sometimes the early bird don't get jack. so why be early?

writing a weekly sermon is not an instantaneous process; some time passes during the procedure (although the actual amount varies, depending on my inspiration, distractions, & countless other factors. if i were a physics major i might write out a formula for time necessary to write a sermon, but then again if i were a physics major i doubt i'd have the literary skills to pull off this page properly, if i even wanted to at all). & some of the steps taken to write & post a sermon are taken in an order that might seem counterintuitive.

for example, the first thing i do upon logging into the file manager is rename the file from the previous week. this means that, for a brief shimmering instant, there is no "this week's sermon" file, & anyone so cursed as to visit my page at that moment is in for a shock when geocities announces it couldn't find the file. next i update the sermon & past sermon pages. most likely i do all this to postpone the anxious minutes i spend in front of an essentially blank page without so much as a topic sentence, trying desperately to jar my neurons into composing something for me.

next i go ahead & create a new page, an empty vessel which awaits the transubstantiation of life that flows from my fingers. next, after a few tags i type by rote, i pound blindly on the keys to attain a hopefully random color scheme. then, before saving & previewing, i type a quick, witty phrase or 2, a proton-sized nugget of wisdom (or some obscure pun), just so those who do drop in while i'm composing have something to look at. most often these aphorisms are lost within an hour of their inception, never to be seen by human or even electronic eye. not this week. this week's sermon-teaser remains; it's the first paragraph, the bit about the bird.

originally i penned it just as a jibe at any hypothetical visitor who might view it. it was my way of saying, "ha ha! you're too early! sit down & wait like everyone else!" but immediately i realized it was far more than that. this was an insight too deep to let disappear.

i've never been big on those poor-richard's/old-wives' expressions, simply because they're cliched (not their fault, admittedly) & often oversimplified. especially i've always hated the "early bird" one. it sets off in me a ripple of negative reactions & histamines.

one of the first & simplest reactions is: yuck! who wants a worm?! but my insights do get more complex from there, as this sermon's first line suggests.

often enough, being early doesn't get you anything. my sermons are a prime example: if you get here before i write the sermon, you're not one of the priveleged few who get to read it first. no, you don't get to read it at all. on a similar line, i was at the social security office a couple weeks ago. even though they're on the take-a-number system, there's only one person serving all those waiting numbers. meanwhile, there're a few civil "servants" helping the old bags who somehow got appointments. do those people come in early? oh no, they get there barely in time for their name to be called. i spent more time in line than any of them spent in the office.

other times, being early does get you something: something bad. the especially-early bird gets no worm; he gets pneumonia from waiting in the wee hours while dew condenses on his little head.

of course, being early is, in some circumstances, beneficial. my mom's always shoving us out the door to the movies earlier than i'd think we'd need to leave. although we usually have to watch all the trivia slides come by 2 or 3 times, it's a lot better than stumbling late into a crowded pit of darkness & trying to find a seat. people who do that always seem to piss me off, because i can't see the previews for their meandering sillhouettes.

exceptions aside, though, you can see my point. all this rushing to be early just makes people uptight. yuck! who wants to be uptight?