I recently decided I wanted a duster. What is a duster, you ask?

This, dear reader, is a duster:

Isn’t it neat? Take just a moment, dear reader, to bask in its majesty.

My longing to own this particular overcoat began a few days ago, when I checked Wikipedia to find out what sets apart dusters from trench coats. (Dusters are distinct for having a slit up the back to the level of the waist, which allows them to be worn comfortably on horseback.)

Like most overcoats, dusters are cool. Neo from The Matrix wears a duster. Vash the Stampede wears a duster. Most gunslingers in Westerns wear dusters. Seriously, dusters are awesome. I even mentioned one in my last post.

Before continuing, I must make one thing clear: I haven’t accumulated much stuff in twenty-two years of moving from place to place. No matter where I’ve gone, however, I’ve kept one thing: a tendency to be neat and organized. When it comes to my possessions, I generally keep an accurate mental inventory of what I have and where I have it.

It was with great surprise, then, that I opened my hall closet a couple of days ago—fewer than twenty-four hours after deciding I wanted a duster—and found one.

I was puzzled. How in blazes did I acquire a duster? From where had it come? How long had it been hanging unnoticed in my closet?

Then I remembered. Some relatives had given me a bundle of used clothes a couple of months before. I’d hung them up in my hall closet without really looking at them, which is how I had overlooked that they had given me a freaking duster.

To say I am excited is a staggering understatement. Without paying a cent, I have acquired a warm duster that fits comfortably and billows satisfactorily when I walk against the breeze. (The coat probably looks silly, like I’m wearing a brown canvas tent, but that’s not the point—it makes me feel cool, which is what matters.)

When I found a duster hanging in my hall closet, it was a Moment of Pure Awesome.

There have been moments throughout my life, Moments of Pure Awesome, when it felt as though God were patting me on the shoulder and saying, “There, there, you’re going to be all right.”

In the worst months of my Thursday Afternoon the Soul, a year and a half of severe depression, I spent a week camping and traveling with my family in California. It was an unexpectedly perfect week, seven days of sunshine, peace and laughter: seven days peppered with Moments of Pure Awesome.

When I was struggling to find a publisher for The Trials of Lance Eliot—and beginning to wonder whether writing books was worth the trouble—I received a package from a creative writer whom I had met only once. It was filled with letters. A class of grade school kids had read a manuscript of mine and wanted to share what they liked about it. It was another Moment of Pure Awesome.

In my penultimate semester of college, two friends presented me with a beautiful sketch of Uncle Iroh: one of my favorite fictional characters. The gift was a random, wonderful act of kindness. On that night many months ago, my friends gave me something more than a picture: a Moment of Pure Awesome.

I could go on for many, many paragraphs, but I’ll conclude with two brief thoughts.

Dusters are really cool, and I’m thankful for a God who gives us Moments of Pure Awesome.