I’ve got the best seat in the house today. You get somewhere early enough, you can have any seat you want. I sit up against the front window of Roy Street Coffee and Tea. The intersection right outside is complicated—Broadway runs into a dead end or maybe it curves around the block and continues; I’m not quite sure. There are four street signs on the post with arrows in all directions, not really clear on which way is which. Sounds familiar. At any given moment, there is a new group of people standing in front of my window. They all have places to go, things they need to get to, you know, life to get to.
I’ve spent my time here planning for the week’s upcoming math lessons. It’s not something I enjoy, but I have to do--part of my responsibility to life. The woman who sat next to me when I first arrived spoke about her daughter. She was confiding in her two friends about the ills she has had to put up with. Every time the girl’s boyfriend comes over, she has to leave. She can’t stand him. Sounds stressful. Since then the ladies have been replaced by two women discussing a book.
I’ve been reading through Screwtape Letters. One chapter caught my attention, and I find myself returning to it often. Screwtape is instructing his nephew on how to distract us, of course. He talks about one of his own, who came to him at the end of his life reflecting on how he spent his life. He says; “I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked.” He spent his life doing nothing. He spent his life in a routine. Did not help the poor, invest in relationships, explore deep questions because he had a life to get to. Did not go on vacations, splurge on expensive things, date, drink too much, blow off work on his birthday to celebrate because he had a life to get to, and he was responsible for it. He didn’t do what God wanted him to do. He didn’t do what he wanted to do. He did nothing.
I get scared when I can’t remember my day 48 hours ago. My stomach churns when I can’t decipher year 24 from 25. I’m not sure what makes a day striking enough to be set apart from an otherwise possessive life routine. Maybe each day isn’t supposed to be memorable enough, maybe we’re just supposed to live by moments. But time has to be important; it’s one of the first creations—symbolically, literally, whatever. We live by it and we’re limited because of it.
God speaks to us in revelation, and I usually don’t like to write until I’ve figured out ten percent of what He’s getting at, but here I am staring out a window, wondering where all these people are going and writing about it. Will they remember this moment, this day next week? Will I? I’m pretty sure relationship is somewhere tangled up in the middle of this. It’s just the way He does it. Every time.
I’m going to leave soon, and some lucky person with great timing is going to walk in and see this seat empty. It’ll be the only one, as this place crowds up Sunday afternoons. Then he/she will have the best seat. I hope he/she takes a moment to look outside and wonder about life—break away from work and routine to figure it all out or at least become more confused. It’d be a shame to waste this window.
