Clean as a whistle

My Pastor boss moves a mile a minute. No kidding. He runs marathons in spirit on the pulpit, and he runs marathons on the pavement as well. He probably sleeps in motion too. I wouldn't be surprised. He is full of something that is backordered forever. Everybody wants it, not many can get it. The world would run smoother if we had more of it. It's a good thing to have, it's a good thing to see in others. good good good.

The thing is, that sometimes when you are full of this mysterious spiritual fuel, your odometer is changing so fast that your speedometer goes out. This is what happened today. Well, technically yesterday, but I'm still enjoying the story today.

I took yesterday off. Before I did, I looked at his calendar and, I have to admit I was a bit forewarned. The squares that Franklin Covey gives him to fill his time with were full. They were penciled in, erased, and rewritten upside down and this way /thataway. It was clear to me that my boss would be running harder than hard- faster than fast while I was lounging about on my day off. Maybe I should have taken heed of that warning inside me. But, I did not. I packed up and took my day off off off.

During the day of ping pong speedy activities, my Pastor boss shifted gears . Most days, he can manage that just fine, but on this day, he was driving a 5 speed on automatic. That doesn't fit, does it? Nope.
He was friend/Pastor/boss/dad/husband/neighbor/athlete/brother/.................All. Day. Long. One minute he was sharing soothing words with someone in need, the next he was typing wisdom in an email, phones ringing all the time in between. Landline/ cell phone... Whew.Phone call after phone call, checking voice mail, returning calls,typing, sermonizing, answering his cell. It was a hyper-cell day for sure.

The shifting gears zoomed out of control, the day became a blurrrrr and suddenly, he realized, in mid- conversation, that he was talking to himself. I mean, I do that all the time, but he noticed that he was talking and not getting any response from the other end of his cell phone. He released his squenched up shoulder, lowered it carefully, and removed the phone from the crook in his neck. He rolled away from the computer and leaned into the lamplight across from his desk. He looked closely, only to find that he was not holding his cell phone at all, but his computer's wireless mouse!!!

"Well, when did THIS happen?" He thought to himself. "I've been talking all day to people, what in the world is going on? Where is my cell phone? Where could it be? Who have I been talking to all day?

The staff came to his aid and they circled around him, ready to problemsolve. "Where did you last see it?" "Retrace your steps" "Let's call it" "Let's call it again" "Try it one more time" "Does anyone hear it ringing?" No. No. NO. NO.

Bedraggled and disappointed, the staff returned to work, and the Pastor to his own tasks. The day moved on. Finally, it was time to go home. He walked the 25 steps from the church to his house and entered his cave. He slipped off his shoes, laid his jacket on the banister and headed for the bedroom to crash. What. A. Day.

When he passed the laundry room, he remembered that he had run a load of laundry earlier in the day when he was ping ponging about. Yes, this is a Pastor who washes and wears. I tell you, people, he does it all.

He picked up the wet and lightly spun clothes and placed them in the dryer. Then he heard it. plunk. He looked inside the dryer to see a very clean and shiny cell phone- minus an antenae, but clean and shiny just the same. "Is that?... What is?..... Oh!....My phone!!" He cradled the small flipphone in his palm and looked at it. "blip" "blip" " frummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm zzzzt." The silence said it all.

The Pastor sighed, gave the last rights and carried the laundered phone to his room. His wife was concentrating on a good book, but when her loving husband entered, she stopped and looked up. She watched him slowly drag his feet into the room. "What is it, honey?"

He sat beside her, then released the phone into her lap."It's a both/and thing. Clean, shiny, and yet, out of order." "Oh, well, tomorrow is another day. Another day, another phone."

I guess life is just like that sometimes.