The peanut butter had to do with my recently being hungry or thirsty for a milkshake. I’m not really sure that I know the difference between the two when it comes to milkshakes. Maybe it has to do with how thick the milkshake is made? If it is too thick to drink through a straw and you find yourself needing the use of a spoon, I’d call it hunger. I’d call it hunger because in reality you’re eating it. If the milkshake can easily reach your taste buds by overriding the law of gravity by its uphill pull into one’s mouth through use of a straw, I’d call it thirsty. One you drink. The other you eat.
The General will tell you that I don’t like peanut butter. I’m not one of those guys who open a jar of peanut butter and take a spoonful out. The very thought leaves me with a gag reflex. Peanut butter is not my thing. Frankly, I don’t like the taste or maybe it’s the texture I don’t like in my mouth.
Maybe the General is attracted to me because I’m consistently predictable? When she saw the large Sonic cup with the partially enclosed clear plastic top she was confused. She was confused because I told her it was a peanut butter milkshake. Her question was why? Why would I order a peanut butter milkshake when I don’t like peanut butter? I’m not making this up. She actually asked that question.
The General wasn’t ready to hear that maybe I like peanut butter under certain conditions. Folks who are concrete thinkers have a difficult time with out-of-the box thinking. They never color outside the lines and they intuitively know that 2 + 2 always equals 4. Theirs is a world of absolutes and there are no exceptions. Everything is regimented into absolutes and there are no shades of gray or it is grey? The very idea of two options confuses a concrete thinker. If you take the colors red, blue, yellow and white and blend them together you will get a whole range of beautify greys.
I don’t like peanut butter out of a jar or on a bread sandwich, but it is very different in a milkshake. The same is true if peanut butter is used to make a pie or found in a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. I guess it is hard to explain. Mostly, I don’t like peanut butter.
I recently volunteered to be a complimentary limousine driver. Actually chauffeur is probably more accurate. I’m not sure there was a limousine involved. I volunteered to transport two couples to an upscale high-dollar restaurant where one could expect to take three hours to dine and visit with friends. I generally don’t like to wait, but I could pull that off for a special occasion. Did I mention my volunteering to provide the courtesy service was declined? I got the sense that the person would have to be really drunk to knowingly climb into a vehicle with me and offer to let me drive.
So that brings me to the real topic of this morning blog. The topic has to do with “the morning after”. I’m not referring to the 1986 thriller/mystery by the same name. The movie “The Morning After” involves a woman who wakes up with a hangover in an apartment she doesn’t recognize. To make matters worse, there is also a dead body in bed next to her.
What an awkward predicament. I can’t think of a worse way to wake up. For some that would represent an eye opening experience. Unfortunately, the woman can’t remember details associated to the evening before. The morning after was terrifying for her. Of course, hers was still a better morning than for the stranger with whom she was sharing a bed.
“The Morning After” – how do you describe it? I suspect that most of you have been there/done that so-to-speak. There is nothing more painful than the morning after. I’m not talking about the kind of hangover the eventually goes away. I’m talking about the morning after that forever alters the course of one’s life.
Today is Saturday. For the disciples and others close to Jesus, the morning after had to be one of intense pain, duress and agonizing fear. We are so far removed from the occurrence of Golgotha that we miss the emotional impact. Perhaps, because we have the advantage of knowing the rest of the story concerning the crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, we lose sight of how that played itself out in the lives of those closest to Jesus. We don’t process the information or storyline the same way those up close and personal to Jesus processed the information. We have the knowledge based on Scripture to know the rest of the story. Those closest to Jesus did not.
“The morning after” – how often does that play itself out as the worst experience of a person’s life? Like the lyrics to a country western song – “the morning after” can be the source of agonizing pain.
I know men who can’t move on with their life because they are holding on to a dream that became a nightmare. Theirs is the storyline reminiscent of the song sung by George Jones: “He said ‘I’ll love you till I die’, she told him ‘You’ll forget in time’ As the years went slowly by, she still preyed upon his mind He kept her picture on his wall, went half-crazy now and then He still loved her through it all, hoping she’d come back again Kept some letters by his bed dated nineteen sixty-two He had underlined in red every single ‘I love you’ I went to see him just today, oh but I didn’t see no tears All dressed up to go away, first time I’d seen him smile in years .”
By the way, I also know some women who fall into the same category. Life fell apart for them when their husbands moved on without them. Frequently, they also have the on-going responsibility of raising the kids in a single parent household without the income or support that makes that happen effortlessly.
For others, “the morning after” has to do with things more shattering than “I bought the shoes that just walked out on me.” It has to do with the sense of finality that comes our way through any number of true-life experiences. It could be the test results shared in the confines of a doctor’s office. It could be the ringing of the telephone in the middle of the night with the news “there’s been an accident”. It could be the knock at the door that brings with it the reality that you’re world has just forever changed.
I remember “the morning after” and sometimes the thought still brings tears to my eyes. It is a memory that can resurface in the context of a thousand and one different ways, but all that is tempered by the reality of the event that took place on Golgotha and the subsequent resurrection of Jesus. What hope we have!
Today is Saturday. For many it is the morning after, but Sunday’s coming.
All My Best!