supposed to feel hunger here! His hand went instinctively to his head, and he felt a scab. Small enough that he realized he had collapsed, not so much from the blow, but from exhaustion. “Thank you Lord, for saving me!” he whispered into the wind. Then, he loosened up his safety rope, and swung into the attic where he found some peanut butter and jelly, and on the strength of that food he spent the next 40 days digging a new foundation under his house, planting a garden on the hills nearby, and catching fish in the brook. It was the perfect spot, and he was glad that he waited for God, instead of taking any of the almost-optimal options.
THE END.

So, I thought I was edgimacated and stuff…oh well!

This morning, I walked outside and it was sleeting, so I hurried to the apartment office to drop off a note saying that my bathtub wasn’t draining; it finally has gotten slow enough that my next shower start out with me standing in cold water. Then I got in my car, debated if the windshield needed scraping—had a dusting of frozen rain on it. Well, it didn’t start anyway, so it didn’t matter. It has the habit of taking a couple cranks before it will start—when it is cold out. So, I got in my redundant vehicle, started it up, and went ahead and got some of the ice off it.

Work went fine—I tried out some interesting tactics for dealing with overly critical people. “You are right, that is incorrect. Could you go ahead and fix that up? That would be great…” It would have worked, if what their criticism had a basis in the same reality as me. I need to work on being kind, but firm. Be considerate, but not ruin myself trying to fit other’s actions into reasonableness. All without becoming a vitriolic quibbler too. (I can hear the Reading Level ratcheting up!)

When started my car, I noticed that the brake pedal had a lot of give to it. Pumping it helped a little. I checked the fluid level—way low, and the light hadn’t come on. I filled it up, but it still was pretty useless until near the bottom of the stroke. I drove home with care. I’m glad I could see the accident from way off, so I had time to coast and down shift. A pickup had run into a concrete wall (I’m guessing) The front clip was demolished, but the driver (presumably) was leaning on his roof, talking on a cell. The cops were about, so it had been several minutes.

My other car still doesn’t start—I could dump some fuel treatment into the line; that worked before. Or, I could go install this glow-plug-powered fuel heater I assembled. I still need parts, but I’ve got enough that it will work.

But my tub drains like normal—I wonder if I had washed too much dirt, or paint, or hair, or epoxy down it (ok, joking about the epoxy).

I think I’ll go make my car go—I’ve got somewhere to be at 7, so I should be able to make it…

Sometimes the most unpredictable circumstances make me look cool (the end all in life?). Last week, I showed up for Sunday evening service, and we hung greens instead—-and I produced, from my trunk, a stapler and a roll of duct tape. Bryan was impressed—but it really was pretty expected: I’ve been working on stuff, so I’ve been storing tools in my trunk. These items were just the beginning. But, that set the stage pretty nicely for tonight.

For some reason, instead of setting up coffee, Bryan brought cider this evening—and when I got up to where we meet, he had carried a microwave and table up there to heat up the cider. “Would this be better with some brown sugar and cinnamon?” I ask. Yeah do you have some? “In my car” I run out and return with a bag of sugar and cinnamon—with a hint of clove. See, I collect sand samples for somebody in this group, and I had a bag of sand from a recent trip. So, I thought to myself, What if I gave her a bag of brown sugar? Would she notice? So, I got some brown sugar, put it in a clean ziplock and then added cinnamon and cloves. I was going to put in some hot cocoa powder, but it didn’t look like it would add the right colors to make it look like dirt. Turns out, I’d forgotten that soil collector wasn’t going to be there tonight,,,,but it also turned out we had a use for the fake dirt. The funny thing is, it made me look like I had a magic car—and it wasn’t because I’d thought ahead or anything.

What if your entire life was like that? Whenever you did something, it would turn out that it was the best thing that you could have done. Hopefully you wouldn’t just use it to make yourself look awesome, but unlike me, you would use it to bring glory to God, who is the one who sets everything up for us. Sometimes it seems my life is being run for me by God, and it really is a good feeling to know that what happened was totally not my doing, but God’s and it turned out better than I could have managed. Like that time that I wanted a webcam, and then one showed up in the dumpster behind Quad 3 soon afterwards. It made me feel warm inside to think that God was looking out for my needs and wants. Or that time I quit my job on a Friday, drove to MO because I didn’t have anywhere to live anymore…and Monday I had another job, that paid twice as much—but didn’t start for a month. A month that I needed for family stuff.

God often operates with miracles that are “little”, just nudges of the probability distribution so that the “right” thing happens. Not like He’s not “allowed” to operate outside of the natural order, but sometimes He makes it almost fit into the explainable. And if we aren’t watching for it, or talking to Him about it, we might miss it altogether. And it won’t always be something that makes me look cool, but in the end, it will be better. I think there is a verse about it somewhere: God causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.

So, keep your eyes peeled for God at work—even if it’s something as “small” as knowing the correct kind word for the situation, or turning a surreal shenanigan into a delicious drink.