Journal Entries

Saturday morning I was in Whataburger on Andrews Highway recovering from my early morning five miler and psyching up for my 11:00 AM Body Pump weight training class at Gold’s Gym while reading the newspaper and my Daily Bible and reading a few pages from a book by Anne Lamott and writing in my journal, the usual stuff, when I got up to refill my Diet Coke. Coming back to my booth I noticed on the top of my table were my Oakleys, my Palm Treo, and my Nano. My first thought was, “I’m sure glad someone didn’t steal those while I was all the way across the room. But I looked around the dining room and noticed several unattended tables with stuff piled high while the owners were getting refills or more coffee or picante sauce or visiting the bathroom or walking around talking to friends, and on most of those unoccupied tables was a pile of car keys or truck keys. And since almost all modern auto keys come with a key fob transmitter it would be easy for someone to snatch the keys and push the button and find the correct vehicle and simply drive away. We Saturday morning Whataburger customers sure are a bunch of trusting folks, is what I thought.

But after I sat down in my booth and gathered up my pile, I wondered how I became such an expensive guy. Those Oakley sunglasses and the Treo cell phone and the iPod Nano mp3 player all together were worth about $600. When did I develop such expensive taste? I haven’t always carried costly stuff like this. Shoot, my first car, a 1963 Chevy Biscayne, cost a whole $300.

But I use almost every feature on my Palm Treo every day. I don’t use it for email or for internet access, surprisingly because I am too cheap to add those to my contract, but I use everything else. It makes my life easier to manage, and supports my memory with better storage than brain cells alone, and all that translates into better creativity.

And who can go outside in west Texas without good sunglasses? No one in our family, that’s who. I wear my Oakleys all the time, and I’ve been better at keeping up with them than I used to be with my Wal-Mart sunglasses that cost a tenth as much. Maybe the reason I haven’t lost these Oakleys is fear – I don’t want to have to tell Cyndi I lost them. So I’ve kept up with them for a long time now.

And my iPod Nano mp3 player is one of my favorite additions. Before Cyndi gave it to me for Christmas last year I wondered why people paid so much money for a small portable hard drive when there were so many cheaper models for sale. But once I started using my Nano on a daily basis, I realized how easy it was to use, and how light weight it was for running with, and I was hooked. Nowadays I subscribe to four or five weekly podcasts of sermons or commentary by young cutting-edge preachers, and I listen to them while I’m running. I am smarter and more clever and more creative because of my Nano. That’s what I’ve been telling myself.

So that pile of expensive stuff laying on my table at Whataburger serves me well. Yet, I still wonder how I got so tangled up in expensive technology. I’ve always thought of myself as a simple guy with simple tastes, but now I’m not so sure. Next thing you know I’ll start putting foam in my coffee, or wearing one of those goofy Borg-like ear telephones, or collecting Chinese pottery. It could go anywhere, is what I thought.

And even more, now I have to find places to carry everything. It’s easier in the wintertime because my coat has lots of pockets, but in the summer it becomes a problem. Especially since guys like me aren’t supposed to carry a purse.

Jesus reminded us that the things we treasure reveal the condition of our heart. I tell myself that all my stuff protects my heart, and gives me the extra time I need to do the things that feed my heart. I hope I’m right.