This Easter season I've been thinking about this haiku sequence I wrote a few years ago. So I decided to repost it.
Does Jesus ever
In the last two months, I finally joined the ranks of both Facebook users and smartphone owners. So we were coming back home from the family Easter dinner, and I was playing with my phone, juggling email, Facebook, and hockey playoff updates, while Michael drove. It made for a rather disjointed coversation.
R: The Blackhawks are tied 2-2.
M: Where in the game are they?
R: End of 2nd period.
click, click, click
R: Oh, M walked into a door at church today and needed 4 stitches in her eyebrow.
M: Really, when did that happen? She seemed fine when I saw her.
R: I don't know. Maybe after we left. She says the mimosas helped with the pain. . . . Listen to this. Some guy wants to know if we really serve mimosas at church, and if so, where is it located? I'm tempted to say that we only serve mimosas at Easter, but it's not really my place to comment on her thread.
click, click, click
R: Third period's started. It's already 3-3.
M: Who scored first, and who answered?
R: Canucks, then Blackhawks.
click, click, click
R: T wants to read my novel. Do you think I should let her?
M: Why not?
R: What happens to Max might upset her because of her recent situation.
M. I don't think you need to worry about that.
click, click, click
R: 13 minutes left. Score's still tied.
click, click, click
R: I decided to email T and tell her there's something in the novel that might bother her.
M: If you think that's necessary.
R: I'd just feel better about it. Here this is what I wrote. (reads email)
M: Ok.
click, click, click
R: Score's still tied.
click, click, click
R: Wow, the Canucks didn't start Luongo tonight. . . . Score's still tied. Eight minutes left. You know, if this was football, we could find out who had the ball, but the puck changes too fast in hockey to do that.
M: Basketball's like that too.
R: Baseball's the easiest to find out who has the ball.
M: Yeah.
R: I wonder how the Flubs did.
click, click, click
R. They lost to the Dodgers. 7-3
click, click, click
R: Six minutes left. The two book clubs at church are having a combined potluck. It's the 11th. Ok?
M: Yeah, I think so.
R: I think I'll take my Swedish meatballs.
M: They'll like that.
click, click, click
R: Four minutes left. We might get home in time to see the last minute of the game.
M: I doubt it.
R: You never know. There might be time outs. But hockey doesn't drag out as much as football, does it?
M: No. But basketball's the worst. The last two minutes take forever. It drives me crazy.
R: Fourteen seconds left. Still tied. Thirteen seconds.
M and R: 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
(hit refresh)
R: Still 13 seconds. They must be on time out.
(hit refresh)
R: Ok, the third period's over. Still 3-3. We'll get home in time to see OT. Good timing.
M: Yeah
click, click, click
R: My grand-nephew's house was hit by lightning
M: (uncontrollable laugher)
Monday night we were in the city (Chicago), and on our way into the restaurant, I passed a man in a wheelchair shaking a plastic cup of coins. He was also talking on a cell phone, and as I went by him, I heard him say, "Not now, man, I'm at my job."
I have no way of knowing what personal, societal, and economic forces brought him to that place. But is it judgmental for me to wish we lived in a world where that kind of diligence could be funneled into something more productive?
