Friday, September 10, 2004

Finally Registration is over! Sort of. The students come milling through here during that time every year, apocalyptic looks in their eyes like we hold the key to their very lives...
And yet, each year, life rolls on. Some register, some don't. Some walk away with tears, others with stories of answered prayers. And here, in the cubicles of Metzger Middle West, my desk sits under the measurable condensation of tax forms, letters, phone messages, etc, etc, etc. Most of the questions get answered, some don't. And life rolls on.
I've been thinking this past week about what that means, meditating on Ecclesiastes. It seems we were meant for more than we think, and yet less at the same time. The moments we feel our fate has come, time carries us past in a wave. Almost before we can realize it, the moment has passed.
Outside time, I'm sure the vista stretches out differently--the leaps we make past those days where faith stretches out, almost intangible, those appear as brightness in a larger tapestry, each such spot framed by a myriad of colors which make up the rest of our days; coffee with a hurting friend, the smile at someone in the next lane of traffic, a phone call to let mom know we love her, the ache and ecstasy of real life. The picture is so much bigger, I imagine. But to see it will, I suppose, require getting out of here alive. I'm looking forward to that eventual moment beyond my tapestry, when "real life" shuffles out of the way and I finally know even as I am fully known.