wonder eight

me: did ya miss me?
mike: well, i have some good news: i did. you're the best friend i ever had.

mike can't remember my name. he likes action movies and comedies (especially slapstick) more than watching "house" or anything else with a lot of dialogue. he pretends he doesn't like having his cheeks pinched. he's so very territorial about his (hundreds of) movies. i owe him and kevin dinner because of an unbelievable basket he made when we tore up the court on monday night. and sometimes he says amazingly wise things.

me: you gotta be sensitive, right?
mike: yeah, you gotta see what's there.

best foundation for true, insightful, committed friendship ever. that's not to say that mike always lives this - he can be quite oblivious to how people feel, though he is always well-intentioned. still, something rang true. somehow he unpacked the connotation sensitivity evokes - being politically correct, walking on eggshells, approaching things gingerly, and so on - and got at the root: sensing, seeing what's there.

during our prayer time, we share a reading and core members offer their thoughts. almost every night, mike says, "i think it's good to help people... and to be happy with Jesus."

how can every devotional reading yield the same response? because it's the right response. maybe mike looks past all the other stuff that fills our so-called spiritual lives, and sees only the heart of what it means to really live well: to help others, and to be happy with Jesus.

maybe wisdom doesn't have to come as a reward for years of solitude and contemplation and soul-searching. maybe it's a lot more simple than that: just love God and love your neighbour as yourself. we could spend the rest of our lives seeking the definitions for all those terms - God, love, neighbour, self. we could pretend that it's possible to objectively analyze this ridiculous, mysterious, beautiful, terrifying thing we call life... or we can begin to live it, even as we squint to see what's there.