Highlights

One morning, as I was rushing to a meeting, I grabbed for a pen.  Having got the wrong one, I then could not fit the original pen into my tea tin/pen cup.  I didn't give it much thought until after the meeting when I decided to purge the non-working pens.  On examining the contents I found:

• one blinking bike light
• one pencil
• 7 Sharpies, of differing colors and tip size 
• 3 blue pens
• 2 red pens
• 21 black pens
• 3 paperclips
• 1 rubber band
• 4 highlighters, 3 of which are orange
• post-it page markers
• one flattened souvenir penny from the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago

And only two "non-working" pens.  Just another day, right?  Unfortunately I choose to be philosophical about many small things, and then think to blog about them afterwards.  And then some poor person reads my small musings. (this means you)  

First, I thought, what in the world do I need with 21 black pens?  And where did they all come from?  Only a few of them would be ones which I would bought myself.  They must have come from somewhere-- been a marker of where I have been and which and where I have stolen.  I sometimes buy pens, most times I guess I walk away with them, and then there is the odd time where I purposefully pocket them.  I kind of think pens should be common property, their ownership ought to be more fluid.  If ever we were to actualize the Acts practice of "sharing all things in common," I suggest we start with pens.

Second curious thing, why do I need 4 highlighters?  It hit me then.  Grad students have highlighters.  Lots of them.  Everywhere.  Handy for their hours spent reading and studying-- when they find a gem (at least, when I do) I want to tag it as wise, noteworthy, questionable or difficult. 

And now what I am to do?  I have, at my "job" a pen jar suited for a grad student, and not a hard-working beneficial member of a working church community.  Why do I need so many highlighters?

After several days of pondering this, I came to a conclusion.  I do still need highlighters, but of a different kind.  My primary job right now is listening to stories, hearing how people's faith has been formed, and as they expound on their understanding of themselves and their community.  And sometimes for that I need a highlighter, but one that works on the human heart.  What connects one story to another, this comment to the one made twenty minutes before.  A highlighter which notices particularities and glimpses of lived grace-- highlighters which point to God's Spirit at work.

Also, I am still a student.  And I will always be a student.  There is always more to learn, and only some of it is on a printed page.  Most of the wisdom to be learned, is written on the human heart.

In the sweet meantime

"Never let an opportunity to see anything beautiful, for beauty is God's handwriting." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

I am realizing, these days, that I am distressingly dependent on my phone.  Or, that is, the small computer in my pocket which also makes phone calls.  My new digs does not have internet, so my phone becomes my connection to email, social media, people, networks, support, sanity... I check in with my fiance via text, I confirm a meeting with my grandmother via phone, I talk with my mother through email, I giggle at a picture of my niece and nephew on facebook.  Without my phone, I am truly disconnected, marooned out on the prairie from those I love.  (which I know is not totally true, but a lot rides on such a small device)

And I admit these days I have become a fiddler.  Always checking and rechecking.  Any small blip is a connection with those who feel far away.  This is a sobering confession I make in hopes for some accountability-- I want so badly to be someone who is "all there", very present with the people and in the places which I find myself.  Instead of fiddling with the buttons and sending small half-wishes to be elsewhere.  And maybe the fiddling is the attempt to be "all there"-- in all the theres which call me: there, and over there, and near there, and somewhere there... But they compete hopelessly with my very real, here.

I was waiting the other day.  Really waiting.  Not fiddling (I had to stop myself in the process), but sitting and being in anticipation for my coming ride.  While waiting, I looked and saw.  A chorus of robins making their way from one tree to the other across the street.  I watched them swing back and forth like watching a airborne tennis match.  I wondered if in our small computers we have lost the capacity to wait, and to have our waiting be its fullest possible.  I waited and found delight in the aerial parade of birds, with actual tweets. They were the small blessing of that "there" of which I missed most of the blessing; for even waiting time has its fullness.