267.0: Praise God.
Unfortunately, not all mornings can start with the peaceful afterglow of a dream about Tim Lincecum. If there has ever been a time for me to let go of my hangup about being a cornily vocal Christian and saying something like “Praise God,” it is now.
This morning, there was a shooting in Wisconsin, where Selma lives, and her fiance works right across the street from the shooting which is being described as a “mass casualty.” As of this writing, the shooter is still on the loose and Selma’s fiance, although doing OK — we know this thanks to the magic of text messages — he was trapped in lockdown for a while. But just a few minutes ago Selma gave word that he is coming home. There was no reaction more appropriate than to say, “Praise God.” Praise God! I said that out loud, and I typed it on Facebook. Praise God.
I may not have ever found out about the shooting, or I may have found out about it only after the fact. After I woke up this morning, I did that lazy Sunday morning thing where you just lie there for a while staring at nothing in particular, though your eyes are fixated on the window or the wall or some other stationary thing while your mind is a fog of idle thoughts. One such thought that kept recurring was how much I wanted to get rid of my Facebook account. Sometimes I kid myself with the notion that I’m an addict because of how often I tell myself that I will get rid of Facebook even as I keep going back to it. Part of the reason that I can’t completely sever ties is because it’s such a critical component of my job, but the larger reason is that, as this situation proved, Facebook is now reality. It’s a legitimate communications tool. Facebook is part of life.
George McGovern passed away this morning. I keep up with politics but not much political history, so I couldn’t begin to tell you the why’s of what made him such an important liberal leader. Also this morning I had to decline an early morning offer from an old friend of mine from college. I’ve mentioned him before. He’s now a pastor. The exchange went like this:
Friend: hey guys sorry for the early text… i have two SRO tix for tonights game $134 for the pair. anyone interested?
Joe: even if i could afford that i can’t go because i have church… thx tho!
Friend: love that answer
His name is also Tim. I don’t think I have ever pointed that out before here on my blog. I guess I thought it would be too corny.
It is barely noon and as you can see it has already been an eventful morning. I am adding to that list of events the fact that it is not foggy in the Sunset District, that the morning sun was triumphant through uncharacteristically broken fog. Of course, before I got Tim’s text, before I found out about the shooting, and that Mr. McGovern had passed away, the first thought that materialized when I opened my eyes was: Today’s the day.
For some reason, this song from The Namesake was the song that to me felt the most right for Sunday, October 21, 2012 and it still feels right even after the revelations of the morning. A part of me even wants to think that the match with today is so right that the components combine to materialize a kind of holy notion. I wonder if there are praise songs that are just instrumentals. I know that at church when we have communion or some other kind of quiet time, the music team will play an instrumental but what I am wondering is if there has ever been a time when standing up to do worship meant singing a song with no words. Which I guess means you’re not really singing, maybe just humming; and now that I think more about it, it seem kind of funny to stand around in church looking at a projector screen of music notes instead of lyrics.
Joe
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