"Pit-stop........................................."

It’s a little after nine in the evening here. The sun has not yet sunk below the horizon and there is just enough light for me to enjoy the view around me. We’re at the sister-in-law’s house for the night again, the temperature still hovering around ninety, and her air-conditioner having “given up the ghost” about an hour ago. Outside, though, a gentle breeze is blowing and I’ve escaped to sit on a bench beneath a tree, pondering for a few moments all the flotsam and jetsam presently going round in my head. There’s a low rumble in the distance. One of those jets, no doubt, that just flew overhead leaving behind a white streak across the sky. An orange cat just crossed the road below me, disappearing into the grass almost no more than it jumped the lower part of a wooden fence, and some cattle, somewhere beyond my sight, are giving notice of returning to someone’s barn. It seems to me right now that the world is a stage inhabited by an immeasurable multitude of people, all of us with our own story to tell, each of us in one way or another caught up in our own journey. My own existence is insignificant other than the fact that it “is”; and, because it “is”, it matters to me and me alone in the nitty-gritty of what it is. No deep theology in that statement. If all I have in this state of “being” is merely my next breath and there is no guarantee that the next one isn’t the last, I am inclined to believe a precious gift is wasted if all I’m doing is sucking in oxygen. Value, though, is a debatable commodity. Does it equate to achieving great wealth? Conquering personal pre-determined goals? Or maybe simply “doing good” in so much as my conscience dictates? For this old man, it all comes down to maintaining a connection with the Creator who has known me from my mother’s womb. When questions occupy my mind and my soul ponders the mystery of it all, I am grateful to Christ for a way to reach through the veil and make contact, for there is a peace and an assurance that can be found at His well……