March 7 – “What if …”

It’s been cold again here on the Island.  A couple of days ago it was back down to almost freezing.  The wind chill was way below that because the wind was whipping all over the place.  Fortunately I had to spend most of that day working on the Ash Wednesday service.  That went pretty well, by the way.  Not a huge crowd bay any means, but there were a few new ladies from the community who have been to the Easter sunrise service before.  There were some of our regulars in attendance.  Our four most recent snowbirds were there.  One of our regular Catholics indicated that she felt right at home with the service, other than she kind of missed the constant motion of stand, sit, kneel, stand, kneel, stand, sit, etc. that she remembered from her youth.  I remember it well from my own childhood days at Grace Episcopal Church.  I told the group that night that obviously God had other plans for that high school kid with the Episcopal seminary information next to his bed.  I remember doing a creative writing assignment in high school where I created a first person scenario of my life projected into the future.  It involved my going into the Episcopal priesthood.  Of course it also told about my sterling Olympic career as a basketball player.  The punch line of the whole thing was how I had changed my name.  I was actually none other than Ken Spain (one of the hot college players at the time for the University of Houston back in the Elvin Hayes era).  Hey, I had to bring some sense of reality into what was otherwise a pretty far-fetched document, right?  I still sometimes wonder how my life would have been different had I gone on to become a priest.  I know, too, that in some ways, it would probably have been eerily the same.  Guess that would be a topic for a Twilight Zone episode or something.  I do know that I wouldn’t trade the life I stumbled into for anything.  I figure the God who orchestrated this whole, crazy life adventure I have been on probably knew what he was doing.  I think I’ll keep trusting him to manage the big picture and invade the details as he sees fit.

I did venture outside once that day.  A call about a structure fire came over the fire department ap on my phone. It wasn’t a fully involved fire, though.  It was in a small apartment building, so several engines were dispatched just in case.  The resident was not at home when the smoke alarms started going off.  A neighbor upstairs noticed the smoke and called it in.  Seems that the heater had somehow become obstructed and was getting hotter and hotter.  The smoldering had obviously begun filling the apartment with a thickening haze.  The fire fighters arrived in time to get everything under control before the blaze had a chance to explode.  Gotta be proud of those guys.

Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Father, I trust you.  You can do a much better job at directing this whole life thing.  Amen.