Street preacher

I saw an actual street preacher yesterday. On my way to a meeting, I saw him on a campus street corner, standing not on the proverbial soapbox but on a small step stool, the kind parents keep next to the toilet to help out their toddlers. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a slightly tattered bible, and declaiming in a loud but not obnoxious voice to passing students and commuters. I gave him wide berth, did not make eye contact, and left. I was in a hurry, as were most of the passers-by.

My meeting evaporated though. I came by again with a hot cup of coffee, some time to kill, and a bit of curiousity. I found a place to sit, suitably far away, close enough to hear what he was saying, but not so close that I might seem personally involved. You're the entertainment, was my message to him. He was probably happy to have me anyway, he had only two or three people stopping to listen.

He was preaching on vanity. Something like this, perhaps:

This is all vanity. You study hard, you get that piece of paper, and what does it get you. When you're on your deathbed. When you're killed by a drunk driver. My uncle was killed by a drunk -- 40 years old. Matthew says, drunks will not enter the kingdom of heaven...

You get the idea. Sure, in my head I was arguing with him. I've got a piece of paper. I put a lot into getting it. And what good does it do me? Why, with that piece of paper, and 1.50 in lawful currency, I could get the cup of coffee I was holding in my hand. But he had a pleasant voice, and the issues he was discussing are sharp and real, no matter how you respond to them. Why are we here. What will happen to us when we die. What are you doing with your life. And he was keeping the tone light, approachable. He was good, I will give him that.

And then the cops showed up. Or rather, some kind of campus security. They talked with him for a long time, looked at his ID, eventually told him to take off. I liked him more after watching this, and felt compelled to greet him afterward, as did a couple of other bystanders. One seemed obviously a fellow evangelical doing some networking. Another seemed like a budding civil libertarian, speaking out against the oppression of the state, but needing to clarify his undying atheism. I just wished him luck. And I do.

The turning of the year

My birthday came and went. Students are back in school. New teachers, exciting new grades for each of our kids. The undergraduates invaded campus in force. It used to be that they looked younger every year. Now, they've reached an equilibrium, a permanent state of young adulthood, as that point recedes so far from my age that it has become fixed. No longer can I pass, can I pretend that that wasn't so long ago for me, that I can remember or appreciate their concerns.

Church choir started up again. Some new faces, some goodbyes to old. In a couple days, I'll go to church again too. To sing, to laugh. It's good to be back.

Another year has come and gone. The light shortens. The weather cools. My wife has turned on the heat in the house. The crop remains in the fields are still green, but mottled golden. The moon rose full last night, almost bright orange against the deep blue evening sky, hanging low over the lights of the train tracks. Harvest moon. In summer, we'd never see the dark, we'd be inside before it fell. Soon, it's the light we'll never see. At the equinox, the balance is exact, but I don't follow it on the calendar, instead it's the character of the air outside which reminds me of what the calendar must be saying. Indeed, it's the character of the air which led our ancestors to create calendars in the first place, to mark on sticks what they reexperienced every season. I have a calendar, and computer programs to calculate the seasons to six decimal places, but I don't use them, not for that. The air tells me all I need to know.

Summer's almost gone. Winter's almost here.