Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: DAYDREAM (12/08/16)
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TITLE: The First Baseball Player | Previous Challenge Entry
By Mike Hill
12/15/16 -
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“Yes, you do.”
“Do not!”
“Do too!”
These were the voices of the Coleman family’s modern version of the Bible’s Sons of Thunder. Randy the youngest was constantly trying to one-up his brother Stanley and disrupt the family’s social order and vice versa. They were bundles of energy always looking for a can of worms to open, often concluding as a bout of verbal sparring.
Stanley glared at his younger brother and threw what he thought was the knockout punch. “Remember that time in Sunday School?”
“What time?”
“The time everybody laughed at you – I laughed the loudest!”
With ears burning, Randy exclaimed, “And which time are you talking about, smarty pants?”
“The time you yelled out the name Rebekah.”
”Huh!”
“Mr. Hamilton was in the middle of a prayer when you yelled out Rebekah,” Stanley reminded his forgetful sibling. “What an airhead!”
Remembering that moment, Randy blushed and wanted to pound his brother. “I am not an airhead – you’re a monkey-faced Android!”
“I’d rather be a monkey-faced Android than someone who shouts out girl’s names – ewwwww!”
“Well you look like a monkey-faced Android,” Overwhelmed, this was all that Randy could manage. That day was still rather painful to his young mind, the laughs and taunts still ringing in his ears. His stupid brother was always bringing it up!
“Mr. Hamilton said it was a sin to daydream.” Stanley taunted his brother.
With his young heart all aflutter, all Randy could muster was “I am not a sinner! Everybody daydreams!” Under his breath, he muttered, “I just do it at the wrong times.”
Randy knows how painful it is to be a daydreamer, always lost in the worlds created by his imagination. It was his retreat from the bondage of being the youngest. Unlike the other boys, somewhat shy and reserved, he would allow, no, will his imagination to go wild. He’d be in a daydream so real, that when jolted back into reality, he had to look around to regain identity and location.
His mind often wandered, making up stories to the same old images. When his brother was playing games on the SUV’s DVD player, his arm would be out the car window imagining that his cupped hand was the latest fighter jet, diving and climbing against a stiff headwind. While others played football, he raked paths in the fall leaves, concocting elaborate mazes leading to imagined hidden treasures. In the summer, he’d lie on his back and try to decipher the secret codes he knew that the twinkling stars were transmitting. He’d answer by flicking the old flashlight off and on repeatedly.
Watching TV was exceptionally good at triggering daydreams. His teacher once said that the colors on the TV were made up of only three different colors and his mind had to imagine the color. He also said the TV picture was a series of images, the next being just a little different than the one before. In the very short period between the frames, the brain had to imagine what went on in-between. He could just sit there, vegetate, and forget about the world.
Stanley broke into his consciousness by yelling something about his secret life.
Randy wasn’t ready for reality yet, so he shut out Stanley’s caterwauling. Reaching for the spoon, he stared at it until it was but a blur. “What a great digging tool,” he thought. An irresistible urge to retire to the backyard beckoned. “If I start digging now, I could probably dig to China by the weekend.”
However, remembering what Mr. Hamilton had said made him stop. He was supposed to stop and think whether this was what Jesus wanted him to be doing. Daydreaming is okay if we are thinking about how it will be in heaven or how to help Jesus. But daydreaming over what Jesus has told to do is not okay. Mr. Hamilton said that Jesus would say get up and go and do God’s work. That is what Jesus would expect us to do.
Thinking of the spoon again, he was hoping he wouldn’t hit bedrock on his dig to China. Suddenly, he reflects on Rebekah again. “Nobody asked me why I yelled Rebekah – all they did was laugh and shout something about a girlfriend.” They could have asked. He would have told them, “Rebekah, A GIRL, was one of the first baseball players – Mr. Hamilton said so! She walked to the well with a pitcher.”
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