I'm Feelin September

It's almost fall and I'm so ready I can't even take it. It's absolutely my favorite season. The days are cooler. The nights are crisp. The leaves change colors. Football is on, playoff baseball begins, and fires will start burning. C'monnnn somebody I'm getting fired up (a la Josh Cossey). But it's still September and people post their new fall clothes on Instagram because it's not cold enough, or at all, to wear them yet. I hear Starbucks even released their Pumpkin Spiced Latee early this year - making money off of your anticipation. I'm guilty also, I'd probably be willing to throw away the rest of September like all of you. But I have to slow myself down and remember what the rest of September offers; with the last bit of summer, we're offered all kinds of moments, and that's something we can never get back This isn't another cease the day blog. Not another "#YOLO" anthem. I'm not telling you to live your life to the fullest and skydive and travel and stay out too late. I'm not telling you not to look forward to things. I'm telling you to feel the moment to the fullest, the real moments, the big ones that seem so small but later loop in your mind like a six second Vine.

Doesn't it feel like we live our lives waiting for the next big event? The next season. We're a bunch of moment wasters. My college baseball coach shared a story with the seniors every year, "the marble story", to remind the seniors just how few moments we had left to run out to our positions, slide in the dirt, and get grass stains on our white pants like 10 year old boys. It's kind of long and throws off the flow of a normal blog. Luckily there are no rules on this blog, so give it a read if you have time.

"The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable. A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement shack with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning, turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it...

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. He was telling whoever he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles".

I was intrigued and stopped to listen to what he had to say. "Well, Tom, it sure sounds like you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital."

He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me keep a good perspective on my own priorities." And that's when he began to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles." "You see, I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years." "Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900 which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime.Now stick with me Tom, I'm getting to the important part."

"It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to enjoy."

"So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round-up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away." "I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight."

"Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time." "It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.

73 Old Man, this is K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!" You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."

"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile.

"Oh, nothing special, it's just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles."

So, how many Saturdays do you have left, and how many have you wasted? I think life is all about moments. Saturdays are really just the greatest opportunity for moments. I don't know what season you're in. Maybe you're in an incredibly fruitful season and you never want it to end. Maybe it's been the worst season of your life. Maybe it's neither, and you are just muddling along through each day somewhere in between. You could be starting your freshman year of college or just realizing you're a senior. You could be looking forward to your wedding. The perfect vacation. Falling in love. Chasing your dreams. You could be facing tragedy. Struggling to get up each morning. Finding it difficult to stay sober. Avoiding admitting you were wrong. Starting a new ministry. Or rebuilding a baseball program.

Wherever we're at we have to remember we only have so many moments. No season will last forever, whether good or bad or in between. We have to face it all. We have to be present. We have to feel heartbreak and fear and pain and suffering. We have to feel disappointment and let down and being unsure and confused. We have to feel our hearts beating out of our chests with joy and excitement. We have to feel love and grace and compassion. We have to find the ability to be real. If we're not facing the music we're not living. 

"She wasn't waiting for the good part. She knows that these are the good parts, even while they're the bad parts. She wasn't shut down, going through the motions. She wasn't holding tight till this season passed. She was right there with me, right there with her kids, right in all the glory and pain and mess and beauty of a spring night in between everything." -Shauna Niequist

There's something about all the moments and all the months. There's something about staying present that is so risky and so fulfilling. There's something about not just passing the days and numbing yourself from the bigness of a moment. Right? That's what makes the moments bruitful. Beautiful and Brutal. They both make you feel alive. I can't help but think that Jesus gave us all the feelings and all the moments for a reason. So I can't just throw away September while I'm waiting on October. I can't throw away being diligent and learning while bigger dreams are unfolding right in front of me. I can't throw away learning how to be a husband while I'm waiting on a wife. I can't throw away Saturday mornings. I can't throw away any of those times, not when it's easy, not when it's painful, not when it's boring, not when I'm waiting for something great to happen.

This September I dare you to feel as many moments as you can.

More to come- J