Living with Waldo

Have you ever wondered what kind of life Waldo leads?

I live with Waldo. His habits are strange. I will often see him standing or sitting in weird places around Paradise. No matter where I see him, he is always wearing the same sweater and always takes his backpack with him. He even has the round, black-framed glasses.

I do wonder what a guy like Waldo believes. He seems like a searcher; someone always looking. He has a Bible, but I’ve never seen him open it; almost like it is one of the items that you must help Waldo find along the way.

I haven’t seen him do much of anything, really. I’ve never seen him brush his teeth, never seen him go to take a shower, never seen him use an alarm clock. He just seems to wake up and float out of the room. 

My other roommate knocked on the bathroom door and, when no one answered, he opened the door to find Waldo standing in the shower completely naked. Seemingly normal, except for the fact that the water wasn’t running.

There is always something about Waldo that is just mysterious. 

He has yoga books, claims to have a black belt in karate, watches a lot of televangelists and takes extensive notes. 

Waldo isn’t a man of many words. I’ve had two conversations with him and one of them he kept talking and talking like I had awoken a conversational beast within him. Maybe he is on some sort of jinx and cannot speak until someone speaks to him first. He did offer some insight into his life, telling me that he likes to “just sit and put time and place together.”

It’s true. I often see him staring listlessly off into the distant mountains like he is painstakingly trying to put time and place together instead of living in the moment. I fear life is passing him by. I’ve never seen him trying to befriend anyone and the times I invite him to come to our worship services or Bible study I get a positive response but he never shows.

He hangs a list on the wall of “Mindful Affirmations” that are very spiritual- ideas from the Christian faith mixed and clouded with other ideas.

Maybe I shouldn’t wonder what kind of life Waldo leads, because I think it is safe to assume he travels a lot and mostly lives out of his well-used backpack. Instead, I should ask, ‘what should I do if I found Waldo and felt like his life needed direction?’