Grace
Life´s a die, and then you bitch. Wait, backwards again - Life´s a bitch and then you die.So yes, life is hard and it´s a one way path. And you still have to pay taxes when you´re dead! Not much fair there, eh? Some tunnels seem to have no end, some experience cave-ins, and that light is often an oncoming locomotive (steam if you´re lucky). But sometimes that light is a firefly. Just one. Flickering dimly. But there.
Today wasn´t even a tunnel. It was a cave.
And there was someone else there.
I don´t know about where you live, but in the rural parts around here and even the mid-size cities (their word, not mine. In the UK, they´d probably be called towns)....where was I? Oh, yes, my fellow cave dweller. In these parts, there is a fairly transient and a small permanent homeless population. Spring is storm season and this population often resides under overpasses, generally the big interstate ones but any will serve.
At the coffee shop near the interstate overpass, there was an older man. Not as old as my folks, older than me. He had a beat-up mobile plugged into an even more beat-up solar charger, a couple of plastic bags, no food or drink. A thin grey beard, a very little jacket, clean clothes. He was on the coffee shop patio and it wasn´t busy, never is on national chain levels. So he probably could stay.
After my tea, I asked the assistant manager, cleaning up, if he was in often. Pretty much every day, she said.
Bad day, long day, but I had bought a tea and croissant. I went back to the cashier, bought a $25 gift card, handed to the assistant manager and said give it to the gentleman in ten or fifteen minutes after I was gone.
Suddenly the hole was more like a ditch.
Back on the road, a brief snippet caught my ear (I don´t do talk radio, or talk broadcasts at all. Sorry podcasts, I know I'm missing a lot but not my media). ¨Live the hand you were dealt as if it were the hand you wanted.¨ Not much but it felt like being hit over the head with a 2x4. Epiphany comes in many ways (I got hit with one years ago in a Def Leppard song).
And then
There´s a concept in Buber´s I and Thou about the will to ask and the grace to receive.
Today, I received.
#the100dayproject #MineolaRose #the100dayprojectEastTexas #CreativityRoseBlooms #100daysofdragontales
v nice :-)
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