Closing time...
Waiters are such an interesting bunch of people. Very few actually like their job and most are dissatisfied with their current place in life (the ones with any glimmer of hope in their eyes being students that know this is a transition gig). But boy howdy, do they like to hang out with other waiters. When restaurant industry people get together, it's a celebration like no other. Interestingly enough, it seems as though the biggest and most uproarious parties are when one of their band leaves their job and moves on (either for a different state, a "real" job, or a summer spent at camp as in the instance of our dear protagonist).
It's a really wonderful thing that my last week before truckin' up to New Hampshire for two months is marked with celebrations and revelry. This week has been and continues to be filled with late nights and [thankfully] late mornings. This happens every year and it always feels really good. It's like a big affirmation that we had some great times in the previous year and that we're all looking forward to picking up right where we left off. But that's the funny thing about our transient-natured job (high attraction for those shifty and restless Aquarii). When we pick it back up in September, very little will be the same. Many will have moved away, switched jobs, entered 12-step programs etc. Often times, I don't know half of the people at my restaurant when I return (this can be really funny when a rookie who started right after I left meets me for the first time, eager to have seniority over someone new and I move right back up the ranks).
So who knows where any of us will be in two months upon my return from camp? Fortunately, I won't have any time to dwell on such matters until late August. In the meantime, I have 5 days of celebrating the friends I have and the life lived with them these previous 10 months. In many ways for waitstaff, summer weeks serve as our New Years festivities, because so many of us are moving on. The same, I suspect, is true of many students I know who are graduating high school or whose friends are graduating and going away. My advice, be deliberate in honoring your friends this summer. As our preacher at church Sunday pointed out (http://www.cambridgevineyard.org/sunday/sermons/archive.htm for those interested), friends move in and out of our lives at very high rates of speed and we can't allow ourselves to get hung up on which companions will be around and which ones won't. What we can do is explicitly thank and praise God for each person in our lives, honoring them for who they are, honoring our relationships for what they've been and may become and honoring God, the Holy Spirit weaving its way through our lives in ways far too intricate to ever understand or imagine.
That's it for me today. Perhaps I'll post again before my departure. If not, I pray amazing God-filled summers for each of you. Beloved, I praise God for each and every one of you and for our time together in the past and future. May God be richly satisfying to you on your journeys over the next weeks and months. Be marvelous!
Hasta.
It's a really wonderful thing that my last week before truckin' up to New Hampshire for two months is marked with celebrations and revelry. This week has been and continues to be filled with late nights and [thankfully] late mornings. This happens every year and it always feels really good. It's like a big affirmation that we had some great times in the previous year and that we're all looking forward to picking up right where we left off. But that's the funny thing about our transient-natured job (high attraction for those shifty and restless Aquarii). When we pick it back up in September, very little will be the same. Many will have moved away, switched jobs, entered 12-step programs etc. Often times, I don't know half of the people at my restaurant when I return (this can be really funny when a rookie who started right after I left meets me for the first time, eager to have seniority over someone new and I move right back up the ranks).
So who knows where any of us will be in two months upon my return from camp? Fortunately, I won't have any time to dwell on such matters until late August. In the meantime, I have 5 days of celebrating the friends I have and the life lived with them these previous 10 months. In many ways for waitstaff, summer weeks serve as our New Years festivities, because so many of us are moving on. The same, I suspect, is true of many students I know who are graduating high school or whose friends are graduating and going away. My advice, be deliberate in honoring your friends this summer. As our preacher at church Sunday pointed out (http://www.cambridgevineyard.org/sunday/sermons/archive.htm for those interested), friends move in and out of our lives at very high rates of speed and we can't allow ourselves to get hung up on which companions will be around and which ones won't. What we can do is explicitly thank and praise God for each person in our lives, honoring them for who they are, honoring our relationships for what they've been and may become and honoring God, the Holy Spirit weaving its way through our lives in ways far too intricate to ever understand or imagine.
That's it for me today. Perhaps I'll post again before my departure. If not, I pray amazing God-filled summers for each of you. Beloved, I praise God for each and every one of you and for our time together in the past and future. May God be richly satisfying to you on your journeys over the next weeks and months. Be marvelous!
Hasta.