Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
General Christian
Relationships and Religion
Sometimes, We Can Sit

Sometimes, We Can Sit

Last updated on: May 25, 2024 at 7:21 am by Mark Williams

0 Comments

Sometimes, We Can Sit 2024-05-25T07:21:47-07:00 Mark Williams

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

‘m

My two favorite/Williams

SOMETIMES

Sometimes, we can sit and pop a soda and take a breath. Maybe sit under a mesquite tree and feel the last of the cool spring breeze before that breeze can be used to cook a rotisserie chicken. Of course, it would have to be before dawn, but who isn’t up peeing then anyways.

It gives us a chance to take an accounting of our lives, as we sit or stand, holding on to the wall as we do so. We keep our eyes shut anyway because they are glued shut from the night’s dream activity. We hate to admit it but it’s kind of fun leaving them that way, and not prying them apart. I’m walking like we’re 107 back to our beds, reaching out for the walls to steady us as we step over the two dogs who together weigh enough to be a pulling guard for the University of Alabama. We don’t want to wake them and know they sleep because of the longshoreman type snoring.

We get back in bed and attempt one more time to go to sleep. It’s too late. The list has started running in our brains. The list of things we should be doing, didn’t do, need to do. The author of that trap seeming to poke us while asking in a nasally slobbery voice, what are you going to do? The bastard is always questioning the list because he knows it’s the one thing which will rob me of joy.

Thinking about….

Thinking about, questioning, worrying like nothing during the daylight hours. It’s the dark, the dark which is supposed to be peaceful and serine and yet for hours, I can lay there and run down those damn rabbit trails of questions like nothing I do during the day.

Nothing.

Bastards.

By the way

By the way, bastards is my favorite swear word and it always has to be said with the s at the end so its plural. I don’t know why. It’s a rule I made for myself years ago and if you want to use it, it’s your rule now.

Anyway, the list is a bitch. It doesn’t allow me to dwell on good stuff. Actually, it takes good stuff and makes it an issue. Like did you feed the dogs tonight? Son of a bitch that was seven hours ago! Oh, I know, but I don’t think you fed them and they have been hungry allllll night. What about your debit card? Did you get it back from the restaurant when you paid for your dinner the dogs didn’t have? You better get up and check your wallet. You know, you are getting older, starting to forget things, like the dogs or the credit card. What are you going to do, you know, at the end of your life? Who’s going to find you?

See?

Bastards.

I was listening to two songs, back to back last night, after a day of minimal issues, thinking about whether I will sleep or what might be on the list tonight. Then I started thinking about life, living, seasons of life, you know—small shit. It’s been a long run and apparently I have a longer run to make. That’s fine. I’m jiggy with it. I started to think about the what if’s which I do somewhat now. You know what if this or that. Here are a few:

Like, what if I was doctor instead of my brother or in addition to my brother and decided I wanted to go treat the lame in Madagascar? What would it be like if I got drunk on their guava wine and danced the Tutu dance of fertility better than anyone and they made me a prince?

What if….

How about I really landed that plane with the broken nose gear with all the handicapped kids coming back from Disneyland, holding it up on just the two back wheels until I could just lay it on the runway like a down pillow?

What if I smoked cigars—daily?

What if I really would surrender all of South America, all of Africa, the Middle East, chunks of Europe, China and Russia of course, and give all those people to space aliens instead of my dogs? Like there would not be a question mark heard from the sentence before I surrendered those people. Sorry, but if you have a dog, well, you know.

Maybe the occasional tremors in my left hand get worse? How will I finally learn to play the banjo? Or the bagpipes? Yeah, that’s going to happen. Don’t move into this neighborhood unless you like the sound of something like screaming cats.

What if I die in my sleep at the age of 94 instead of setting myself adrift on an ice flow out of Barrows, Alaska with a pork roast tied around my neck during polar bear mating season? Is that so bad to die in your sleep and not in a fashion in which I can be a part of the cycle of life?

That guy on the street corner last night, hearing my music from Brother’s Osborn titled Nobody’s Nobody, and started to dance with the music from my truck, and we looked at each other, a guy in a truck and a homeless guy, just being normal for about twenty seconds—what if that guy just needed someone to see him and that was something he was missing and today woke up with just a smidge of home and went and was offered a job?

What if the best….

What if the best, most influential, most dramatic part of my life is in front of me, not behind me? Jesus that wears me out thinking that the future will make the past look like a double-dipped ice cream cone.

What if that is all part of The Plan?

Damn. I better lace up my shoes.

Home (markjwilliams.com)

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/insideourgooeyminds/about/

Relationships and Religion

Peace in the presence of God

About Mark Williams

ark Williams spent the first twenty-one years of his career as a Special Agent for the Organized Crime Division of the State Attorney General’s Office. As part of his duties, he investigated organized crime, homicides, and fraud cases submitted by other agencies to that office. He has traveled across the United States as an instructor for law enforcement in various capacities. After he retired, he became a high school English teacher at an inner-city school in central Phoenix where he is the fourth generation in his family to live in the valley. Mark was married for almost thirty-eight years and is a retired widower. He has three children and ten grandchildren. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

April 21, 2024

Where is This Jesus Fella?