Wondering as I wander

A guy I knew died. I guy I worked with back in that life some called journalism died. He wasn't the first I've known to die. He, unfortunately, won't be the last. We're getting older, as the days wane and the pain flourishes like spring flowers.

But it, his death, sends me into a spiral of thoughts, into memories that collide with consciousness. God forgives, and God forgets, the Bible says. Me, not so much on either, I'm afraid.

I remember the time Mary and I went to his house, and the laughter that emerged. The time we worked on a story back when I was something I'm now not. The time ...

The time ...

The time seems to be spiraling out of control at a much faster pace than I remember when I was young.

I spend a great deal more time driving these days, wondering as I wonder, slapped down in a land of $3.79 a gallon of gas, which is detrimental to my pastor's budget. But it is what it is. Bible studies here, there and everywhere.

I wonder as I wander, thinking back to that moment of truth when I reached out for Jesus and he reached out to me.

My travels from and through places like Kinder, Elton, Basille, Iota take me hither and yon, and both the truck and the car we own have issues now that I might not be able to afford to fix and they're getting as old as I feel. But all this traveling gives me plenty of time to think, to ponder, to muse. It ain't all a bad thing. I think about who I was, who I am, who I might become ... where I'm headed, where I've been. All those moments and choices that led me to exactly where I am. I wander, all the while wondering.

Today, I'm more stationary. As I begin to write this, I'm listening to Pandora radio, the Brandon Heath version, and they're playing one of my top five hymns. Ironically, Jadon Lavik is sing a modern version of an ancient song, Come Thou Fount, and the most delicious line comes on ... "Prone to wander, prone to leave the God I love. Here's my heart, take and seal it ..."

Even as the sound eeks away from me, I wonder as I wander. Thoughts come pouring out, like a fall of water from mountainside on a clear fall afternoon.

There's busy-ness all over the church these days, with two rounds of Girl Scouts coming in for meetings, wedding meetings, exercise meetings, youth group meetings, meetings about meetings int he true Methodist manner, even electricians putting in new electrical boxes outside, city workers moving an old glass case out from inside. Rattlings all around. Newness in our busy-ness, freshness in our business.

I wander to a weary NIV Bible sitting on my desk. Paul is telling me that we are simply more than we are. "...we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose," and I reach out to the words as if they were flotsam on the ocean.

I wander into his thoughts and back out again, looking for a place to land, like a conquistador looking for the new world.

I wander into this thought, "if God is for us, who can be against us?" And I wander back out again, looking for a place that I can rest.

Today is the middle of the week. There are three sermons and two more Bible studies to go, and my thoughts are like love bugs on a windshield pinging and pinging unto death and I wander back out again.

Till I rest in Romans 8: 37: "... in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

I long to rest in this fact, that more than the wandering and the longing and the extensive wondering is the resting ... in Him, by Him, most assuredly with Him.

I know that the coming of the end, my mortality looking squarely back at me in the morning mirror, is filled with shadows. I see nothing clearly at this point, as Paul tells me, but one day I will. I will stop looking back and start looking ahead, and even the loss of friends will no longer seem so monumental.

There is much to be conquered, and it will be according to scripture. But I rest for the moment, knowing that with Him I can do all things, and without Him I'm just filling up the car with extraordinarily priced gas.