Being

Today I again slept too late to attend church (why is it that I am totally capable of getting up early the other six days of the week, but Sunday seems out of my league? I dunno.) but when I finally did roll out of the bed the Virginia sun was shining through the windows and the mugginess was apparent. I sat with my coffee in my favorite chair and read the Sunday paper--not the whole thing (I'd still be reading it) but enough to get a grasp on how lucky I am to not be anywhere else in the world. I got pre-dressed (the outfit to wear between PJs and post-shower dressing...I just made it up) and sat on my deck, reading more of the paper and my book. It was nice to take my time. Finally I hopped in the shower and headed out to Old Dominion Brewery, home of the best beer in the world, their Oak Barrel Stout. Jen, one of my housemates from college, was biking out from DC to meet me there for the 2pm tour. Knowing Jen, I half didn't expect her to be there, but she was! The tour wasn't the best I've been on (he didn't know much) but Jen and I were too busy talking anyway, so it didn't much matter. Afterward we stuck around and talked for another two hours--and still there was more to say. She's such a great conversationalist and an even better friend. Just love that girl.
I was very tired by the time I got home, so I lay in my room and plodded through my book Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz, a hilarious (and true) tale of one man's trip through the south's unfinished civil war. I may be a huge dork for liking it so much, but it is good.
Later in the evening my father fired up the BBQ and made marinated chicken kabobs and corn on the cob. It was delicious. We watched part of "Bowling for Columbine" then took to the deck to watch the sunset. I sat there in my chair with a quality cigar (CAO Criollo), a Dominion ginger ale and my book, and life was perfect. I wanted my phone to ring, so I could share this with a friend, but at the same time I loved the quiet. I loved the lightening bugs over the field, the spring peepers in their chorus, the cicadas in their maddening drone; I loved the fact that venus was next to the silo on the left, that Cassiopeia was almost directly ahead, that Orion was gone till next winter, that the gateway to the milky way was in view. But I still had this feeling like there was something I should be doing, someone I should be talking to, someone I should be helping or listening to, or a list to be making or something. But then something said, "Wait. Sit. Just be here." I took a deep breath and I was. It was freeing.
The other day I was talking to a friend about how I've felt like a benchwarmer this past year and my friend said something that only struck me later: I may feel like a benchwarmer because I don't have the outward tasks to prove otherwise, but relationally I've been jam packed. I've been busy with people's lives, not just doing things on my endless lists. I was still a tool to be used. God still uses the benchwarmers.