While Standing in Line at McDonald's

So last week we had a tough morning getting out of the house in a timely manner. This meant that in order to drop the kids off in the carpool line without having to walk in to the office and sign them in as “late,” I left the house without eating breakfast. This is never a good thing for me because as soon as van door slides shut and the kids are sprinting to their classrooms with backpacks bouncing from their shoulders, I start thinking about putting something on my stomach to absorb the pot of coffee I’ve managed to down. Almost always I end up at the McDonald’s not far from the school. Sometimes I have a few bucks in my pocket, sometimes I scrape together just enough from the floor of the van and the change holder beneath the AC dials. I’m not especially proud of this – but see my post below of 2/10/06. All that stuff about lousy eating is true.

But I’m not telling this to talk about food or eating habits. On this particular morning, the real take-away from the visit to McDonald’s was a sign that was posted alongside the menu. It was on a plain white sheet of paper in a large black font, all caps. It read “PLEASE REFRAIN FROM TALKING ON THE CELL PHONE WHILE CONDUCTING BUSINESS AT THE COUNTER.”

This was interesting, provocative even. McDonald’s is a fast food restaurant . . . .fast food. And yet, the management of this particular McDonald’s felt compelled to instruct us to not use cell phones while ordering our # 2 combo meals. We can’t slow down enough to get our fast food. The time we’re supposedly saving by stopping at Mickey D’s isn’t enough. We need to keep multi-tasking, staying after it, getting it done, whatever “it” might be.

Just the day before I had read a wonderful story from Mark Buchanan’s latest book, The Rest of God - a book about Sabbath keeping. He tells about his wife’s grandmother, who lived in a gold-mining town. She had a very large stone in her garden and she regularly polished it, reasoning that since it couldn’t be moved it could made to look decent and thus beautify the garden.

On one occasion while polishing the stone, she noticed the slightest smear of something goldish. She touched it with her finger and saw on her fingertip a caking of gold dust. She felt a rush of adrenaline and began to polish the stone feverishly, scrubbing and scrubbing, seeing the gold dust accumulate more and more. After a few minutes she stopped for a break and as she wiped her brow she noticed that her wedding band was lopsided, thick and full on one side, thin and skinny on the underside – the part she had been rubbing against the stone. She had been sanding away her wedding band, chasing a treasure that didn’t exist while destroying a treasure she already had.

That’s the way too many of us live. That’s why a McDonald’s manager feels the need to discourage cell phone use as we order our fast food. What we know as fast isn’t fast enough. We’ve got to move faster, got to do more. We chase an elusive treasure and in doing so lose the treasures we already have.

Reflecting on those experiences from last week sent me searching for a Robert Frost poem that I’ve liked for a long time but had forgotten about. It’s called “A Time to Talk.”

When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don’t stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven’t hoed,
And shout from where I am, “What is it?”
No, not as there is a time to talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall,
For a friendly visit.

Sadly, there isn’t time to talk, at least not enough time. We live our days looking around on the hills we haven’t hoed, the things left undone that whisper incessantly for our attention. We shout at interruptions, “What is it?” What now?”

Jesus seemed always ready to thrust his hoe in the ground, always willing to make his way to the stone wall for a visit. He stopped in crowds when someone had touched his garment; he heard the shouts of a blind man sitting on the curb, on the margins of the street traffic and action. Jesus stops and calls him over; calls the one to whom I might have said, “What is it?” What now?”

I’d like to live that way. Maybe a place to start is simply in making enough time to actually eat breakfast at home with my children; to begin the day by making my way to a table for a friendly visit.