Between the Cleats

I'm sitting in my 61 Comet, sideways, across my red and white velvet seats that are way too close to the go-kart looking steering wheel with rust and no horn. My stereo is the voices of enthusastic coaches with a single goal in mind: teaching kids to play tackle football.

"What's wrong with you, son? We're not growing trees here.. you're supposed to move!"

This guy is Lombardi without a pro team or a winning streak. And I listen and smile and absolutely love the serenity of the heavy grass clogging up the empty space between the cleats.

And it's between the cleats that I find myself experiencing life. Experiencing God. Experiencing a clogged version of life in a crowded and somewhat surprisingly, compact world.

There's more to be said and more to be had and more to be experienced and more to be known and more to be lived. I want to know that reality.

and I know that God's plan includes it. So why is it that my life feels like I can't find traction on the things that lead me to the one thing I need to know best? Why do I feel like I'm stepping in the soggy grass looking for smoother, fresh cut blades all the time?

I mean, is life meant to be lived perfectly or is life meant to become that which is perfect? Do I focus on who I am or who I am becoming? I find myself struggling between the perfection of the now and the perfection that is to come because in everything I do i find so many imperfections within me. Why do I get so brash when a kind word would do? Why do I say things I don't really mean? Why am I so pathetically weak in my faith in one day and full of zeal another?

And then I start getting that clogged up feeling in my brain that feels like an old cleat still stuck working through the soupy grass.

So I sit and I listen in on the chatter heard around my ears as the coaches teach the young boys what it's like to do it "perfect" and in that, perfect it. Trying to be perfect while at the same time pressing on to perfection.

It's soothing. The banter and direction can be heard in any direction, in any corner of the smallish suburban, community park, but sometimes, it is heard just for these ears:

"What's wrong with you, son? We're not growing trees here.. you're supposed to move!"