Thursday Th(inks) - February 26, 2026

Guarding Chair # 5

Thursday is the fifth drawer down in the week of our lives. Not the bright beginning, not quite

the final closing — but the one that contains sensible shoes and unsent opinions (I’ve learned to

use the blessed delete button often and vigorously. Maybe wisdom is also a benefit of aging).

Thursday is the thoughtful middle of the end, when the noise quiets and the truths grow

plainspoken. We are no longer proving ourselves; we are learning to open what remains with

steadier hands and far less patience for nonsense.

But sometimes, in our Thursday years, we let the drawer get stuck.

Recently, my friend decided to have her coffee in the lounge at our athletic club. She unknowingly violated the unspoken rule of Chair # 5. No sooner had she settled in than a voice

from the throne — Chair # 1 — announced that she could not, I mean could NOT, sit there. That

was John’s chair. Everyone knows that.

Now, let it be pointed out that chair # 2, # 3, # 4, # 6, # 7 were EMPTY. But John, apparently, could not sit anywhere but in chair # 5 and John also, apparently, was due to arrive any moment! His chair MUST be emptied of this presumptuous woman, immediately!

Now, my friend is also in her Thursday years and is not a woman easily rearranged by skinny

men guarding numbered furniture. (This may be why she’s one of my besties.) She held her

ground while an invisible army of delicate Thursday male egos shifted uncomfortably around

her, waiting for the imminent arrival of John.

She drank her coffee slowly — the way a Thursday woman does when she knows she has nothing left to prove.

generated by Bing

What was in that gentleman’s drawer that made him guard chair # 5 with such exactitude?

Expectation. Entitlement. Territory.

And perhaps fear.

Has the drawer petrified?

Are we fossilized?

We sit in the same pew at church.

Same place at the table.

Same stool at the bar.

Same corner at water aerobics.

Same opinions.

Same story, told forty-seven times.

And heaven help the newcomer who doesn’t know our stuck patterns.

There is comfort in familiarity. That is not sin; it is human. But when comfort hardens into

control, the drawer swells shut. We stop welcoming. We start guarding.

Thursday is not meant to be territorial. It is meant to be generous.

Perhaps we need a little oil on the slides of our Thursday drawer. The oil of the Spirit. The

gracious flexibility that says, “Please, sit here in John’s chair. He won’t mind. There’s lots of

chairs.”

generated by Bing

If your drawer is stuck, it isn’t too late. A small act of surrender will usually do it. Move over.

Try another seat. Take the numbers off the chairs.

Here’s to the Thursday years — when even stubborn drawers can still open.

Big Brains: "The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition." Israel Zangwill

Old Souls:

"The element of truth in the concept of genius is to be sought in the object, in what is open, not confined by repetition." Theodor W. Adorno

The Ancient of Days: "And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled." Luke 14:22-23 (ESV)

Norma Jean quote:
We are pilgrims, not landlords. Every chair is borrowed.

Thursday Chat: Stuck drawer? Guarded chair? It might be time to move over.