I’m sitting at lunch in the pizzeria. Not the quietest place to read, but I like the pie slices with pepperoni and pineapple enough to make up for the distraction. Almost.
I can tune out ESPN on the flat screen on the far wall, ignore the other diners, even disregard the scampering back and forth of the staff as they clear tables during the lunch rush. It’s the damn pinball machine that won’t leave me alone. The Elvis one. The arcade game that chirps up cheap sounding tunes that are supposed to represent Presley’s greatest hits.
I try to focus on the Chapter 7, Seeing Through the Glass, of Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts in front of me. This book has been rocking me, in a good way. My doctor discussed last week how my processing of gratitude—Eucharisteo—as Voskamp describes, has effectively replaced my prescription for Prozac.
“Nothing here below is profane,” the chapter starts. I don’t think that line was written next to a noisy pinball machine. I look through the glass and see the lights, chutes, barriers, and paddles that make up the game. Nobody in the restaurant seems remotely interested in playing but the machine trills annoyingly on.
“Straw comes in all shapes and the back of a camel can be weak,” Voskamp writes about a kitchen scrap between her two sons over morning toast that seemingly obscures, for her, the face of God. For me the last piece of straw appears to be Jailhouse Rock.
“I am mad. I’d like to will myself out of it but the blood is pounding loud in my ears and the sons slash at each other with dagger eyes.”
I am mad too. I want to unplug the game, just like Voscamp wants to unplug her boys’ resentment. Seriously, how much money can the pizzeria make from this aggravation? I bet I could get away with it. I might even garner the applause and praise of the diners near me.
But I sense that it would be an empty win. My ears want the forced peace, but my soul wants a peace that is found even when the chaos is still plugged in.
“I speak the unseen into seeing and I can feel it, this steady breathing in the rhythm of grace—give thanks (in), give thanks (out). The eyes focus, apertures capturing Beauty in ugliness. There’s a doxology of praise that splits the domestic dark.”
It is silly that these songs hound me. I want to see the Beauty, but I’m convinced there is nothing redeemable about the electronic carnie to my right. I feel like a deaf, dumb and blind kid.
“I look over at my son tearing away at toast. Why am I a habitual reductionist? Why do I reduce God in this moment to mere annoying frustration? Why do I reduce The Greatest to the lesser instead of seeing the lesser, this mess, as reflecting The Greatest? I have to learn how to see, to look through to the Largeness behind all the smallness. Isn’t He here?
Is He?
Here?
And I hear The King whisper my name.
And I turn and notice the light—bright, solid and red.
And I stand up and approach with cautious hope. And I hear the miraculous thunk of the silver ball hit the chute when I press the button. And I couldn’t notice the noise any longer, because when you are right in the middle of the game with your heart and soul, the sounds are just part of the experience.
And I played ball after ball, game after game, and the light stayed lit for at least twenty minutes and it never cost me a cent. It was if someone had plugged the game with quarters ahead of my visit; like someone had already paid the price to bring me joy—peace in the midst of the chaos.
And as I looked through the glass of the Pinball Wizard, I was amazed at what I could see.
And I am grateful.
Eucharisteo