The Moment After

Right after you clock out at work, there is an eerie — almost mys­ti­cal tran­si­tion. It is a mix­ture of many dynam­ics and usu­ally accom­pa­nied by a bit of a grin. The same is true for ath­letes. A job well done car­ries a sat­is­fac­tion equal to no other. What intrigues me most are the moments after a per­son has done his or her best. A fin­ished work of art that took months, when the last per­son leaves the church build­ing and I am still lock­ing up, or when you just fin­ish doing some­thing as rou­tine as mow­ing the lawn or vac­u­um­ing the car­pet — it is there. We humans were made for this (I know, this arti­cle sounds like a beer commercial…“Miller Time” — “Michelob” — etc., but I think they are just cash­ing in on this won­der­ful God-given sense).

Jesus had his “It is fin­ished!” moment too. He saw his whole life as an accom­plish­ment. The Apos­tle Paul saw his life as a long-distance race. I see mine more as a marathon of seem­ingly dis­parate projects, hopes, and mis­takes that God turns into some sort of mag­nif­i­cent tapes­try. Each day is a multi-colored thread — often with­out appar­ent mean­ing or pur­pose. Half-way through a cen­tury of it, I am begin­ning to see pat­terns but not the final picture.

I go to the weight room so I can leave it; I read a book so I can turn the last page and just pon­der the moment. The few moments it takes to fall asleep at night are like going down a fast play­ground slide in some huge art gallery. Wak­ing up is a birth — from dreams to “real­ity” (I guess this is real­ity). I often have to remind myself of the basic facts of my exis­tence in those wak­ing moments…where I live and what I do. I live for those strange end­ings that wel­come new begin­nings. Any given day is full of them. Sat­is­fac­tion must be some­thing the Cre­ator likes. “He saw that all he had cre­ated was good…and he rested on the sev­enth day…” (my paraphrase).

In a few min­utes I will fin­ish writ­ing this and go to my next lit­tle task. Between the two there will be a sense of won­der (I often won­der what I will be doing next. Min­istry is end­less inter­rup­tions). Begin­nings and end­ings are con­stant. Explod­ing stars become the sub­stance for the birth of the next new star. In between they are cos­mic dust in death pat­terns, and then one day they are bright new stars again with lit­tle plan­ets. Per­haps the time in between is a “med­i­ta­tion of sub­stance” that in soli­tude some­how rests and real­izes it never really ends.