Pelican Days

Yesterday was a full-on Pelican Day. What, you may ask, is a Pelican Day? I will (of course) tell you. A Pelican Day is a day like this:
You wake up in the morning and you realize you forgot to plan what you are going to wear to work. This means that you have to dig something out, spray it with wrinkle releaser, and throw it in the dryer. (Iron? What is this iron of which you speak?) You take it out fifteen minutes later, after spilling your orange juice on your pajama bottoms during breakfast, and discover that the shirt has a stain on the front. So you start over. And you are now officially running late. You get to work, and realize that something you really need has been left behind. So you do something other than what you really needed to do.
You go to a four-hour in-service meeting, which is great, actually, but all you can really think about is all the stuff that still needs to be done in your classroom. You finally get back to your classroom, but there is a problem. You are now so overwhelmed and exhausted that you really can’t focus. So, for the next five hours, you work almost non-stop, but since you have done a little bit of a lot of things, and actually finished none of them, you feel as if you haven’t done anything.
You finally give up and leave, stopping by the dollar store on the way home. Two hours later, you are lying in bed in your pajamas (not the ones you spilled orange juice on—they are in the hamper), and the phone rings. A stranger is calling to tell you she found your wallet. You didn’t even know your wallet was lost, but apparently you left it in the shopping cart outside the dollar store. You get directions to her house. Then, thanking the good Lord for the righteous remnant of the honest, you get dressed and set out to find a strange place in the dark. You pull into the wrong driveway, but fortunately those people aren’t home. You finally find the right place and pull into that driveway. While taking the key from the ignition, you accidentally punch the panic button, which causes the horn to honk wildly as you try to turn the stupid thing off.
The wonderful, honest woman comes out of her house, and you apologize and explain all the noise. She thinks this is hilarious. You, on the other hand, are just glad it’s dark. You thank her profusely, even giving her a hug. What do you have to lose? She already thinks you’re an idiot. You drive home and finally, mercifully, get some sleep.
And that is a Pelican Day.
Why, you may ask, is that called a Pelican Day? Well, I’ll tell you.
Have you ever looked at a pelican bobbing on the water, or crouched on a piling, and thought of how much it looks like a cartoon? It’s a ball of feathers with a ridiculously large beak. Standing or sitting, a pelican just looks kind of absurd. But then it takes off, and everything changes. The ball of feathers becomes a majestic pair of wings. The ridiculous beak stretches out into a long, graceful configuration of head and neck. And suddenly, that which was, only moments ago, a humorous creature has become an arrow in the sky. Most birds have a certain grace when they fly, but none can compare, in my mind, to a pelican.
The reason for this startling contrast is simple. Pelicans don’t belong on the ground—they belong in the sky. When earthbound, they look silly because the earth is not their home. We are the same. This world is not our home, either. We were created to be in the presence of God. Sin changed all that, and ever since, we have struggled here. One day, we will stand in the light of His glory and praise Him eternally. Until then, we’re stuck here. And I, for one, am fairly certain to spend a good deal of time looking like a cartoon.