It’s 6:03 am, and I am waiting somewhere this Thursday morning for a work ride out of town. Early on, a motorbike just dropped me here, but long before I left home, long before we got to my waiting spot, I pulled out of bed, did a few routines, and put on my sweater. Minutes later, I said a prayer with my wife and hugged her goodbye.
One ride later, two police patrols parked beside a man clad in his thick jacket like me, he probably rose early like me, fixed shoe laces, and hugged family like me.
Photo by Александар Цветановић/pexels
He had no idea the brakes would give way, I think to myself, and no idea the car frames would dissect his ribs. At that moment, his family or relatives probably pulled another pillow. Far away, his breath was out of him.
His eyebrow just got cold, just like that, he’d just like me, arose for bread, only to wake up to eternity.
Meanwhile, everybody else rushed on in the morning traffic as if there were better things to ponder. Nice air conditioned wagons cruised by, I tried not to, at least in thought.
And at the small kiosk where I waited for my next ride and pondered these things, a security guard’s little radio was blowing some common Ugandan breakfast radio trivia.
There I was, trying to reflect on the fleeting nature of life, yet a radio host thought some Pallaso music and social commentary was what I needed that morning.
Most of my life, though, is like this: I daily try to float with my eyes fixed on things eternal, but everything around me pulls me to the moment, the now, the commentary, the talk show, the news feed.
Man, it’s like I am not even allowed to ponder my own death, my mortality. Even when it shows up in my schedule.
The New Testament writers tried to push back against this temporal spirit, which I hope I can emulate.
Back to this morning, the prayer we said with my wife indeed featured a line about “God helping us to fix our eyes on the things not seen.”
I just didn’t know a bloody accident scene would deepen this meditation, no idea a little bit of death in my schedule was the rude away to awaken me from my often trivial life. I always don’t.
Oh that I would learn to pray with the ancient psalmist, “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom”. “ (Ps 90:12)
