July 2023. Going on three years now, I’ve been writing Five Minute Observations. This is post five-hundred-something. To be honest, I lost count.

If you’re new, or it’s been a while since you’ve read a Five Minute Observations post, I want to take this opportunity to invite you inside, starting with one of three doors. Each one offers something different.

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Door one. There’s a diner. It’s late. Four men sit in a booth, talking about an incident in a garden earlier. They don’t use names. The server, Tami, refills their coffee while she tries to overhear without making it too obvious. In a few short minutes, she figures out who she’s waiting on. Read it here: The Word Got Very Tired.

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Door two. A commute on I-55, my exit coming up just as fast as a question I’ve been struggling to answer for years. Was it me? Am I too much? The garden of Gethsemane is where I find him, one man who refused to leave. Read it here: He’s Right Here.

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Door three. During a local election, I read a social media post I so badly wanted to respond to, drafted in my head, long before I finished the first paragraph. I chose not to. Read why here: Leave It Alone. The whole piece is about what I chose not to do.

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Three doors. A diner. A highway. A social media post. Three separate stories. I’m not sure they have anything in common, but what I did was show up, pay attention, and do my very best to get out of the way. All so you could see what I saw.

That’s it. The blog in a nutshell. Short posts about ordinary moments that wind up being not so ordinary after all.

If you walked in through one of these doors, tell me which one. I’d love to know. Then I can write more of them.

Which one did you open?

Better yet, which one stayed with you?

Joe III