Free with a Catch
Passing time can be a skill set in the right circumstances. Let’s say you are a parent on a long drive and you hear the dreaded “How much longer?” from the backseat. If the answer is “several hundred miles” then you better have a solid way of passing time. I enter dad jokes into the conversation. I may give up control of the radio and suffer through some country music. You may have your own ways to pass the time, but the short story is it’s crucial to be able to shrink the time between the start and the end into meaningful, worthwhile, and productive seconds.
Recently I watched a minor league baseball game with my family. It was supposed to be baseball, but I was amazed at the activities happening between the innings. Games, contests, and all kinds of activities were squeezed into the minutes. It really was like a variety show with baseball thrown in for good measure. Passing the time of the fans was someone’s job and they did it very well. I always remembered the time between innings as kinda blah, with maybe some John Fogerty “Centerfield” blasting through the speakers. Baseball was actually the most boring part of the entertainment that evening!
Around that same time our oldest son, Levi, was deep in thought for an activity at school. The activity was a day built around passing time and hopefully creating school spirit, affectionately known as “Anything But a Backpack Day”. This day was scheduled near the end of the school year, when all the tests were taken, the grades finalized, and the calendar still showed days of school attendance were needed.
Anything But a Backpack Day was an invitation for the students to select something, anything, to cart around their belongings for the day. Their laptop, books, school ID, pencils and whatever else they needed to carry would have to fit in the new non-backpack. The whole thing is pretty silly and unusual, but if you are willing to take the plunge and find or create something new it can bring a lot of joy and fun to the otherwise boring last days of school. It’s passing time and giving everyone that participates a way to carry their things in a unique way.
Last year Levi took a lawn fertilizer. Not a bad first effort and it was pretty easy to wheel down the hall. It was relatively small and nimble and did the job. He was eager to accept the invitation to carry anything but his regular backpack again this year and spent a few weeks scheming and thinking of potential ideas. He was passing time thinking about passing time!
Many ideas were just too difficult to pull off or just didn’t have the right feel to them; a 55-gallon drum, a shop-vac, and a larger lawn fertilizer were all on his short list. As his dad I had to sift through the ideas and help him decide what was doable and what was a poor idea. If you know me well you might think that Levi didn’t actually have “help” with deciding what was a good or bad idea; Fortunately Jan chimed in with her analysis and since she teaches at the same school her thoughts held way more weight than mine! The ideas went on for a few weeks until we were two days out and without a good idea.
One evening I had to run into town for a few things and asked Levi to ride along.
As we rolled down a straight section of road our stares turned to a shiny object sitting at the end of a neighbor’s driveway. It was evening but this beautiful object reflected light like a beacon in the night and caused us to slow down and stare.
Where I live an object sitting at the end of a driveway usually means a few things; it’s free, it’s junk, or it’s free junk! I asked Levi if he saw a sign on this beautiful piece and when he said emphatically “It’s free!” I stepped on the brakes and threw the truck into reverse.
I slung the truck into the driveway and hopped out and made my analysis in 3 seconds. When it comes to taking free things it’s best to move fast in case someone actually sees you taking free things. This gas grill was a real beauty and when I rolled it up to the tailgate I had to bark at Levi to help load our new find into the back. He was stuck between being embarrassed at his dad hauling away junk and the excitement that this could be his new “backpack” for school!
The whole thing fit like a glove in the truck bed and we pulled away; I had a big grin on my face, Levi had a laugh but also slouched in his seat so that no one would see him. With an invitation to do anything but a backpack you will have to get used to doing things a bit differently. Sometimes it’s embarrassing, sometimes it’s a joy.
When the big day arrived, Levi rolled his grill into the school and proceeded to shimmy and shake it down the hallways all day with his school items safely stowed away. Others loved it and it turned out great with all of its room for school stuff. Hopefully some more kids will jump in next year when they saw how following through on the invitation could be. Best of all it was free!
Not everyone participated in “Anything But a Backpack Day”. In fact, Levi said less than half accepted the invitation to pass the time with something fun and quirky. Making an effort to do something different kinda puts yourself out there; it makes you vulnerable and open. It’s unconventional. It’s a weird way to pass the time, especially in this day and age where you can hide with other ways of passing time, like watching a screen and tuning out the world around us. Passing time with meaning is not just a skill, it’s an invitation.
Anything But a Backpack Day might be my favorite day of my son’s school year. Not because it’s a chance for me to think with my son and potentially embarrass him by snagging junk from alongside the road, but because I love the concept of an invitation to pass the time in a way that’s unique and personal. I love that kids get to choose the way they carry their stuff. It takes an otherwise seemingly boring day and allows kids to create life, amusement, and ingenuity. But not everyone will see it that way and let the opportunity come and go without giving it a second thought. But every year the invitation is there to pass the time using something different than the standard old backpack.
I believe that God extends an invitation to all of us. It’s a faith-filled “Anything but a backpack” that lies between innings. It’s a chance to spend the time between birth and death doing something meaningful with Him. He wants to help you pass your time with meaning and it might just be a little different, a little out there, a little bit of a stretch, or a little out of the ordinary. He’s asking you to not go with the flow and the normalized. The world offers complacency, God offers a challenge to live Christ-like. The world wants conformity; God wants your heart. The world wants standards, Jesus shares a path to salvation through His sacrifice. Passing time takes on a whole other level when we accept God’s invitation to join Him.
Just like a random gas grill sitting at the end of a driveway, this invitation is free to anyone willing to stop and take it! Some will sit on the sidelines and just wait for the next inning to start. Others will know that this idle time could be filled with good content. Some will hear an invitation but have won’t be willing to carry the message in a way that’s odd, different, or costly to their selves. And finally there will be some that go big and take the free invitation and go with it. I think we can all relate to the different responses…I just hope we all get to the point where we join God in what He is doing even if we have to carry anything but the regular backpack.
