Lord, be good to us...

There is this guy who I gave a ride home to every now and again.

His name is Lamar.

We were talking a few weeks after the Philly’s won. I’m not usually one who is much for sports, but everyone else around me seems to be. The Philly’s, if you don’t know (or don’t remember), won the World Series.

It was their second World Series win… in 125 (yes, one hundred twenty five) years.
Needless to say, most people remember where they were when the Philly’s won…

Lamar remembered where he was.
He had only just left the hospital…
Right after they pulled the plug on his cousin…
He died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

It’s a jarring thought, I think. Few within my age range deal with death in any tangible way. Fewer deal with it as a reference to the reality of the violence practiced by one man to another.

I didn’t think that there was much for me to say.
I don’t think that there’s much for me to say.

For the rest of the ride that night we sat; we would talk but the conversation never came back to Lamar’s cousin. Towards the end, I really felt that the impetus was on me to ask what I could be praying for Lamar’s family (including the obvious loss).

“Just pray that life would be good for us.”

I thought about this on my way home and I prayed for Lamar and his family in North Philadelphia. I thought about my own experience with death – about how, beginning with my Aunt when I was in college, every Christmas and Thanksgiving seemed a little less joyous every year. I thought about how fewer and fewer seemed like they were filled with the joy that usually comes with the holidays. It almost seems as if every year has produced some sort of tragedy (friends who have died, my dad dying, other family members who have died…)

But back to what Lamar asked… isn’t it what we all pray in unnecessary and complex ways?

“Father, I beg you, be good.”

Because frankly, sometimes it doesn’t seem like He is being good to us. Sometimes life doesn’t seem like it allows the room or freedom for goodness to happen. Sometimes (and I really have been wrestling with this in different ways), it just doesn’t seem as if God cares.

Intellectually, I acquiesce to the Apostle’s Creed. I pray the Lord’s Prayer with the Church and I mean every petition (I consciously think about what I’m praying every Sunday with people around the world because I don’t want the word’s to be dead to me). When I speak with God, I ask (in words much less specific), “Lord, be good to me and my family.”

No doubt, things have been good for us in a physical sense.

Though, more often than not, I feel like we have everything we would want…except for a listening ear from God.

God…please be good to us. Amen.

Traveling times

My new job requires that I travel around the NE of our United States. Overall, I’m pretty excited for the opportunities that it’ll provide. This week’s assignment in my “Education Path,” (as I am learning my new position) took me to Warwick, RI.

My company put me up in the posh Holiday Inn Express. To be honest, the hotel wasn’t really bad…and I wouldn’t be writing about it now if it wasn’t for a few strange happenings.

First off, my body itches…a lot.

Really, it’s just my rib cage, stomach, back and neck [my extremities don’t seem to be affected]. I can’t understand why but I do have assumptions based on my own physiology. I have allergies, and they can be pretty bad. During allergy season (it still seems to be spring here for the most part) I usually use a mild or hypoallergenic soap such as Johnson and Johnson’s baby wash or Dove.

On any given [non-allergenic] day, I usually get along fine using a hotel’s soaps and shampoos. My assumption, was that my allergies were aggravated due to the high pollen content in the air [evidenced by the fact that cars are still yellowed by the stuff here] mixed with the usage of an unfamiliar and potentially strong soap and shampoo [that smelled unfortunately like cinnamon].

My second assumption would be similar to the first, except you would substitute “…unfamiliar and potentially strong soap and shampoo,” with “hotel towels washed with an unfamiliar and potentially strong detergent.”

Both of the assumptions are possible, even while Allegra D 24 hrs is coursing through my veins.

The third assumption is the worst – the assumption that perhaps I have shingles.

New topic.

Holiday Inn Express now serves coffee along with an ambiance that that produces [no, I did not mix meanings – I did not mean “elicit”] an obtuse arrogance within its guests. Thankfully, this coffee can be brewed in the privacy of your own room or while challenging the elderly for their space in front of the bagel toasters during your continental breakfast. I don’t write this out of experience, per se, but by the very words and advertisements of Smart Roast Coffee.

You’ll recognize that you’re drinking Smart Roast by the bold styling of their cups: 90% purple, 10% gold [Go Falcons!]…100% FREE. To be sure, you’ll want to look for the circle on the cup that ensures that your brew has been selected from only the finest and that it is in fact created with 100% Arabica beans [as an aside, if this was the finest that Arabica beans had to offer, I would never drink a coffee brewed with Arabica beans again…revision…I would never pay for a coffee brewed with Arabica beans or engage in the purchase of Arabica beans again].

If that’s not enough to identify dark substance, then find the joint HIExpress and Smart Roast motto:

Consuming Smart Roast® while staying at a Holiday Inn Express® may increase brain activity, creating a euphoric state of superiority.

(Emphasis added by me). Remember, in order for this surrogate arrogance to be implanted, you must stay at a HIExpress.

The power of this coffee is further evidence by means of the sheer size of the cup – what mere mortal could endure more than an espresso size hit at one time [the coffee lid says 8oz, which may or may not be true – but there’s no way I’m ever filling a coffee cup to the brim – that’s foolish].

While I do appreciate free coffee, I think I nearly reached my limit with Smart Roast – I had to admittedly doctor it up with creamers and Splenda as the very taste of this particular coffee started to make me gag.

This is something I nearly never do.

If I’m buying a truly tasty coffee, I drink it black. If I’m brewing my own coffee at home, I drink it black. If I’m drinking coffee at someone else’s house, I drink it black.

When I pee, I stand up, and that’s why I like my coffee black – dark black – the kind of black that bends light by the seriousness of its blackness.

Other than that, there wasn’t much eventful that happened in Warwick. If there was, I had such a euphoric sense of superiority that I couldn’t have noticed anyways.