Thoughts and Musings

Thoughts and Musings

random reflections on faith, music, family, life.

Good things come to those who wait (in line at Starbucks)

12/31/2013

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Monday morning at the Cotswold Starbucks. The line here is always long, I'm quickly learning.  But it's only coffee and scones and such, so it moves along pretty well.

I get to the cash register and Regina welcomes me and asks what I'd like.  Before I get a chance to respond, though, a voice beside me interjects: I think I was next!  I look and she is standing in line at the other cash register, but she was ahead of me in the single line that feeds both.  Apparently her understanding is that she has equal access to both.  Not quite sure about that, but she has already moved into position in front of Regina.  I'm not one to make a stink about such things - and besides, I'm actually not in a rush this morning.  It's New Years Eve Eve and I'm heading into the office for a few hours with nothing terribly pressing.  The gloriously mad dash to 5pm and 9pm on Christmas Eve is behind me, and I'm kind of relishing in the luxury of waiting.  It's strange territory for me, but it feels nice.

After this lady orders her latte  I place mine - tall French Roast and one of those scrumptious veggie artisan breakfast sandwiches.  I take my place with the others at the end of receiving line - more waiting.  A few minutes pass and someone in Starbucks garb calls me over.  So sorry, but our oven isn't on yet, so it may be a few minutes to get your sandwich.  No worries, I tell her.  Apparently this is a day for waiting.

I look back and the line has grown longer.  More and more people are joining me in my waiting venture.  I do something I don't usually get a chance to do when I'm rushing from one place to the next: I people-watch.  I see an older lady clutching a paper bag full of various things as if her life is depended on it.   Another gentleman with two young children, one tapping away on their iPod.  A woman in business attire reading a newspaper.  A few high school students.  Another lady with kids.  All of them, waiting for something. Maybe it's at the end of this Starbucks line, but maybe not. Who knows?

They say, "good things come to those who wait," but truth be told I've always questioned the wisdom of this.  What good things, exactly?  Is this just to make us feel better about the fact that we're having to wait in the first place?  Heck, we just concluded an entire month of waiting: waiting to unwrap presents stationed under Christmas trees, waiting in church for the day when we can finally, finally light the Christ candle and proclaim with much joy that God is not just coming but is, in fact, Immanuel, God-With-Us.  Surely those "good things," whatever they might be, have already come....?

I hear my name called, and the Starbucks employee hands me my sandwich.  She also hands me something else: a little card for a free coffee.  For your trouble, she tells me.   I didn't know a few minutes of waiting equaled a free cup of coffee on my next visit, but apparently it does.  Perhaps this was the good thing?

I head to the door, but right before I exit my eyes meet with that lady with the bag full of stuff, seated at a nearby table.  Usually these quick connections amount to nothing more than one of the two quickly glancing away as if an intrusion has been made on eye-territory.  But this lady locks in on me;  Hey there! she says, as if I'm an old friend.  I respond in kind.  And then, without warning, her face contorts and she is obviously fighting back tears.  And somehow, out of all of this, a ten-minute conversation ensues.  This is apparently what she was been waiting for.  Her name is Gail, and she's homeless.  She's tired and just wants a place to rest.   She says she may have a small apartment later this week through some senior citizens organization, but it's the next few nights she's worried about.  Still very much a Charlotte newbie, I'm at a loss of where to send her.  I mention the weekly "Room In The Inn" that our church hosts, and she says she's heard of it and may look into it.  She never asks me for a thing, other than my time.

I offer her my breakfast sandwich and surprisingly she declines it.  There's a church on the other side of town that has free breakfast at 11 and she's heading there with the free bus pass in her possession.  But she receives with great thanks the free coffee pass, telling me that a warm cup of coffee is exactly what she needs to help keep her warm on either end of a cold night on the street.    We talk for a bit longer, then we exchange goodbyes and I am out the door and getting in my car.

If good things do indeed come to those who wait, I'm thinking I may have just found it.

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The Face of Guilt

12/20/2013

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We have a boxer.  I've seen this look before. But not with the...... well, just watch it.
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Made to Meet your Maker

9/1/2013

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I am standing beside a tiny creek that runs parallel to Hwy. 103, about a mile outside of Mount Airy.  I'm in that area where the ground becomes less firm, and I can feel my black Sunday dress shoes giving in to the soft earth.  I am there with a dozen or so folks, including the family who invited me to be here with them after their loved one died in late spring; invited me to join them behind the small structure on the side of the road that used to house the family store. We've come to this place to spread the ashes of their beloved wife and mother in the creek behind the old store; a space that has deep meaning for them.  Sacred spaces can be hallowed sanctuaries of brick and mortar and stained glass, but they can also be a small creek off a remote highway.  And that is where we are now.

I am standing there with the full realization that I've never done anything like this before.  Funerals and memorial services, graveside committals, even the burying of ashes - I've done plenty of those in my nearly 17 years of ministry.  But spreading ashes in a creek?  This is something new.

They are looking at me to tell me they're ready to begin.  I've planned out a few things to say - but I've also left a lot of space, because I've done this sort of thing long enough to know when I need to script it out and when I need to step aside and get out of the way.  And so I begin by acknowledging the beautiful day, by reading a few scriptures about rivers and water, and by telling them how rivers are a metaphor for life: they flow constantly, and they only flow one way.  There's no reversing the course of the river, and there's no way to stop the water from running the way it goes.  Life, it turns out, acts much the same way.  And so as we commit these ashes to the waters, knowing they will be taken somewhere, I tell them that we commit our loved one to the journey that we are not yet able to go on ourselves.  But one day it'll be our time to take a trip down the river, where we will meet our God and the loved one who went on before us.

I've said all I need to say.  I motion to the widower and his middle-aged daughters, and together the three remove their shoes and step out into the creek, where the water's flow is strongest.  Those standing on the bank are tossing small flowers in, and it is a beautiful scene.

And that is when Mumford & Sons' "Awake My Soul" starts playing.

I'd almost forgotten that they told me they were going to do this - a song they said she loved.  With us unaware, the son-in-law had pulled the car up behind the small gathering and opened its windows, and now the space is filled with that familiar, flowing octave-D intro.  Small flowers continue to fill the air and water as the words come....

        How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes
        I struggle to find any truth in your lies
        And now I am certain of things I don't know
        My weakness I feel I must finally show.

It is never easy to let go of our loved ones when it is their time.  We are created to live; and while dying is a part of life, it's that part further down the river that we can't see.  So we are afraid of it, for ourselves and for others.  And yet, in order to let go, we have to go into our weakness - just as these three were doing, stepping into the chilly water and onto the rocky uneven creek bed, holding each other's hands for both physical and emotional stability.... 

        Lend me your hand and I'll conquer them all
        But lend me your heart and I'll just let you fall
        Lend me your eyes, I can change what you see
        But your soul you must keep totally free

They open the plastic bag and tip the end down so the ashes begin their descent into the flowing waters. The journey has begun.  And as the water turns a smoky white, the descant fills the air around us like a musical benediction:

        Awake, my soul
        Awake, my soul

Yes, we are on holy ground, the likes of which I've never been on before.  

        In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die
        Where you invest your love, you invest your life.

Memories of this person flow through my mind as her ashes now flow through the waters.  Her love for music and the people who shared that love.  Her passion for basketball - which reminds me of the last conversation I had with her at the Hospice home days before her death, when she snapped out of her cancer-driven fog long enough to describe in great detail the ball she was passing to me on some distant court.   Her amazing ability to get along with everyone and smile perpetually, even as her body failed her.  This woman had invested her love in so many places with so many people, and because of that her life would live on long after her remains made their way through the water into the woods.

The bag is now empty, and all the ashes have been sent on their way.  And so the three step out of the water and back on to the marshy land.  Tears fill their eyes, as they are filling the eyes of the rest of us.  A flowing water of a different kind.  The song is now picking up its tempo; the soft-flowing melody making way for the pulsing celebration as the creek begins to return to its normal color...

        Awake my soul
        Awake my soul
        Awake my soul
        You were made to meet your maker


Ashes-creek


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    Steve Lindsley

    Child of God. Husband. Father. Minister. Musician. Songwriter. Blogger.
    Keynoter and Songleader. Runner/Swimmer. 
    Almost vegetarian. 
    Lifelong Presbyterian.
    Queen City resident.
    Coffee afficionado.
    Dog person. 
    Panthers/Hornets fan. 
    Mostly in that order. 
    For more info check out stevelindsley.com

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