Time Passes

I was back on campus yesterday for the Redwoods Presbytery meeting. We started with worship in Stewart Chapel - at the normal chapel time so I saw teachers and students and it felt normal plus a few dozen extra people I did not know. And then it was time for the students and teachers to leave for class and I didn't.

And that almost felt like normal.

It was a poignant moment of transition that I didn't feel until after folks had left and I looked around and realized that I was sitting among strangers. I know a number of Redwoods people, but most of the people in that room were strangers to me. Given enough time, I could come to know many of them, their stories, their joys, their struggles. But I don't know how much time I have among them. I don't know where I'm going. All I have is this inbetween time. Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and you and I, heading out to destinations unknown... When do we need to act and when have we acted too soon?

There is a creek near my home. This morning I went to sit beside it with my bible and my book of common worship, the personal prayer edition. Job lamaents his abandonment by God, Lazares dies and its a metaphore for Jesus's own upcoming death and the Word is preached all over the Mediterranian and elders are strengthed and comissioned with prayer and fasting. As I sit silently watching leafs, each taking its turn to gracefully take flight until it touches the surface of the barely perceivable moving water, I notice a deer on the other side of the creek watching me. Together we sit in the morning sunlight. How much does a deer note the change in seasons? What does time mean to it? Is a deer's life a true eternal zen moment of now? Or do deer also dance in the love/life that pulses underneath everything? There are three spider webs gleaming in the sideways morning light to my right. Then the deer snorts three times three, turns and leaps away. Two more deer emerge into my view to leap and run and to follow the first.

Creator, created, creating.

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A couple of random changes to note:
The Chinese resturant that closed for the eternal remodel has or is about to reopen. An art studio has opened in that big brown office building next to the knitting store. Two of the stores (gem & fig garden) have reopened but it looks like the chocolate shop has closed.
There is probably more, but that's all I could see driving through the downtown area - which involves avoiding all the other cars, bikes, pedestrians, etc.