I’m always early on Sunday mornings when I’m serving as a first-service greeter.

Yesterday was no different.

I was standing outside the church before most people had arrived when I noticed a guy riding a bicycle up the sidewalk and past our entrance.

“Good morning,” I said.

“Good morning,” he answered.

And he kept riding.

Nothing particularly remarkable about that.

Except that for some time now I’ve been asking God for a friend.

Not just someone to occasionally have lunch with or exchange pleasantries with at church, but someone who might enjoy studying the Bible together. Someone I could talk with about God and life and all the things that become increasingly important when you realize there are more years behind you than there are likely to be ahead.

Making new friends at my age is harder than I ever imagined it would be.

When we’re young, friendships seem to happen almost accidentally. School. Work. Kids. Neighbors. Life keeps throwing people together.

Later in life, it seems you have to go looking for them.

And I had been looking.

And praying.

And, admittedly, whining a little.

I had just about resigned myself to the idea that nothing was going to change when the guy on the bicycle did something unexpected.

He turned around.

He rode back to the church, parked his bicycle out front and started walking toward the entrance.

Which meant he had now entered my official jurisdiction as a greeter.

So I greeted him.

I introduced myself and welcomed him to church.

His name was Jimmy.

What began as the usual Sunday-morning welcome somehow became something else almost immediately. Within minutes, we had moved well beyond small talk and into the kinds of things people ordinarily take months—or years—to tell one another.

Jimmy had been out of prison for two days.

Two days.

He had spent the better part of a decade there, the result of an accident that carried consequences far greater than he ever imagined. During his years inside, he had become a pastor to more than fifty other inmates.

I told him a little of my own story.

Our stories were very different.

And yet, strangely, not so different at all.

There was a time in my own life when I had narrowly escaped a 25-year prison sentence.

Different roads.

Different consequences.

Same grace.

We stood outside talking for quite a while.

I liked him.

There was something easy about the conversation, as though we had skipped all the introductory chapters and started somewhere in the middle of the book.

Jimmy told me he liked the church and what it seemed to stand for.

I told him much of that had to do with our senior pastor, who also happens to have been my friend for many years.

And at the exact moment I said it, my pastor walked up.

He hugged me.

I introduced him to Jimmy.

And there the three of us stood talking together.

I remember thinking the timing was almost comical.

Of all the moments for my pastor to walk by, it was precisely the moment I was telling a stranger on a bicycle what a good man he was.

Eventually, I told Jimmy I’d like to exchange phone numbers and stay in touch.

He agreed.

I had a meeting I needed to get to, so I quickly wrote my number down, handed it to him and headed inside while Jimmy went to get some coffee.

About five minutes later, my phone buzzed.

It was a text from Jimmy giving me his number.

But my phone did something strange.

It told me that the number Jimmy had just texted from matched a contact already stored in my phone.

The name attached to it was:

Jimmy.

After my meeting, I found him and showed him.

Neither of us could explain it.

Jimmy hadn’t even had a phone for ten years.

Maybe there is a perfectly reasonable technological explanation.

There probably is.

But I’m not particularly interested in finding it.

Because sometimes the important thing isn’t explaining every detail.

Sometimes it’s simply noticing them.

I had been asking God to send me a friend.

A Bible study partner.

Someone I could connect with.

And while I was standing outside church that morning, quietly convincing myself that making a new friend at this stage of life might be nearly impossible, a man on a bicycle rode past me.

Then, for reasons I still don’t know, he turned around.

His name was Jimmy.

Apparently, my phone already knew that.

I’m looking forward to getting to know him.

And I’m reminded once again that perhaps some of the prayers we think God hasn’t answered are simply answers that haven’t turned around yet.

Listening to podcasts all day it became apparent that I need an alignment.

My tires are fine but the accumulated wisdom of some well-informed podcasters indicated some critical life trajectories are off, slowly dragging me out of my own lane and into directions and places I shouldn’t be traveling at my age and maturity.

Interesting how we can sense that uncompromising tug in one direction or another and you know things aren’t rolling on as ideally as they should.

Diet, money, sleep, how I spend my time, they all just went enough right or left of center to make a perceptible difference which I fear, without a realignment, could easily send me off roading on paths for which I am not designed nor well-suited.

For some, this may sound like the labored metaphor of a perfectionist splitting hairs, but living by higher-than-average standards was something I was taught from a very young age.

Moreover, living life according to a singular mission cues you to notice the ever so slight variations from that mission, demanding corrections that will keep you on course.

So, I got home and had a chat with my Mechanic.

My dog got groomed today and my family insists that I share the story of my last grooming trip.

Butch’s groomer and vet both are clear across town about 25 minutes from where I live now.

I like them both so it’s worth the trip.

My last groomer venture started with a 700am call to Carly at Grooming By Darcy to see if she had time for my boy.

She said to leave now and she’d fit him in.

So I left immediately and drove the 25 minutes and pulled in to the shop.

Opening my truck door I went for my wallet and realized I’d left home too quickly.

I found my wallet.

I’d forgot the 🐕

I talked with a friend yesterday and confessed my disdain for a ridiculously simple project that has been sitting in pieces in my living room for nearly three months.

It’s not that I don’t have the time.
I’m retired.

It’s not that it’s complicated.
It came with simple instructions.

It’s not that I don’t have the tools.
It even came with the Allen wrench.

Then she asked me a simple question:

“Is putting that thing together really how you want to spend your time these days?”

My answer was an emphatic NO.

Then she asked another:

“Could you bless someone who needs a few extra bucks to put it together for you?”

That answer was an emphatic YES.

And suddenly, this stupid little unfinished project taught me something.

Retirement leaves me with two resources: time and money.

And these days, one has become far more precious to me than the other.

Meanwhile, the other may be far more precious to someone who has many more days ahead of them than I do.

So maybe the answer is simple:

When you can, bless someone with what you have—and receive in return what you value more.

Sometimes that means giving your time.
Sometimes it means giving your money.

Spend both wisely.

Because in the end, you can’t take either one with you.

Awake in bed alone in the early morning hours my mind wandered into dangerous territory.

I realized a return to sleep was out of the question by then when I found myself compiling a mental list of life regrets.

Very poor use of the time and an otherwise mentally healthy disposition I know, but I live on the edge occasionally and allowed it to continue a lot longer than I should have.

I wish I’d served in the Navy right out of high school when it was first offered me.

I wish I’d gone into insurance or real estate early on and I’d be rich and retired by now.

I wish I’d have beaten the hell out of Tony Franciosa when he called me out in 6th grade.

I’d like to have been able to grow more than 12 hairs on my chest by now.

And the list went on seemingly reciting itself for about 20 minutes.

I don’t recommend it.

Very few other morning mental gymnastics can ruin a day you haven’t even started yet.

The list kept growing as if it had lied dormant just under my skin and I’d scratched exactly the spot it had been hiding.

It was way more easy than it should have been.

I shook myself, turned on the light, kissed my dog, and came to my senses.

I said a brief prayer and laughed a little at the ease of that waste of time and brain cells.

I’m fine. No damage done.

The list of regrets dissipated with each sip of coffee, but the lesson that remained is how readily we can live in regrets, should-haves and unrealized wishes with such ease, but can’t just as easily turn the tables and be thankful and happy with where we’ve landed in life so far.

By then I was here at the computer typing into a new document every miracle and fortunate blessing, turns of events that once saved my life, and motives for living that usually would accompany my first step to the floor out of bed each morning.

I reminded myself I’m generally a positive guy, very slow to anger, and mentally astute as my list began filling the second page of the document which became my second prayer of thanks this morning.

I hadn’t considered myself among “the least of these” until starting over at 51 as an ex-felon working a $9/hour church janitor job and obviously exceeding the qualifications.

But the surprise of a fifty dollar bill tucked in my back pocket by a passing stranger at Christmastime was eclipsed only by the words accompanying the gesture.

“You’re making more of a difference than you know, young man.”

I’m not sure if I was more shocked being addressed as a young man or by the unexpected generosity of his acknowledgement of a stranger working a lowly invisible job during the busiest time of the church calendar.

I’d just returned from plunging a TeenTime toilet full of poop and was en route across the courtyard to a hazardous cleanup in KidKare made by two siblings who’d had bad blueberries and Alpha Bits for breakfast.

I’d like to report our encounter was an interaction but his swift disappearance into the festive crowd of evening Christmas servicegoers was as angelic as his act of kindness.

By the time I put my mop and pail to the ground and wiped my hand on my shirt to shake his hand, he was gone.

I reached into my back pocket to find the gift he’d bestowed and while $50 was a helpful blessing this time of year, his words had been of much greater value.

Invisible people are all around us.

Janitors, cashiers, clerks and other such name tags we rarely if ever read or better yet, take notice.

Doing so need not cost 50 dollars or 50 cents, but only to know the words to their song on a not so silent night that hoped someone might care enough to notice and at the very least, tell them that in this world, they’re making more of a difference than they know.

I live and will die by a list.

Being retired doesn’t reduce the length, just the content.

Now without pressures of a taskmaster or rigid deadlines I get to pick and choose how to spend the remainder of my days.

And as all the business left unfinished at the end meets with the giant eraser in the sky, I will finally be free, untethered to everything I thought ever mattered.

I set my tolerance bar high on purpose believing I might somehow convince people otherwise and that they’d eventually come around.

It’s taken way too long for me to accept the fact that it’s not my job.

In faith, culture, and politics, some folks are steadfast to fight and die for their convictions in the name of progress which I consider irrational reasons.

But they’re impervious to arguments for change.

I suppose they believe the same of mine and they would also be correct.

The difference is mine are held with vision for conserving what’s proven good for humanity, believing that history is still the wisest teacher in the room and change is only good when subject to history’s lessons.

People are different but finally realizing and accepting that harsh truth still remains sadly dissatisfying.

It’s not my job anymore.
Lesson learned.

Thoughts and prayers.

Drug dreams.

15 years clean I’m still waking up skittish and chaotic from the consequences of meth.

However rare these days, the dreams now empathize with perspectives of family members and institutions I wronged and betrayed during my decade of active addiction.

How crazy I made them all think and feel wondering what the hell was going on with me.

So I wake up, shake it off, and pray away a bad start to my day and thank God for the experience but not its effects.

No longer—by the literal grace of God—persecuted by it but thanking him for the different points of view.

More than awake,I’m awakened.
Let’s call that a blessing.