The Relevant Monk

It’s a wet Sunday after a Big Game, and everyone is at Town Center trying to get soup and a hunk of bread at Panera. They are also trying to get a seat. I find one, probably because of the view it has of the overflowing trash can. But I’m not here for the view, I am here for the peace, which can be relative and to me means noise I don’t  have to deal with personally.

I have my bread hunk, soup and my book, and I am only somewhat aware of the stream of people stopping at the trash can. They stop, weigh the look of the towering stack of plates and napkins against their ability to add their own plates and napkins there like a backwards game of pick-up-sticks.

Eventually, I am deep into my chapter and the noise tapers off. The nearby door opens, swings shut,and whoever it is stops in front of the trash can. There is a  long pause, followed by an even longer sigh. It has started to sprinkle rain again. I glance up.

Everyone has gone and it looks as if the Big Game has been re-played at Panera, and a lone girl in an apron is left to deal with it.

I get back into my book, only slightly aware of her struggle as she attempts to get the bag out of the can. It goes against all the laws of physics and gravity and any other laws like that for this girl to get that bag un-sunctioned from that heavy, unwieldy metal can.

“JESUS!”

It is more of a statement than anything else. I wince in a way that is more an apology to Jesus than anything else. I take it personally, you see. Mid-wince I am interrupted by what feels like a hand, cuffing me across the top of my head.

She’s talking to YOU.

I get up in a hurry and go beside her and we get the bag out of the can, with the top of my head still tingling and both of us getting wet in the rain.

I go away thinking about who really needs to apologize to who here…about the fact that I am not here for the view, I am here for peace…and mostly about how, more than anything else, it’s time for me to start taking the name of Jesus personally.