Chasing paper cups

18 April 2008

I sat with friends on the lawn behind the Maeser. The conversation had evolved from the Economics of Gift Giving to the True Love of God, and no one seemed to notice the paper cup. It had escaped from someone’s snack garbage and encouraged by the gusty wind was making a break for the free world.

I considered stopping it. I would clamber to my feet, and hunching to avert attention, scramble around the circle to intercept the runaway. Bending down (ungracefully of course, for it is difficult to stoop and collect garbage with any measure of finesse) I reach as it stalls then follow as it tumbles on—a sequence repeated across the grass in an unaccompanied and increasingly complicated Charleston Swing: two-step-jog bend reach ‘n’ miss again, follow the lead of the little paper cup.

I didn’t move. Instead I watched it stumble-trip alone across the lawn and out of my peripheral vision. I heard it scuttled across the sidewalk and onto the asphalt; the clatter like a herd of crabs—a pod of paper cups—skittering for the ledge and stairs and then trees.

It went and I sat and listened to them talk of God’s Love—saturated with His Goodness. He never requires only gives and gives and gives. He is never depleted for giving selflessly, infinitely. We can never return, let alone pay in full. Even if we tried; we are too human. But still God never stops reaching.