"So, Tyler, what's your gift mix?" calls this pastor from the front seat where he's driving me to see his new church building. Next to me sits his friend, a bald-headed baseball fan named Apple. Exactly why he's joining us for this little show and tell was never explained. Next to the pastor sits Pastor Jon, my friend and boss.

"Are you, like, musical?"

A fair guess, I think. After all, what would a ragged, struggling church be hiring if not a ragged, struggling musician?

"No," I say. "I'm...I don't know. I like people."

The pastor, bedecked in a blue hawaii-print shirt, laughs like a bomb going off.

"Well!" He booms. "The church will cure you of that!"

Apple chuckles brightly on one side. I realize my mistake quickly. I was supposed to be impressing these people with my quick business sense and confident Gospel-savvy, but my make-up is running and they're seeing me for my young, idealistic, head-in-the-sky self.

"I don't mean anything," Pastor Honolulu says. "That's great. It's just that, in this business, you'll stop liking people real fast. Understand?"

The irony of all this strikes me as too perfect. I want to say something theatrical like, "I think we understand each other perfectly." Or, even better, "Guy like you must see that happen a lot." Or, in my wildest dreams, "Pull the hell over. Call me if you ever meet Jesus."

So, I don't say anything.

The tour through his church takes most of the day. There is "The Gathering Place" - a fully functioning coffeehouse and pastry store in the front of the church. "The Warehouse" - their middle and highschool room themed after a guess-what. "Upstreet" - their grade school haunt, strangely named, for the theme here is a barnyard (how the ice cream "shoppe", fire engine, X-Box center fit into the barnyard remains a mystery) And, best of all, "The Stage," a fully functioning theatre for rascals little and big to perform some original plays written by some of their very own church members. The tour takes a few hours, and I'm thinking about how my church tour would go.

"Okay, so, here we have our sanctuary - keyboard and everything, we're pretty excited. Here's the office, you'll notice the color printer - 750 pages to an ink cartridge on this baby. And, yes, that's our bulletin board, featuring some hand written notes from some of our very own church volunteers. My room's back there, with the washer and dryer - any questions?"

Back in their office, I thumb the pages of my grant proposal nervously. Pastor Waikiki Beach pours me some coffee ("It's like our Holy Spirit around here - source of inspiration!") as the rest of his staff strolls in. Worship Pastor, Small Groups Pastor, Associate Pastor, Treasurer, Children's Pastor...

Jokes fly fast and furious, and the laughter that at the end of these jokes is at a level that borders apocalyptic. I play along with a nodding smile and join in. My feeblest efforts are greeted with uproarious chaos. Pastor Jon stays suspiciously aloof.

"Ha, ha, ha!" The pastor wheezes, wiping his eyes, "Whew, boy...that's how it is around here, Tyler."

I guess.

"Now, then," says Pastor Surf n' Turf. "What can we do for you?"

To Be Continued...

-untitled-

How we grasp and long for anything that lasts! Not fixed - the horrific cousin to lasting; the stale madness of repetition - but lasting, stability. And how few things in life offer it! We strive for anything that makes any sort of promise at all, and stick our talons into it, wrap our lips around it like a baby at a mother's breast. And yet, as if God Himself were set against us finding something lasting (and why on earth shouldn't He?) everything that looks stable flounders, tilts, wobbles, and eventually explodes - like wine glasses at the opera.
The thing I want most to last right now seems to be running low on fuel, perhaps puttering to a halt - and then, nothingness. If I've endured anything more difficult, I don't remember it. The hope is that there is something here that I'll remember later on - 'forever' is a term for the great life to come. Here, it is a whisper, a 'maybe,' a hoping against hope. In the meantime, there is something to be said for delaying your happiness, to abstain from what you could acquire, to cultivate a sense of longing.
More on that later. For now, I am tired and sad. If you pray, pray for me. Thank-you.

an introduction to the transient.

for starters, there are 86,400 seconds in every day. it will take you approximately 120 of those to read this. and, like eating jelly beans, that adds up. time is the only currency that G-d saw fit to divvy out to everybody from the get-go, although He gave you, me, and everyone a dramatically different allowance of it. so, there's no significant reason to believe that this won't be one of the last things you do before your bucket of allotted seconds runs dry. just saying. if you have kids, go play with them. if you have a husband or a wife, go make whoopee. if you have parents, call them. if you have five bucks, go spend it on something fun. if, completing that, you find that you're still sucking oxygen, then come back - this'll still be here.

and me, i'm the terrestrial transient. i've made it a point to lay down few roots here, having been told by reliable sources that moth and rust destroy what does take root. in essence, heaven lasts; this doesn't. heaven is solid, real, hard. earth is flimsy, transparent, sand-through-the-fingers stuff. if i do anything with this blog - doubtful, in and of itself - then it'll be to talk about releasing our frantic hold on the insubstantial things of life and living for what G-d offers in the infinite.

day coming when G-d's gonna suck the death and impermanence out of every thing you've ever seen and good many you haven't. then, finally, morning and the real. the dream will be ended. the term will be over. we'll be done with the title page, and onto chapter 1. and this transient will finally have a place to call 'home.'

-terrestrial transient.