From Wit’s End

Earlier this week Leanne wrote me to let me know that she would be zipping down to the beach from the mountains with some of her friends from high school. Since they’d be passing thru Columbia on I-26, it could be possible to meet for lunch. I hadn’t been down in that part of town for a while, so i told them to meet me at the gas station with the smiley face on the sign (which should have had the slogan: “It’s not a smile, it’s just gas.”) that was off the same exit of I-26 as the airport. Sadly, that establishment had since been bought out by a major chain, so i was left without a rendevous point to rally to. So i parked at the gas station nearest to the exit ramp that i could watch it more easily, and scanned each car that came off of it for a familiar face. I stood next to my car for something like 15 minutes in such a manner, listening to alt-country songs about drinking on the local college station and feeling positively colloquial, when there was a tap on my shoulder. There was Leanne with a greeting, and letting me know that the “76″ gas station just down the road is the one that used to be the Smiley Gas station.

We had lunch at the “Lizard’s Thicket” just down the road. There were introductions and some small talk. Then, as the conversation bifurcated– as is possible in a group of six people — her friends went on talking without us, and we got to say what needed to be said to finish the process of letting “us” go.

It was during the course of this dialogue that i realized my mistake in this particular attempt at approaching relationship. I had used the wrong network. In this phase of the search for my beloved, i had foolishly used a network of wires and servers instead of a network of trust and charity. Now God had had a purpose in all this; he redeemed an individual from spiritual bondage through my selfishness and foolishness. But that doesn’t make my choices and actions at all wise in any respect. No, God managed in his omniscience and omnipotence to redeem His wisdom out of my foolishness, and that is my source of consolation and praise from all that happened in the first three-quarters of this year.

The conversation eventually reunified, and we paid our bills and said our goodbyes. I gave Leanne one of my pictures from which to make a paper cutting, since she enjoys doing that and had asked for it for that purpose. We waved goodbye, and since then we have kept up a sporadic e-mail correspondence and i’ll occasionally call her to check up on her as a big brother would.