3:00 AM Marginalia: Wrinkled Pants and the Second I Became the Enemy | Theology of Everyday Life
3:00 AM Marginalia: Wrinkled Pants and the Second I Became the Enemy
Greeting time in church. Laughter, handshakes. Then the deacon walks in—wrinkled pants, wrinkled shirt. Out of character. My mouth opens with a joke instead of concern. Behind his laugh, pain. I did damage in one second.
Three a.m. The moment replays on loop. Greeting time. I'm laughing, shaking hands, church alive. Then the deacon walks in. Young, usually sharp. Today his pants are wrinkled, shirt rumpled. My eyes go straight to it. First thought: not Good morning, Deacon. First words: "What happened to your iron this morning? Couldn't find it?"
He laughs. But behind the laugh, behind his eyes, something shifts. Something I hadn't seen before. Pain. Not the surface kind. The deep, inward kind that uses wrinkled clothes to signal outward when words won't come. In that instant I knew: I had called someone who was hurting. And I had joked about the signal instead of asking if he was okay.
I caught it immediately. Came back in the next breath: spoke to him, soft, concerned. But the first second had already landed. The damage was done. I can't undo that look in his eyes. I can hug, pray, speak pretty words after. But that one second—when I was the one who made the wound sharper—is forever. I was the enemy in that breath. Then friend in the next. Saint at 3:01. Sinner at 3:02.
Sometimes the enemy is us.
For one second. Then the next.
We like to think wounds come from outside. From strangers, from the world. But sometimes they come from inside the greeting circle. From the person who should have seen pain and said "Is everything okay?" instead of reaching for a laugh. I failed that. The moment is gone. The memory stays. At 3 a.m., it asks: How many more seconds will I miss the signal? How many more times will I be the enemy before I remember to be the friend first?
That's enough. The clock moves to 3:03. The duality holds.
