Breath of Fresh Air

I ran into an old junior high / high school acquaintance on the bus this morning. We work in neighboring buildings and we've bumped into each other a couple times now. We didn't really have many classes together in high school (which in those awkward teenage translates to not really being friends) and I think I remember her more from junior high. Talking to her now, though, I almost wish we had been better friends back then. I think I could have learned a lot from her. She's smart, witty, energetic (even before 9 am) and easily talks about the importance of God in her life. I'm glad to have the chance to reconnect with her, years and lots of maturity later. In a way it's a nice affirmation that I'm not too far removed from the happy-go-lucky nerd I once was. Ideally, I've retained the optimism and quasi-innocence of those days while gaining Grace and hopefully wisdom too.

This would be a nice story in and of itself but what's stranger is that after dinner Tony and I got a phone call from an old college friend. Try as we all might to be good at it, communication is tough. This was a friend neither of us had seen or talked to in several years so it was great to touch base, talk about life, families, God and work. It's almost as if the more unexpected these types of things are, the more refreshing they seem.

(Re)connecting with friends truly is a breath of fresh air.

In other news, that will hopefully also seem a breath of fresh air, I want to do a quick point out of a new "feature" on my blog index. I seem to get in lots of discussions about books and what I'm currently reading so I've added a list on the side of my blog (below Recent Entries) of the last five books I've read or am reading. The links are to Amazon where you can find a synopsis if you so desire. I'm not saying they're good books, just the one's I've recently read. My opinions will be reserved until they are asked for.

And speaking of opinions, feel free to give one here since I seem to have been a partial inspiration for the post.