The Lord's Day

Sure it's Saturday if you're Jewish but ... bear with me.

"There is a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning," Jimmy Buffett tells us.

Last night I found that line.

After a pleasant day discovering the joys of recovery from Friday night, I found myself strapped into a child's seat in the back of a small car. Luckily I held a glass of wine. The two women in the front seats were singing Gospel hymns sounding like Janis Joplin having a baby while singing "Happy Jack" Praise music.

I tried to concentrate on other things.

The sun was setting to the west and we were in the middle of marsh on the causeway that connects Tybee Island to Wilmington Island. The destination was a rendezvous with our dear friends Gyni and Mark who have the incredible misfortune of living three-and-a-half hours from the ocean. So we hooked up and we laughed and caught one another up as dear friends do ... the only thing missing was a bass player.

Then we came home and it was an early night. Way before midnight I was sound asleep.

A little after midnight, I woke up and stumbled to the bathroom. My throat was dry so I stumbled to the kitchen for a glass of water and poured it down my throat.

Then the spirit of the Lord descended upon me and I opened the sliding glass doors and walked outside on the beloved back deck. The chill of the past several days had blown elsewhere so I stood there naked and looked up to the heavens. God had sprinkled stars across the sky and the moon was a sliver of itself. It was so quiet and on this silent night all is calm ... all is bright. Somewhere shepherds were quacking at the site ... I just stood there in solidarity with them.

A story from earlier in the evening was given to me at that moment as a gift to be enjoyed as the best gifts are. She had told this story earlier in the evening.

Tim and Barb were getting married and she had attended the ceremony. The thing is though ... Barb had cancer. The doctors had already taken everything out of her that they could ... so she stood there frail in her white gown, holding red roses that would be used for other purposes in their not-too-distant future.

"Do you vow," the minister asked ,"in sickness and in health ... till death do you part."

And they cried as they said that they do.

The Minister cried.

The entire congregation cried.

But through the tears, they said that they gladly accept themselves in spite of ... the most difficult of circumstances.

Barb died within a year ... but isn't that a lesson in love?

So I stood there in the night that God had made, staring at the constellations, marveling at the silent Lord's Day that I was suddenly a part of, re-living a story that I wasn't a part ... offering prayers of Thanksgiving and praise for the things that I do have.

Goddess came through her doggie door and stuck her head between the picks on railing to see whatever it was that I was looking at ... which was nothing ... but at the same time ... it was everything in the universe exploding in my heart all at the same time.

Then I went back inside ... no longer stumbling, but with purpose ... and climbed back in the safety of my new bed ... excitedly waiting on the new dawning ... of the rest of the Lord's Day.