“Hi again,” I say, smiling as I take my place on his left.
“Good morning. Is it a good morning for you?”
“It is indeed!”
We both look up the street expectantly, though each of us knows we have a few minutes yet.
A few moments later: “Do you speak French?”
“Nah,” I reply, ”I used to when I was in high school.”
“Well you know, they say if you don’t use it you lose it! I was just noticing your bag.” It’s from Chapters, and it has French on one side, English on the other. I spin it around in my hand so he can read it in English. The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.
I smile sheepishly at him; even I know it’s a bit hokey. “It was on sale, and it was the right size,” I explain to him.
“Did you know the seed for a Redwood is the exact same size as the seed of a Bonsai?”
“No, actually, I did not know that…”
“Yeah, there’s something that goes on after the seed starts to sprout, something about the root configuration, and that’s what dictates such a difference in size.”
“Isn’t it crazy the way the things in our world work sometimes? It just blows my mind. My roommate and I were watching Planet Earth, and some of the stuff you see… just incredible.”
“It really is. I find the human aspect of that show very interesting as well, how civilizations interact and all that.”
“I haven’t actually seen any human activity in the series yet… except for the special features when they show the guy sitting in a lean-to for 15 days straight waiting for a Bird of Paradise to impress his Bird of Paradise lady friend.”
“Now what possesses people to do stuff like that?” he asks me. “Sit in a lean-to for 15 days to see a bird dance… Like Mount Everest. Why do people climb Mount Everest? Just to say they’ve done it?”
I think on this for a moment and am about to say something when he continues.
“I guess it’s like that movie, Chariots of Fire.”
“I haven’t seen it, actually…”
“Ian Charleson’s character, he basically says, ‘I was put on this earth to run fast; when I run fast, I bring glory to God.’”
I cock my head to the side and look at him as I nod slowly.
“I guess,” he continues, “some people are put on this earth to climb Mount Everest, and because they do what they were put here to do, it brings glory to Him. Or even ants, doing what they do as ants, that brings glory to the God who created them.”
As always, a brilliant early morning interaction is interrupted by the arrival of the 345, and we say goodbye for another day.
