After being so long in a lockdown situation, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage planned a short vacation time for us. It took her quite a while to put all of the pieces together, but she succeeded as always.
As I was preparing for this little adventure, my wife looked at me and said, "What are you putting in that bag?" “This is a very important time for us to do nothing. And I will make sure that we will do absolutely nothing on this little vacation together.” This was rather new for me. Although sometimes I do not do very much, I have never gotten to the point where I am actually doing nothing. I am not sure what that feels like. "You don't need to worry about this." My wife said as she saw me scowling. "I will handle this and help you to do nothing while we are away. When we're done, you'll thank me." We got to our motel, I checked in, and we settled into our room. I sat down on a chair in the corner, looked at my wife and cheerfully said, “Well, Honey, what do we do now?” “We’ll take a little rest here,” she said, “and then we will go out for dinner.” "Okay," I said, trying to hold back a chuckle, "but isn't that doing something?" We went out for dinner just up the street from our motel and enjoyed ourselves tremendously. When the check came, I looked at my wife and said, "This sure is fun doing nothing." As we drove around the block to go back to our motel, we passed a thrift store. I looked at my wife, pointed to the thrift store, and said, "Hey, look at that! You want to go into the thrift store?" Before I could park the car, she was out the door and going into this thrift store. I cherished the moment because it is a rare moment when I get one on her. When she came out of the thrift store, she had several bags of whatever. I opened the door for her and said rather cheerfully, "How much did that doing nothing cost you?" “So,” I said as dramatically as possible, “your doing nothing is different from my doing nothing.” "I'm sorry," she said very sorrowfully, "I made a mistake, so I will allow you to do one thing. What do you want to do?" I must admit this caught me off guard. I thought for a moment that I was in control of the situation, and then it backfired on me. I tried to think of one thing to do, and my brain just was not working. The more I thought about it, the less I knew what I could do. I do not go shopping, so that was out. All of my projects were back home, so that was out of the picture. I could think of nothing to do. “I can’t think of nothing,” I said to my wife. “That’s great. Now you’re doing nothing.” While I was thinking of nothing, I was reminded of Scripture, “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise” (Luke 6:31). Nothing is not that special but sometimes the right something can be real special. [Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, Ocala, FL 34472. He lives with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage in Silver Springs Shores. Call him at 352-216-3025 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.] |
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