Wait, What Day is It?

I could blame it on classes starting on a Tuesday, on the deep disruption in my Circadian rhythm resulting from the adjustment to campus sleeping patterns, or the lack of pity our professors took in assigning homework loads the first week back. But it's really my fault We were walking to my friend's house to make pizzas when, for the first time all day, I looked down at my watch and saw the little digital SU blinking back at me. "Wait, Will, is it Sunday?" His look of really, Erin? told me, yes, I was that out of it. I'd been back at school since Monday night and hadn't thought about anything besides where to hang which poster and whether to buy a meal plan. I hadn't really been paying attention to which day it was, and I certainly hadn't been thinking about God.

In times of transition, I regress to self-preservation. I need to buy sheets. Are mattress pads really necessary? Wow, they sell so many different kinds of shampoo here. I wonder how long I can go without doing laundry? I hope the cookies are still as good as last year. Well, maybe it would be better if they weren't. I hope no one thinks I'm a freshman. Hey, isn't that the point guard? Clearly my mind was occupied by complex metaphysical meanderings. But I bet I could have squeezed God in there somewhere.

It was 5:30 p.m. when I looked down at my watch. I'd missed all the day's services without even realizing it, despite biking past Chapel of the Cross three times that same day. "Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come," Jesus said in Mark 13:33. Well, last Sunday Jesus could have sold me those pizza crusts, and I would have said "Thank you, sir" and walked right out the door. He could have handed me my English syllabus on Tuesday and I would have nodded and nonchalantly pulled out my highlighter. I was alert to my own needs, but that's about it. In the transition to school, I reverted to a complete focus on the basics. It's not that I expect to spend my life pondering the divine. But an occasional prayer on the way to class or paging through the Bible instead of paging through pictures on Facebook can change the tone of an entire day. Why did I waste so much time thinking about the other stuff?

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:25-6.

I need to keep my mind on the things above (or at the very least, notice when Sunday comes around), and know the rest is really taken care of.

By Erin Becker  |  August 26, 2008; 2:43 PM ET  | Category:  Tar Heel Testament
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Posted by: Norrie Hoyt | September 4, 2008 3:46 PM
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