moments

"I want to know God's thoughts...the rest are details." -Albert Einstein

Have you ever had one of those moments? You know the kind of moments I’m talking about. The kind that hit you when you bite into a freshly baked strawberry crossant from the local bakery. Or the kind that overwhelms you when are busy working and stop to look up just in time to hear the rain start to fall and a train slice through the gray air—a dark storm blue as its only back drop. Or the kind that swells over you when you hear a long lost hymn that used to be a favorite. Or the kinds that freeze you in time—like when the sun sends its most brilliant rays of peach through your living room window just before it decides to call it a day. It’s almost like you are reminded of something you once were. Not in any mournful sense, but rather as a quiet tap on the shoulder saying “hey, don’t forget me…don’t forget where you came from.”

We, up at Elon, have been having an unusually harsh stint of storms. Not the afternoon thunderstorms that appear at the drop of a hat, and just as quickly vanish, leaving in its path an either refreshed air or a trail of the humidity of death. No, these were violent storms with the electric capability to light up a small town. It was during one of those storms that I was at work in the Sidetrack Grill. I was cleaning a table, and happened to look out through one of our side windows which are rounded on the top just as a freight train blew by, piercing the storm as if it was a sucker-punch by humankind against nature.

And in that moment of timelessness, there was a feeling of necessity. A necessity to be there, to witness that, to feel triumphs and defeats and tears and joy all to their fullest extent. To not simply settle for some meager passing thrill as the ultimate answer that we are all searching for, but rather delve deep beyond such moments into places where we find the sacred and mortal mingling. These places are so often whispering to us, calling us into our being while we are screaming each other deaf. How can we expect to hear the message when we refuse to listen and only find ourselves yelling about the details.

Because in the end, it’s the message that matters. Everything else is details. It fascinates me how much we fight and fingerpoint and get pissed off about the details, when, in fact, they are just that--details. The same message is true. The Resurrection gives life.