A Momentous Life

Sidestep from nugget number two.

I was going to follow up on my last post by writing about storms today.  (I'll come back to that one later.)  Instead, because it is fresh in my brain, I'm going to give you a preview of the huge topic that has consumed most of my thinking for the past year or more: time.

Time is a really weird thing.  And I will confess up front that time, as measured by clocks and calendars, doesn't hold a lot of importance to me.  Being on time to events isn't a high priority.  In fact, I don't like being on time and hate being early.  But it isn't just that.  I also don't really care how long a meeting lasts.  I don't care which day we celebrate a birthday.  My wife asks me when I will be done at work?  I don't know.  Probably right after I finish.

Rather than in minutes and hours and days, to me, time is expressed as too early, or too long, or too soon, or just right.

If the meeting lasted too long it isn't that it took too many minutes.  It is that we didn't use the time well.  Some 30 minute meetings feel like a life-sapping trial.  Other, much longer meetings leave me energized and wishing we could continue.  It isn't about the minutes.

This attitude is something I have really had to work on as an adult.  Because, while time doesn't mean much to me (it seems pretty arbitrary), it means a lot to others.  And I can't say I care about people if I dismiss what is important to them.

And there's the rub. I may not care about the quantity of time, (the minutes) but I absolutely care about the quality of it (the moments).  A minute is just a measurement.  A moment is an event.  I love moments.  They matter.

Anyway.  I'm skipping the "storms" topic today, because last week, I watched a movie titled "About Time".  It's a British, romantic comedy with the key word here being "British".  We Americans like our comedies quick witted, scene changing, surface level stuff.  Like SNL or MTV, we don't even want to say the full names of the shows.  British movies are different.  They let you agonize in the uncomfortable situations, the funny ones and the heart warming ones and the tragic ones, for way more than two seconds.  You just sit in it.  It's brutal.

"About Time" is like that.  It has some humor and some romance.  But it also has a heavy dose of profound conviction.  (At least it did for me.)  Kind of like "Four Weddings and a Funeral" meets "Dead Poets Society".

I don't know if I recommend it.  It is rated R and is kind of slow at times.  But it has its cute and funny moments, and it received pretty good reviews.  Mainly, though, I liked it, but I don't know how good it is.  I do know that it shifted me. I was going along through life and this movie came along and pushed me off my trajectory.  Probably was worth the $3 rental.

Bon Appetit

I've been struggling with a post since late November.  Granted, I get some grace for the slow start since I began right after being in a pretty serious car accident.  What do you do when you are in a concussed stupor?  Blog.  (Really.  This might explain a lot.)

Anyway, I tried redrafting my original post after I came out of the fog, but I couldn't make it come together.  It read like some late-night, drunken, stream-of-consciousness, college student's rambling.  (Maybe I should have just published it.)  After working on it over the past month and a half, it now reads more like a long winded, high school student's essay rewritten by a parent before work on the morning it is due.

Bottom line: it is just bad.  But, there is a lot of good thought in it too, so instead of trying to make sense out of it, I decided to break it up into smaller portions.  Small bites, right?  So, here is my first brain damage induced nugget of wisdom:

You can't instantly marinate a steak.  (Bam!  Mic drop.)


Seriously though.  It takes time for the acids to break down the tissue and the salts to penetrate the cells.  In fact, without time, a marinade isn't a marinade at all. It's just sauce.  It covers the meat.  It makes it taste better, but sauce doesn't fundamentally change anything.  It doesn't work into every potential bite.  It doesn't tenderize.  It doesn't transform.  Without time, a marinated steak is basically the same gristly, tough, chewy protein with which you began. (Only now, maybe it is also self-consciously aware of its short-comings.)

During the four months prior to Thanksgiving, I couldn't bring myself to write.  I sat down a few times, and simply couldn't bring anything up.  Maybe I needed a head injury to get me started, but I think some of it was that I was feeling sorry for myself.  There was some self-pity in there and some resignation, but mostly, I think I was just marinating.  Like a steak.  (See?  Like a steak? Clever, huh?)

Okay, not so clever, but growth is like that.  Ideas are like that. It takes time for ideas to transition from the theoretical (on the surface) to the practical (penetrating your life).  It takes time for understanding to take hold.  Unfortunately, five months later, I think the lessons are just beginning to penetrate.  I'm still marinating.  

Because, turns out, I'm a pretty poor cut of beef.  And, more importantly, God isn't the type to stop the process early.  I don't really picture God in his heavenly kitchen preparing a steak, but if he did, I doubt he'd cook it for a while, say, "Good enough," slap it on a plate and add, "Throw some ketchup on it.  It will taste better."  He would finish the job.  He promises to finish the job.

Philippians 1:6 says "For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus."  And I'm glad about that, because if I'm going through this, I'd better come out tasty.  It isn't fun, but it's worthwhile.  Who wants to stay the same tough, gristly, immature version of themselves, anyway?  

So, I'm still marinating, but I hope I'm close to done.

...cause I'm a little raw (Ha!)

...and tender (double Ha!)

...and the next step is turning up the heat!

...before someone trims the fat!

...Sorry. 

Bon Appetit.