There's Something Going On That's Not Quite Right

It's 8:55AM according to the clock on my DVR that I think re-sets itself with nightly precision against whatever the folks that engineered those atomic clocks decided should be the world's official time.

And, for the better part of 48 (or more) weeks per year for as long as I can remember, I'm usually standing with a cup of coffee or bottle of water by the eastern staircase in our lobby at this time. I'm kind of a staircase gargoyle. It's fun to say "good morning" to folks coming to our church for Sunday worship services. Check in on folks. Exchange pleasantries.

But it feels weird to be sitting at my house for the last 3 hours without executing the ingrained morning routine to be heading up to CBC to do that very thing.

Yes, I've taken vacation time before, but hopefully I'm out of town if that vacation involves a Sunday. That's an entirely different daily miracle of a morning newspaper. Maybe a walk. The location of the time in the Word & prayer is different. The coffee is usually purchased at a chain restaurant, either local or national. The routine itself is disrupted, so you don't feel like you should be somewhere else. You are somewhere else. There's enough diversion to keep your brain occupied.

Right now, my brain is saying, "This isn't right. Your morning routine is complete! You're sitting here like a bump on a log and you know you aren't where you're supposed to be! You're in your kitchen, on your computer, and you should be doing what you do during this time! You're late for your assigned tasks! You should be scrambling with all your might to make up for your lateness! Get your bookbag! Get your last-minute notes for your class! Get going! Get going!"

It's all I can do to get the other voice in my brain to tell Voice #1 to sit it down and shut it up. To pipe down and leave me alone. To mind his very own business (Voice #1 is kind of athletic coach voice...somewhat encouraging but with a sense of urgency to complete the task and the inherent unsettling threat that if you don't do it right you'll have to run laps) and let me enjoy the moment.

But the other voice in my brain is kind of laid-back...like the cool English teacher that you liked in college that probably smoked weed and liked his subject matter but wasn't too strict of a grader as long as you wrote your essays to show you had at least some working grasp of the topic--usually indicated by using the word "foreshadowing"--and sounding like the calm voice of an airline pilot, only slower.

And voice #1 seems to be winning at the moment.

Hopefully, over today and the next 7 days, the cool English teacher voice will exasperate the coach and we can get on with the business of laid-back deep-thinking...or lack thereof.

But right now, Coach Voice is telling me to take a lap and get my head right.