Strictly Business

When I hit the gas of my mini van.......

(I own a mini van........  I used to be cool once..........)

sometimes it jerks backwards like the transmission's falling out.  A couple of months ago it happened again on my way to work and backing out of my garage, I hit the gas.  It jumped.  But that time I didn't even notice because I was pissed......

And Hurt...

In fact, I was so upset that my eyes started filling up and so I just turned the music up to cover over everything and when I caught the sound; in an instant I knew it was the blues.

My drive to work is always a mad dash of danger trying to keep from being late to work.  (new record-only 3 tardies this year).  Sometimes I pray in my car on the way to work (working with the crazies will drive you to it..... Most common prayer?  Lord Have Mercy.)  But my drives are different these days.  Its my wife (and me).  We had "a talk" a few weeks ago and just like that, my 19 year marriage left me feeling like the transmission was falling out.

BTW,* It would be inappropriate to assign blame here (that is, unless of course I'm the only one reading this blog..... which I totally expect one day to be true.  Don't stop reading, Belgium!!!!

But the thing that shocked me, (maybe the thing that happens after 19 years of marriage) was how the conversation was so tame and dispassionate.  A discussion of the worst of our life together discussed like facts....  Numb,  like it was all strictly business.

That said, I was thinking about that  on my way into work.  It's always a long drive south down the highway and I pretty much just have my music and my thoughts, but when I get to the Interstate I start looking for the sky-line (my hospital is close to downtown) and then there's the very short drive down 11th street, and all the strange scraggly people that walk around there.

I've noticed that every city has an 11th street.  It's the place caught between........  The place where everything between the business-suited-rich and the homeless-poor intermingle (and sometimes collide).  It's the place where everyone cross the same street, use the same gas stations and bathrooms; wait on the same buses.  But it's also the place where everything is uncomfortable.  No one talks or makes eye contact; unless, of course, they have some kind of business.

One of my former business associates recently lost his job.  He's been a great boss.  Done outstanding things for his organization (on 11th street).  Loyal beyond words.  When I asked him why it happened, his response (because he's an honorable man) was, "It wasn't personal.  Just business.  Missed goals".  And I thought about how it's all so easily forgotten, how it's such a "what have you done for me lately" kind of world.  And I thought about what a common phrase that is; "it's just business".

When I think of my 19 years with my wife (which we're not giving up on BTW) my former boss, the people of eleventh street I wonder, what does it mean that life is just business?  How did we come to this?  And where is God in a world where people are so blind to each other?.... silent?  And expendable? Invisible?  Doesn't it seem like there should be something more than this?

I pulled into the parking garage; parked my car and started running towards my clock-in spot.  And when I saw I was a minute early I slowed my pace and settled in.  And as I continued my walk I wondered about God, and I wondered if God new any blues songs, or if God understood what it was like to be discarded like leftovers, or how it felt to walk down a busy street awkward, alone, and invisible.  And I wondered if God in all of God's God-ness would ever consider learning how to play the blues.