Nearly a year and a half ago I started my job as a caseworker with refugees from Cuba. Today is my last day.

I knew this day, August 22, was coming for quite a while, and at times it seemed like it couldn’t get here soon enough. But here it is, and yes, it has snuck up on me.

This afternoon after hauling a desk/cabinet/shelf/monstrosity from one house to another, and after dropping off a couple of food baskets for recently arrived clients, I’ll come back to the office and I’ll begin to clean out my desk. I’ll find the company handbook which has sat in the drawer, unread, all this time. I’ll find receipts I should have turned in months ago. I’ll begin sorting through sticky notes, deciding which ones my coworkers might need, and which ones to toss. I’ll turn in my keys. I’ll turn off the lights.

Already today, on the phone and on the street, I have let some clients know that today is my last day, which has warranted handshakes and (sad?) smiles and “suerte con todo y dios te bendiga.”

I’ll still be around, though. In a sense I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still run into Cubans on the street and they’ll still ask me where their rent check is and I’ll remind them that it’s no longer my responsibility. They’ll already know this, of course, but they’ll have gotten in the habit of asking. Can’t hardly blame ‘em. We all have our habits, you know; our routines.

And one of the things I’ve noticed about habits and routines is that we begin to lose sight of the details. We begin to go through life, bouncing from one thing to the next, when all we have, if we’re honest, is this moment, in this place, with these people. So one thing I have been trying to do better during this recent phase of life and one thing I will keep trying to do as I begin the next phase is to notice. To notice colors and smells and tastes and feelings, to notice the looks on people’s faces, the gum marks on the sidewalk, the birds in the air and the songs that they sing… you know, the stuff of life. To notice, one of these days, that the hot, humid August air has given way to the crisp, cool air of September, and that the late-afternoon shadows of buildings on city streets seem to be a bit more pronounced than usual.

To notice. After all…

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries.
(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

I went to the Barnstormers game(s) the other night and Carl Everett became one of my new favorite baseball players of all time. Here’s more or less how it went down.

I walked in a few minutes late, at the beginning of the second inning, and as the first batter I saw on the opposing team came back to the dugout, I thought to myself, he looks familiar; he looks like Carl Everett. So I looked it up in the game program, and sure enough, he was in fact on the roster. I made this known to the others. Now, Carl was the designated hitter, which means he doesn’t play in the field. During innings when he was not hitting, he’d stroll down to the bullpen to chat with the relief pitchers. This gave us ample opportunity to yell his name at the top of our lungs, being right behind the dugout as we were. We also yelled when he batted. One time he got a double. Then, since his team was the enemy, we all cheered for his teammates to get out.

Anyway, the one time when he was walking we were so persistent in our yelling that he looked into the crowd, and while not seeing us in paricular, gave a two-finger wave/salute in our general direction.

This was like pouring gas on the fire for us.

It was a double-header the other night so between games I walked home to put on a jacket since it got chilly when the sun went down. I also went on Wikipedia and printed out the page about Carl. Good golly, there’s some wild stuff on there, namely his controversial quotes about dinosaurs and the moon and homosexuality, and his tendency to get in fights.

So from then on when he would bat or walk past we would yell and hold up a page from the print-out. I gave Wendy page four, with references and other boring stuff. Sorry Wendy. We also began yelling things about dinosaurs, using the nickname he got in Seattle, “C-Rex.”

Paul had caught a foul ball, so later in the second game we agreed to move a few rows down and take some seats right behind the dugout in hopes of getting Carl’s autograph. Paul had earlier been reprimanded for sitting on the steps down by the field, so props to him for still agreeing to go down towards the field again. As Carl made his way back to the dugout for his final at bat, we got his attention. Paul had to ask for the autograph on the ball first, since it was a slightly more reasonable request than my own, even though Paul is in his mid-twenties and is asking a minor league player for an autograph, which is funny. But Carl agreed to sign Paul’s ball and at this point I moved in and presented him with the Wikipedia print-out.

Me: “Could you sign this too?”
Carl: “A piece of paper?”
Me: “It’s Wikipedia.”
Carl: “You don’t have nothin’ better to do with your time?”

I’m still figuring out how to frame the autographed Wikipedia print-out. As you can see, it’s pretty epic.

Dear Seventeen-year-old Self,

1. You don’t need to freak out about “God’s will for your life.” Do your best to ignore those who cause you to lose sleep over that. Just read 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7 and get on with it already. God’s will for your life is your sanctification. When you are sanctified you love God and love people and that’s all there is, really. You didn’t come across Frederick Buechner until far too late in life (24!), but hold on to this quote: “The place God calls you to is where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Narrow in on that place and don’t compromise. That’s God’s will for your life. Picking a major in college, and picking a career, and finding a wife and everything else you’ll get bogged down doing should help you love God and love people in a way that is uniquely you; but it should never be what paralyzes you.

2. Don’t wait for those around you to do things, because maybe God has things for you to do that those around you cannot or will not ever do, or maybe they will only do them once you’ve taken that first step forward. And you don’t want to miss out, so don’t just wait to follow their lead. This goes for big things and small. Next year you’ll whimsically decide to become a DJ on the Millersville radio station. And after a couple semesters you’ll get really sick of it and will never want to be a DJ again, but that whimsical decision, like other decisions you’ve made and will go on to make, will be turning points. Put yourself in situations in which you experience new things. This will require initiative. You will travel. You’ll need to make a habit of talking to strangers. It will even eventually have you reading a lot of books (yes, I know you never read). It might not make sense. But it is necessary if you’re serious about finding your place in the world.

3. Satan is prowling. He really is. Don’t give him an inch.

4. God is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving, and completely faithful. You’re in good hands.

4. You’ll wonder why you thought leaving high school was such a bad thing. Enjoy each day and love people. You’ll stay in touch with those you choose to stay in touch with, and losing track of people you only sort of knew is not the end of the world.

4.5. But while we’re at it… do you really want to skip your senior prom and instead go to a metal concert in a church gym??

5. Take the time to stop and stare. You live in a really big world and you have a lot to learn and laugh at and ponder and a lot to appreciate God for. Certain people will enter your life and will make that clear to you without even trying. I’ll spare you the details.

6. Don’t eat Taco Bell Express at the Houston Airport right before boarding the plane.

7. Right now you are numb. You’ll go to a couple of funerals next year for people you know. There will be tears and snotty tissues all around. You won’t cry, and that will bother you. You will eventually trace this at least in part to growing up where friends come and go and a coping mechanism is to refuse to allow anyone to get too close. Slowly you’ll learn to open yourself up to feeling things. Sure, it will hurt like hell sometimes, but it is good, and healthy, and you’ll never want to return to numbness.

8. There are some hard times ahead. Rather than trying to avoid painful times, search the Scriptures for the promises of God. You’ll need them when the storms come. If I told you about the hard times in detail you’d do everything you could to avoid them because you hate pain, but I think they are probably necessary, and you won’t do much good in a cave. On the other hand, there are some unspeakably wonderful times ahead too, and if I told you about them you’d try to orchestrate them and even if you could pull it off, it wouldn’t be the same, because one of the coolest things about God is that he dazzles his children all the time with unexpected infusions of grace and mercy and goodness and love. It’s really better if these things catch you off-guard.

9. I’ll finish with something else Buechner says, which is pretty good advice. Remember that one of life’s great mercies is that it’s not given us to know the might-have-been of things.

10. Oh, and come to terms with the fact that as long as you live, you’ll be building the airplane midflight.

I used to call myself an aspiring writer. I have since dropped the aspiring part. Aspiring still describes my status as an author, but even today I am a writer. Writing is not my full-time job, but I like to write, so - stroke of genius! - why not write about my full-time job from time to time?

Today, let’s discuss lunch. I have a routine, more or less. Or a few routines. Tuesdays and Fridays, of course, are Market Days. As I have written previously, there is a little something I like to call the Trifecta, which involves two meat samosas, two chicken fajitas, and a number five smoothie which contains the remnants of many a deliciously mutilated fruit. That’s Tuesday and Friday. The other days of the week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, are a little less nailed down, but generally involve either Speed’s Subs next door or Brisas del Caribe, the Dominican place a block away. Occasionally I’ll go for a Reuben at Isaac’s or even General Tso’s at Good Taste Chinese (the latter only when I am feeling up for amazingly tasty food that will then sit like a greasy brick in my stomach for the rest of the day).

All that to say that today was a Speed’s day. Small meatball sub, American cheese. $3.50 including tax. Jerry makes a wicked meatball sub, I should have you know. But even the best meatball sub, as you can imagine, is messy. And messy food is risky business.

Moments ago said risk backfired.

As I leaned forward at my desk to take a bite of the first half of the sub - slowly, savoring its goodness - one meatball, fearing for its life no doubt, slipped out the other side. It happened in slow motion and fast forward at the same time. First it landed on my lap, right where my untucked blue collared shirt meets my brown corduroy pants (as if it couldn’t choose one or the other!). Next it ricocheted off the arm of my chair, gunking it up, before landing smack dab on my navy blue zippered hooded sweatshirt lying on the carpeted floor beside me.

The upside, if there is one, is that a meatball sitting on a sweatshirt is still fair game, whereas a meatball on the floor is off limits.

In what has become a bit of a seasonal tradition, my 2007 autumn mix is now available for popular consumption. If you’d like to get your ears on “Can’t Stop The Seasons,” let me know. If we’re friends you could call me on the phone. And if you’re lucky I might throw in a special bonus mix which has been appropriately titled “Jesus Had Long Hair Too!: A Tribute to CCM (1980-1999).”

From across the coffee shop, I observe a middle-aged woman with dark-rimmed glasses and a button-down blouse. After ordering an in-house mug and a scone, or whatever middle-aged women eat for breakfast, she goes over to the counter with the five different pots of coffee, takes a step back to compensate for her now-less-than-perfect eyesight, shifts her weight to the right leg and turns her head slightly. She pushes down the lever and all throughout the coffee shop you hear the air coming out along with the few remaining drops of coffee in the pot. She pushes it down several more times. Then she glances over at the bar and the cashier and makes her way in that direction. Still two or three paces away, she leans towards the barista and, with the now-splattered mug in one hand she points up (though she intends to point at the pots behind her) and says, as if whispering, but in a completely audible voice, “The yirgacheffe is all.”

That’s right: “The. Yirgacheffe. Is. All.”

This is how Lancastrians speak. Even the high society organic-fair-trade coffee drinkers among us, who are careful to e-nun-ci-ate every syllable of the very exotic, very swanky word yirgacheffe, speak this way.

To say that something is all is to say it is gone, used up, heretofore nonexistent. And it should be noted that this phrase, intended as a statement, ends with what sounds suspiciously like the sort of voice inflection that, in most corners of the English-speaking world, is reserved for questions.

“The yirgacheffe is all?”

It occurs to me as I sip on my own cup of yirgacheffe that maybe, just maybe, this phrase I ponder - this mostly nonsensical but in this situation completely understood statement-question hybrid - has never been spoken before in the history of the planet.

These, I realize, are among the just deserts of waking up early and going to the coffee shop in an attempt to become a born again morning person.

“ The whole enterprise — there are examples on the right and left — of asking “What Would Jesus Do?” on the earned-income tax credit or missile defense is presumptuous. Jesus, were he around again in the flesh, would probably be doing sensible things such as healing the sick, embracing outcasts and preaching sacrificial love. After all, he showed little interest in issuing a “Contract With the Roman Empire.” But his followers eventually found that “love your neighbor” had political consequences, leading them to challenge slavery, infanticide and the mistreatment of women and children.“

…from The Washington Post article The Gospel of Obama.

In Neil Postman’s 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death it becomes clear that he considered television not only the bane of his existence, but also one of the most culturally destructive elements of the world in which he lived. The book is framed by the prophecies of George Orwell in 1984 and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World:

“What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right” (pp. xix-xx).

As one who often goes days, if not weeks, without watching television, it is easy for me to sympathize with Postman as he laments the decline of the age of “print” and decries the rise in “show business” as the sole forum for public discourse, but I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions about his arguments.

Obviously, when reading a more-than-two-decade-old book about what was then the current condition of our culture, it becomes clear that things have changed. I am not sure that television has the same control on society that it did in 1985, and I’d attribute that mostly to the Internet.

In some ways, the Internet is a return to print, but in other ways, it has taken television further than ever before. So I am left wondering what Postman would have to say about the Internet and its hold on us all: should the World Wide Web be considered synonymous with soma?

I am happy to announce that I am going into the motivational poster business. To kick off the series, I decided to begin with a photo from the crocodile farm I visited in Vietnam last fall, the same one in which we threw cashews at the heads of these crocs and walked away tingling.