Sanctus Real

This post’s title could sound like an adaptation of Paul’s words in Romans:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…(7:15 NIV)

What Paul is saying is meaningful and important.  What I’m saying is boneheaded and mostly useless. If you were hoping for a good spiritual anecdote today, sorry.

I cut my thumb a couple weeks back.  I was chopping an onion (No, I was not making a lasagna…for one), when slice…a deeeep cut right in front of my left thumbnail.

It didn’t bleed immediately, and it never really hurt.  It didn’t even bother me that I would soon be dealing with the nuisance of wet Band Aids for days on end.  As I leaned against the counter, running cold water over the incision and trying to decide how to feel about my discrete new wound, I realized that with the exception of some fleeting concern about my career as a bass player, (since I rely on the use of my hands), my main feeling was sorrow. I had officially done one of the things on my list that I hoped to get through life and never do.

If that’s not tragedy, then I don’t know Shakespeare.  To clarify, I don’t know him.

Anyway, it’s true.  I planned to go through my entire life without accidentally slicing a finger with a knife.  I told Pete and Chris this, and they both laughed at me.

“You actually thought about this before?  You thought you could go through your whole life and not cut your finger with a knife!?”

Ya, Pete, I did.  Now I’ll never get that back.

“Haha. That’s blog material, right there.”

Well here you go Chris. Thanks for laughing.

If you can’t tell, I’m still a little salty about the wound.

And I’m not just talking about a little knick or paper cut.  I’m talking about being careless with a Cutco, a knife that doesn’t discriminate between a vegetable, a finger, or a brick.  Everything’s a mango to Cutco.

Anyway, it’s all just a pipedream now.  I’ve had to kiss my lifelong aspiration goodbye.  It’s carved it into the irrevocable list…

THINGS I’VE ALWAYS HOPED TO NEVER DO AND THEN DID – LIST (Abbreviation – tiahtnd&tdl):

- Run out of gas
- Take pet to the animal shelter
- Walk around for any length of time with my fly open
- Forget to put the lid on the blender
-Trip over a giant orange cone and fall down a flight of stairs (This was added to the list after it happened)
- Forget lid on blender again
- Slice finger with knife

And since there is a tiahtnd&td list, one could deduce it all began with a tihtndiml list.

THINGS I HOPE TO NEVER DO IN MY LIFE:

- Open a shaken can of pop
- Hit a deer with my car, motorcycle…or fist for that matter
- Sit on a broken chair and fall over
- Watch The Bachelor
- Forget to put lid on blender again
- Lock myself out
- Fall out of a hammock
- Get kidney stones

The list grows longer the more I think about it, so I’ve tried to stop thinking, which is probably why I cut my thumb in the first place.  The list now is more of a real-time exercise of being careful than anything else. Still, I think the sentiment is alive.

Does anyone else have something they’d put on the list?  Or a list of your own?