Unroll the foil
The feast finds the people who were already setting up.
I was on a walk last Thursday around 2 PM when a guy passed me on a motorized bike.
He pulled into the park, got off, and started unrolling a sheet of foil.
Just him. Empty park. 1:51 in the afternoon.
He was setting up a barbecue.
I don’t know if he was expecting someone or if he just decided that Thursday at 2 PM was a perfectly good time to have a feast. Maybe both. Maybe it didn’t matter.
But something about it stopped me.
Here’s a guy who didn’t wait for the right crowd, the right occasion, the right time. He just showed up and started making conditions for something good to happen.
Paula D’Arcy says it like this: Every day you are given five loaves and two fish. Whether or not there is a feast is up to you.
He had his five loaves. He had his two fish. And he was rolling the foil.
Tchaikovsky said inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.
I think about that a lot. Not as a guilt trip. More like a question I keep asking myself — what am I doing today that says I’m expecting something?
Am I rolling the foil? Am I getting the charcoal ready? Am I lighting the match — even if no one shows up?
Because here’s the thing about preparation: it isn’t just logistics. It’s a posture. It’s a quiet declaration that something is worth expecting.
The barbecue guy didn’t need an audience to justify the setup. The setup was the statement.
What’s yours?
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