Quality Time

I need this at 6 am on Saturday

It was a typical Saturday morning.  I headed to Starbucks at 6 am for what I informally call the Starbucks Breakfast Bible Club.  Our small circle of men share the Baby Boomer cultural framework.  We also share a desire for stalwart camaraderie on the journey of life.  So, we spend a couple of hours together on Saturdays wrestling with how the truth in Scripture should continue to shape us.  It is a good time, a time ‘with the guys’ that has become vital to me.  

Early Saturday mornings at Starbucks seems to fit our demographic.  I suspect the younger crowd populates the ubiquitous coffee chain in the evening hours, when I am shutting down at the end of a long day.   After we have been there an hour, the foot traffic picks up.  Looking around, I see individuals plugged into their requisite electronic devices taking the occasional sip while intently engaging whatever is on the screen, couples conversing over steaming latte’s, a few younger guys in another corner who may be gathered for the same reason we are.  Starbucks is to this era what the classic diner was to an earlier generation. 

On this particular morning, when we had been there long enough for the coffee to do its good work of energizing my synapses, I noticed a young father with his infant daughter, likely about a year old, close to the age of my youngest grand-daughter.  She was dressed in “footy jammies”.  You know the kind: all-in-one flannels that zip from the ankle to the neck and have the non-slip coating on the bottom of the feet.  The contrast was striking between the tiny toddler with her wisp of light hair and her strongly built father with his shock of dark hair who carried her as lightly as he might carry a kitten.  They sat down in one of the cushioned chairs by a window, about half-way across the dining area from us.  Though still engaged in discussion with the guys, I couldn’t help watching this father-daughter moment.

Every child should have these

She was perched on his lap, nibbling on something from the bakery case.  He was drinking his coffee.  Every so often, he would bend down and kiss her on the top of the head or ruffle her crown of hair.  As people came and went, she would point and say something.  He would look and smile and comment.  When, as inevitably happens with small children and food, a piece of her breakfast didn’t make it to her mouth, he would carefully help her recover it from her lap or his.  Not so extraordinary, this.  Yet, as I watched them, in their own little world though surrounded by people, I realized what a precious, magic time they were sharing.  This daughter was learning at an early age that she had a father who loved her so much that nothing else but being together was important.  He was supremely content just to simply be with her.  No agenda, no schedule, just being with his little girl while she enjoyed her pastry and the people strolling in and out and the morning sun peaking in the window of that Starbucks cafe.

Then I thought about the date I had coming up later in the day with one of my own daughters.  And I was grateful for this young man and his reminder.

It's A(nother) Wonderful Life

"Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. 

When he isn't around he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

Nearly every New Year’s Eve, we watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” with Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed.  We did again this year.  As, I understand, many other families do each Christmas Season.  Released in 1946, “It’s A Wonderful Life” has became a classic in the truest sense of the word — an artistic work of enduring value.  So, what made George Bailey’s life Wonderful?

Two themes grip me in George’s story.  One is the portrayal of a boy, then a young man, than a mature father and husband confronted time after time with the hard choice of doing what was right instead of what was easy; of doing what was good for someone else rather than fulfill his own ambitions.  George Bailey’s choices are rarely pleasant, starting with disobeying Mr. Gower in the drugstore, then sticking by the old Building and Loan after his father’s death, letting his brother Harry pursue his dreams while George is stuck in Bedford Falls, turning down Mr. Potter’s attempt to buy him out.

The other element is the life that George and Mary Bailey build — together.  What makes a marriage work?  Initially, there is that indefinable something that attracts you to this person unlike any other.  You recognize in them a fit for the empty places in your life, strength for your weakness, calmness for your anxiety, someone whose mere presence enlivens you.  But at some point, there has to be more.  There has to be a shared desire to subsume what “I” could accomplish to what “we” will accomplish together.  Often, especially at the beginning, this is nothing more than a vague thought encompassed in the desire to “live happily ever after”.  

One might think it was George who did all the sacrificing.  Mary got her dream - George and the Old Granville House on 320 Sycamore with every room occupied by one of their brood.  But, it was Mary who made a crucial choice on their wedding day to fork over their honeymoon funds to keep the doors of the Building & Loan open.  It was Mary who participated in the house-warming for the Martini’s in Bailey Park and, by implication, so many others that netted very little financial gain for the Building & Loan or the Bailey’s.  It was Mary who by some mysterious insight knew that the heart of her man was a good one.  It was Mary who knew when it was time to tell her children to “pray very hard” and when it was time to take action, too.

My personal dreams were not nearly as well defined as George Bailey’s.  But, like George, there are times when I have felt the frustration of the "drafty old house" and "why did we have to have all these children, anyway" and the inconveniences of the Uncle Billy’s in life.  I have had my moments as a "warped, frustrated young man" whose anger caused the same kind of tearful, “Oh, Daddy” in my children and brought a reproach from my wife and their mother.  In spite of that, my ‘Mary’ has seen something in my heart which I sometimes lose sight of.  She has known when to pray very hard and when to take action.  We have built something special together that I never could have experienced alone.

I may never get out of my Bedford Falls, I will never build that skyscraper, and I will likely continue working with mundane financial software for a number of years yet.  But as I was reminded by more than one response to our Christmas family picture, I have indeed been blessed with a wonderful life. I have a wife and children and grandchildren and friends who are priceless.  I am pretty darn close to being "the richest man in town".

Starry, Starry Night

Courtesy of BBC

One of the benefits of jogging at “0-dark-30” is that I occasionally sight celestial phenomena not visible during daylight hours.  For example, the “blood moon” eclipse from a few months ago.  When not overcast, the night sky is just populated with stars and the generic white moon.  Which, truth be told, is certainly impressive enough that I never get tired of it.  The view changes constantly, and as the seasons move along, there is always the added beauty of the juxtaposition of Venus, the “morning star”, hanging in the sky close to the moon as dawn approaches.

Courtesy of yours truly!

Once or twice a year, though, I will see a meteor: a brief, thin streak of light generated as a chunk of solid matter is incinerated by friction as it penetrates the atmosphere.  Given the vastness of the dome of heaven, that a meteor even falls in my line of sight is a small miracle.  Usually, I catch only a glimpse in my peripheral vision and by the time I turn my head to get a better look, the streak is gone in as little time as a heartbeat, leaving me to wonder if I actually saw anything at all.

This morning was different.  As I was bouncing up the hill towards the Mira Costa College campus in my Merrell Barefoot Train True Glove Shoes, a sudden, green glow in the sky on the left edge of my vision caught my attention.  My head snapped left and I saw a bright, emerald green streak plunge towards the earth.  A heartbeat, then another, then the green streak turned to orange before fragmenting into dots of light and finally disappearing, like a 4th of July rocket.

I wondered what mineral composition would glow vividly green under the intense heat and pressure of colliding with air at thousands of miles per hour.  (Later I found out it was probably nickel or copper).  This meteor was either larger than what I normally encounter or much closer, or both.  In any case, it was not the typical, pedestrian variety I usually catch in the wee morning hours.  Somehow, out of the vastness of space, a hefty rock found our planet and treated me to a brief, brilliant, personal fireworks display.  A gift to start the day.