Things I like

Some days I just want to write about things I like

Photo by Troy Taylor

Today I want to write about the things I like

The days seem to be getting darker. Maybe I’m just growing up but I feel the child-like joy disappearing as life veers violently towards mere survival.

So I’m going to write about the things I like. I hope you like them too.

I like the way grass feels just after the sun sets in the summer. It’s kind of cool and when you lay down on it for too long you get a little itchy.

I like Disney World. I appreciate the fact that people go to great lengths to make me feel like I’m caught up in a great story and a magical kingdom. Take my money.

I like the way the beach smells. Sometimes it feels like it should smell bad but it doesn’t.

I like remembering Braves games back when I was a kid. It seemed like every summer night I’d hear Skip Caray, Don Sutton, Joe Simpson and Pete Van Wieren from somewhere in the house or on the radio in my father’s truck.

Speaking of, I like the way my dad’s truck smells. He’s a farmer, it should smell bad or at best, rugged. But the dirt and the Yosemite Sam floor mats have the charm of being in the sacred place where I first got to sit in the front seat.

I like to be driving over 60 mph and listening to Tom Petty’s “Learning to Fly”. I’ve found that speed fits the song and the view from my windshield becomes a music video.

I like to stop singing in church and to listen to the hundred-fold voices of others.

I like dancing at weddings. Sometimes I feel like you can’t go on the dance floor with your guard up and people there can only be their real selves (then I remember there is an open bar).

I like thinking about my mom.

I like the feeling during the day when I know I’m going to someone I love’s house that night for dinner.

Speaking of, I like my friend Sam’s living room. He has the most comfortable sectional couch and his wife Krista makes wonderful cookies.

I like the way the wind sounds in the mountains. You can hear it coming from miles away and the gentle roar is like nothing else.

I like driving to the airport when you’re about to leave on a trip.

I like turning the lights off in the kitchen after I’ve cooked, eaten and cleaned.

I like Lake June in Winter in Florida. Only retirees live there, but my grandparents used to go in the winters and sneaking away from the cold to sit on their daybed, read and watch the sunset over the lake was magic.

Speaking of, I like the way my grandmother is always excited to see me.

I like the way I feel after watching a good movie. Not entertained. Inspired isn’t the right word either: enchanted. And not enchanted like I’m under a delusional spell. Enchanted in such a way that I see the world more clearly both as it is and as it should be, could be, will be.

I like the moments I’m mostly sure I felt Jesus. They are rare but I love thinking about how somehow, someway, I knew he was there.

I’ve found with longing I’m either looking back like I do to my father’s old truck or in the moment I have something, like the beach smell, I’m so concerned with “making the most” of it or ensuring I get more, that the sweetness of it becomes taken for granted, either way: it’s never enough.

I think the truth is like this: longing is always for something behind us or ahead of us. the Bible calls these Eden and the Kingdom. Jesus walks in both.

I like when it takes me hundreds of words to say something C.S. Lewis did in 23:

“All Joy reminds. It is never a possession, always a desire for something longer ago or further away or still ‘about to be.”– Surprised by Joy.