GROUNDED?

Ever tried spelling “Woolloomooloo”? OK, here we go: Double-U, double O, double L, double O, M, double O, L, double O. Now see how fast you can say it!

Double-U, double O,
double L, double O,
M, double O,
L, double O.

Pure poetry! And a real tongue-twister if there ever was one. Supposedly derived from an aboriginal word, wallabahmullah, i.e., a young black kangaroo.

For those of you non-Aussies, Woolloomooloo is an inner-city suburb of Sydney on Woolloomooloo Bay in Sydney Harbor. A pleasant waterfront to lounge around and watch people. Apart from its tongue-stupefying name, Woolloomooloo is famous for being the home of Harry’s Café de Wheels.

Harry’s culinary establishment is basically a one-room kitchen on wheels, with a large awning. While it used to be mobile, it is now permanently affixed to the ground, despite its name. Fancy murals and pictures of important visitors decorate the edifice, including those of Frank Sinatra, Robert Mitchum, Marlene Dietrich, and Colonel Sanders. Not the least of that coterie is my friend, Malcolm, the back of whose head you see.

Harry’s Café de Wheels is now included in the National Trust of Australia, acknowledged as having “aesthetic, historical, architectural, archaeological, scientific, or social significance or other special value for future generation.” An icon and a must-see (and must-eat-at) tourist attraction.

I came, I saw, and I ate.

I consumed a Tiger, which—named after Harry “Tiger” Edwards—is, as the sign announces, a beef pie with mashed potatoes and mushy green peas, all collectively drowning in brown gravy, which one consumes sitting on the sidewalk or wherever, out of a paper bowl, with a plastic fork.

Ol’ Harry began this operation in 1938, and it has been running ever since, except for an interlude during the war when Mr. Edwards was conscripted into the army.

The Sydney City Council mandates that food-vending vans like Harry’s Café de Wheels actually be mobile and move at least 12 inches every day. I don’t know how Harry finagled his permanent base with the City Council, but he did: it has apparently moved only five times in the last 60+ years. (Somebody stole de Wheels once, and it was temporarily Harry’s Café de Axles until aforementioned purloined objects were replaced.)

Anyhow, it struck me that something that is by definition mobile can become permanently stationary.

It’s called “falling into a rut.”

I confess I like ruts. They keep me comfortable. They make life predictable. I can navigate ruts by autopilot. No thinking needed. No heartbeats wasted. Gimme a rut!

But that’s stagnation. Hardly what ought to be a characteristic of the Christian life.

Brethren, I do not regard myself
as having laid hold of it yet;
but one thing I do:
forgetting what lies behind
and reaching forward
to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal
for the prize of the upward call
of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13–14

This is a constant move. Upwards. Onwards. Forwards.

Finally then, brethren,
we request and exhort you
in the Lord Jesus, …
to walk and please God
(just as you actually do walk),
that you excel still more.
1 Thessalonians 4:1

No ruts. Instead, growth. Never stopping. Never ceasing. Never quitting.

… we are to grow up in all aspects
into Him who is the head, even Christ,
Ephesians 4:15

Constant growth, to look more like Christ each day.

… grow in the grace and knowledge
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To Him be the glory,
both now and to the day of eternity.
Amen.
2 Peter 3:18

Abandon ye olde rut!