The Place

The Waiting Place…for people just waiting.

 Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No or waiting for their hair to grow. 

 Everyone is just waiting.

         —Dr. Seuss

Today I watched the sunset in my rear view mirror.

As I was seeing the fire of the reds, oranges, pinks, and blue hue into dusk, that line crossed my mind — Today I watched the sunset in my rear view mirror — and I wondered how much I do that. Not just with sunsets though: with decisions, with friends, with my life. How often do I choose to mull over memories of the great times I had with my friends — the Dictator Rap in a hotel in Kansas City, beating Woodcrest at MACS, our trip to Duluth last February, my wedding day. Of course, I'm not trying diminish the good and wonderful qualities of memories. But sometimes I wonder if I spend too much time remembering how close I was with my friends and roommates instead of making the sincere effort to get together with them again, to reconnect with a phone call, to make new memories.

I know why I do this. It's my personal defense against the other extreme which I know I live in too often. And it's the Waiting Place. Only my version of Dr. Seuss' famed "Waiting Place" has cabinets and closets full of wishes, desires, and coveting. For nearly all my life, I've felt like I'm in the Waiting Place—waiting to be in high school, waiting to graduate, waiting to go to Northwestern, waiting to finish college, waiting to marry Brett, waiting to get a job, waiting to get my real job, waiting to buy a house, waiting to have a family, waiting to start my life.

I have always felt this push for what's next, knowing that if I can just get to the next phase, then I will be truly happy. Only when I get there, I find myself only in another room of the Waiting Place. There's something else, that if I only could attain it, would make me complete. And thus the maze of the Waiting Place has wound me into a state of dissatisfaction and restlessness.

It's so easy to peer into that rear view mirror at the times when—I see now—I was content. And it's so easy to stare into the future and speculate on my happiness when I have a house all to my own and little Brett and Lindsays running amok. I try to focus the lens, focus it on the here, the right now. To live this minute, this second, to its fullest.

And to learn to be really, truly content.

The Rite

 "Choosing not to believe in the devil won't protect you from him."

Such is the claim of the voice over on the trailer for the new exorcism movie The Rite. I wasn't watching the TV while the trailer ran, I just happened to catch this statement. It gave me spine shivers, and I looked up from what I was doing. But I wasn't able to focus on the rest of trailer. The phrase kept replaying in my mind--and it hasn't stopped since.

What a powerful thought.

That's how much bigger this life is than most of us choose to believe. I'm a nearly insignificant blip on the radar of this world. I often talk about "my beliefs," "my values," "my opinions," what I think is true. Like any of that matters. What I believe makes no difference to whether it's right or wrong. I have absolutely nothing to do with the existence of something else. Satan's (and God's) existence is in no way dependent on my beliefs. Or anyone else's.

I reflect on my own evangelism. My attempts to convince an atheist that just because he doesn't "believe" in God, he is not safe from God's final judgment. Of course, I then receive a sympathetic pat on the head and am told my time is up. Enough Bible beating for today, I'm told. It's fine for me to believe in God and miracles, I must lack logic and common sense of atheists and agnostics, and Christianity is merely a coping mechanism for those not strong enough to face reality.

I've heard all the excuses for unbelief. They discourage me, leave me unfulfilled, empty, and make me want to plead with God to save the unbelieving soul. Occasionally my own doubts creep up--I don't know that much about science, could I be wrong about creation? Is there really that kind of evidence out there? What if I am just using Christianity as a crutch? Or trusting it because it's always been a part of my life? Am I trading common sense and logic for blind faith?

And then I remember that the choice to not believe in God (and/or Satan) doesn't save anyone from anything. Choosing not to believe in Satan won't protect you from him. My faith is logical and founded. No matter how many choose to ignore God, it doesn't affect who I am and what I believe.

Without God, there would be no atheists.