I sit by the window. It’s past midnight. At my beside the lamp is glowing, soft, deep orange setting on my little stool that I bought from Hobby lobby 2 yrs ago. 

I drank  coffee too late in the day, but I wanted to focus on schoolwork. I need the extra caffeine hit to keep me awake from the late afternoon drowsiness. I strum my ukulele. Listening to every little note making up my own tunes. In the backgrounds the night, crickets, and whatever make those buzzes just kinda nice night noises chirp outside the open window. A loud motorcycle passes. The abominable arguing of a couple at the bar across the street about designated drivers and work the next week. It was a Friday night after all. We were both trying to cleanse our minds of the week me strumming  my ukulele and the beverage sipping folks in a loud drunken argument across the street. Both looking for some sort of peace. We were the same. 

The door opened at the bar across the street and loud twang of country music along with the hub bub of a bar voices drifted across the street. My ukulele popped a couple more notes. I played the C cord over and over again because that’s the one to know the best and it was the easiest. 

I thought maybe the gentle strumming would ease my mind. Something kind of peaceful, you know. The drunken arguing got more abrasive across the street. 

The gentle notes of the ukulele reminded me of my friend Abby that I met at Bible Institute a couple years back. Just before she went to bed by the light of a tiny lamp. She sat on the floor by the dormitory closet and strummed gentle little  lullabies . She’s among one of the more peaceful people I know. 

I’ll let the notes fade almost flicker out before I hit the next one. Nothing fancy just a couple tunes. 

My dog made a some grunts in her sleep. I don’t know what she was dreaming of.  But at least she was doing more than I was. Sleeping.

Different things keep us up at night, sometimes it’s school, sometimes coffee and maybe it’s thoughts like what if the Catholics are right about Mother Mary?  

Cowboy boots clicked on the sidewalk. I know it was cowboy boots because  they have a certain sound to them.. the door of the bar opened up a woman yelled out.

“Russell!”

“What?”

“Grab me a piece of pizza too while you’re at it.” 

“What kind?”

“I don’t care just pizza.”( it sounded like a vile idea because I’m fact hate pizza but I digress)

The bar door shut the boots clicked on down the side sidewalk. 

I guess what was keeping Russell up,  was a pizza run at the shop down the street but maybe it was more. 

Maybe it was the fact that he was married to a woman or wasn’t married to her. Or the fact that he or she had a pizza craving. Who knows. Maybe Russell was a people pleaser or maybe I was projecting and maybe it was just simply that he needed a better piece of pizza with his beer.

I hit a couple more notes on the ukulele.  They sounded kind of twangy and mournful. I wished again for the 9.5 time I hadn’t drank that extra coffee this afternoon because now I was left alone with my thoughts. 

They are a nice company sometimes,but nothing gets thoroughly figured out after midnight.  And if so,it is usually partially deluded. Especially in the theology department for me. With one exception being; in the month of March, in the year of our Lord 2021. 

That had been 3 AM musings so maybe that was different than midnight.

My train of thoughts chugged on. 

Like was Mercy and Grace the ultimate answer to shame? And if so, how was that practically played out? Or maybe there’s nothing practical to it at all? What was the formula I could break it down to it to make it all make sense? 

Or was it the fact that if I reckoned with my humanity and fall down and worship and when my eyes are on the king of Kings and Lord of lords it changes how I view shame?  But maybe I  could fall down in worship and still feel some sort of debilitating shame about my identity? 

I finally sighed and said I didn’t know. I told myself that out loud just to be sure I heard it.

Maybe I’d know in the next 10 years.. maybe when my body was a corpse in the ground I’d finally have the answer to the everything I was ever curious about. 

But I have one theory I have is if there anybody up past midnight usually has a reason and most times it’s because they’re looking for something.. something to wash away the stress of the week. Something to calm their mind after too much late afternoon caffeine. Or maybe just some pizza.  And what if the Catholics are right about Mother Mary? What’s the reason you’re up past midnight?

I put the ukulele away, checked my  emails, set my alarm for the morning, and turned off the lamp. 

I finally slept but I still wonder about Mother Mary.