It’s a bit after 10 this evening, and looking back on the weekend, it was a good weekend for catching up.

I was happy this weekend to catch up on my dishes, my laundry, and general housekeeping.  I was able to hang with some friends from the dance club on Friday night for dinner, and I got caught up on their lives.  This morning over breakfast, I was able to catch up a little with my sister and her family after they returned from a spring break vacation taken last week.  This afternoon and evening, I got to spend time with my friend Jenise, who I haven’t seen for a while, and was glad to catch up with her on what’s going on in our lives.  During part of that time, we were at the movies catching up on Oscar winners.  And earlier this afternoon, I was happy to talk for a few with my pal Ben, who rang me up for a chat (I wrote about him here), and who caught me up on his odyssey.  I wish I was all caught up in a few other areas (completing taxes, etc.), but those will be settled in due time.

As for Jenise, our visit reminded me how good it is to have friends who are completely honest with you, and who are so because they care about you.  It’s a rare gift to find people in the world who will be frank with you because a) they not only see who you, but also who you can be, and b) because they care enough about you to call good and bad stuff in your life as they see them. She’s good people.

As for the movie, we saw “The Artist”, and I am so glad we caught it in the theater.  Something would have been significantly lost seeing this film for the first time on a TV.  The film is remarkable because it captures the spirit of an age gone by with immense charm and dramatic simplicity.  The film is largely devoid of dialogue and yet the arc of its story is teems with moments of angst and of joy, of  triumph and tenderness, and of longing and, ultimately, love.  And the score must have been a composer’s dream.  The musical accompaniment rolls interminably behind the speechless scenes of the film, agitating, amplifying, or punctuating the emotion beneath each plot point.  The Jean Dujardin deserved his Oscar, as the Bérénice Bejo was as equally enthralling as his opposing lead (disregarding the fact she as two of the prettiest eyes I have ever seen on screen).  In short, I felt the film, with its simple story, was simply beautiful.

I also felt, in some ways, by getting some cleaning done and some needed chores completed, that I also got to catch up a little with God.  My quiet times have been off the last few weeks, if only because I let everything else in my life somehow be more important to me than Him.

On Saturday morning, however, while I was catching up on getting my truck serviced at the Toyota dealership, I had a good hour to spend for reading, and so I spent it in Tullian Tchividjian’s “Surprised by Grace”, in which he points out the deep connection between Jonah’s calling and commission to that of Christ’s.  And in Jonah’s story, in this story about the prophet who runs from his God, we are reminded that God is a God of second chances, of compassionate intervention for the good of His children, and of compassionate intervention for the sake of the lost and languishing.

Through my Saturday reading and through church this morning, I was reminded that God is so gracious because of his first love for us- and that I need His guidance and presence in my life more.

It was so good to catch up on that part of my life, especially.

—

To check in on what’s up with my friend Ben, visit his update video here.  I appreciate his willingness to think about his life out loud as he wings it.