sweet tea and chess

22Aug09

Today at OCP I ran into a friend that I met last year while volunteering at the Little Grill. After helping prepare lunch, we had some downtime so we went to make some sweet tea while we were catching up.

As I stood next to him at the counter, he grabbed a mason jar from the adjacent shelf and made sure to use plenty of the iced tea mix. He even added some extra sugar for good measure. He filled his jar to the brim, ice and all, and ever so gently stirred his tea as to not spill any. I went ahead, and tossed a little mix into a regular clear plastic cup.  I grabbed a few cubes of ice, and poured some water for myself. He handed me his spoon, and after a few seconds of stirring, we were on our way to find a table to play chess.

He was clearly better than me, but I saved myself the embarassment by forewarning him when he asked me to play. I wasn’t doing too terribly, and I had a couple of his white pawns. I remember though, he was taking one of my rooks with his knight when he told me that he was thankful for his cancer. This crazy 35 year old was actually thankful for this quiet, relentless enemy that was slowly poisoning his adrenal glands, and as of recent, his liver too.

As soon as I made sense of what he just said, I couldn’t think straight and ended up making a move that made him ask me “um, are you sure you want to do that?”

“eh, yeah…” and with his turn, another bishop of mine was gone.

I took a sip of my tea. It was really watered down by then, as the few cubes of ice I had were fully melted. Actually, my tea wasn’t very good to start with. I glanced at his jar of tea, and it looked incredible. It was still half full, and it almost looked like the glass was frosted over.

Out of utter confusion in my heart, no, in my soul, I asked him what he meant. Any veteran church goer could have guessed what he was going to say next, but I needed to hear it myself.

As he was carefully placed his pieces in response to my thoughtless moves, he talked about how the cancer humbles him every day. He was explaining how it reminds him how short this life is, and how much sweeter Heaven will be. In a few minutes, his testimony of discovering grace melted away the complacency and the apathy in my heart, and for the first time in a while, I felt a deep brokenness and longing for my Maker. The deepest part of my soul wanted to know the satisfaction and the peace that he knew so well.

Our chess game was cut short, and lunch started with all thirty or so people holding hands, going around and sharing one-by-one something or someone we’re thankful for. Most people said they were thankful for their family, or for good weather. A few folks expressed their gratefulness for God’s love, and one man said he was thankful just to wake up this morning. When it was my turn, I wanted to say that I was thankful for this guy to my left, for showing me God’s heart, the brevity of life, Godly perspective, and for loving on me through a game of chess.

I just smiled, thought for a second, and said to everyone “I’m just really thankful for the great conversations I’ve had here today.”

The sloppy joes were awesome, and so were the baked beans. Oh, and my sweet tea was much better the second time around.

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