Twenty Niner

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was prepping for my first sermon. Well, today was the day. It went better than I expected. What did I preach about, you ask? Well, Jesus. Specifically, though; relationship. Community. Knowing and existing with other people. Who was I mostly preaching to today? You guessed it: ME! That's pretty hilarious if you ask me.

At around 6 tonight I realized that I hadn't met anyone. I was feeling a bit lazy, so I decided to go to Starbucks where my brother-in-law works. He's been working there a while, so I figured he'd know one or two regulars that he could introduce me to. I was looking to avoid the awkward greeting and skip to the conversation. No such luck, as it turns out.

My brother-in-law was busy when I came in, but he pointed out a guy he knows that would be easy to talk to. I sauntered up to the guy, confident that this would be easytown, USA. I introduced myself, and a fairly awkward few minutes passed. "This isn't supposed to be happening," I thought, "This was supposed to have a no-awkward guarantee! Oh well. I'll just go with it." Jeff is his name. He was working on a math problem. Now, I don't mean math in the way that most people understand it. He had 90 pieces of paper taped together trying to solve an equation he'd started 2 years prior. Yeh. I was a bit out of my depth. I asked him what type of equation it was, and he said it was geometry and some word I'd never heard before. I'm assuming that word means ridiculously difficult to solve. There was something really amazing about the amount of time which had gone into the paper he was working on. He'd used different color inks and highlighters. It looked like a work of art. He was a really nice guy, and very interesting to talk to. I wished him luck on a solution and we parted ways. It's after this that my brother-in-law comes up to me and said that Jeff wasn't who he was pointing to earlier. He had no idea who Jeff was. Thus the awkwardness. That's what I get for trying the easy way out. Still, I'm glad I met him. It's always good to meet geniuses. They have a way of keeping one very humble.