Saw something a little different today...

I’m going to give this a shot, because I don’t know how some of this works. But I saw something today that I’ve not seen before. First a little setup. We are shifting from soup season to real meals once again. Robin has a pretty good system for making soup and the number of folks we see in the winter months is obviously less than what we see in the nicer weather. So now that winter has given way to spring, we are seeing a pretty good surge in number of people we are serving. I think today we figured around 225 meals served. That is a pretty good surge for us and it’s maybe a little harder to prepare for that. The nice thing is that God is in charge so He always sends us with enough. But the preparation is a little more difficult from a logistical standpoint. Now this morning I saw something at my house that once again made me feel pretty good about things, at least from a father’s standpoint. Christian and I spent a couple hours in the garage sorting clothing, hygiene items, and bagging shoes and things. I came in the kitchen at one point and Erin was helping Robin make the meal. And Nick was chipping in also. It’s so cool to see all the members of my family pitching in to help and there are really very few complaints. Just an observation, but they all do it and seem to like helping. As for Christian? Well anytime I can spend a couple hours with my 14 year old and he wants to be there? That’s all good! So then I knocked a glass bottle and a light bulb out of the overhead kitchen cabinet minutes before we left to go downtown. You know what happens when glass hits tile from that high? Basically fills the floor with nice, shiny sparkling glass shards...everywhere. Now it would have been nice if each little piece of glass would have been a direct it on one of the million or so ants that seem to be invading our house this time of year. But no go. And then I bit my tongue while yelling at Nick and Christian, yep, those same two that were so helpful a bit earlier. Yep, bit my tongue and it bled all the way downtown. Took a nice chunk off the end. Serves me right I suppose. Seriously, that’s all the small stuff. Can’t sweat that.

So back to what I saw today. We got to our corner, set up the meal and got things underway. I spent a few minutes talking to my good friend Bill. Love talking to that guy. If we are allowed to have favorites among our friends, Bill would definitely be one of mine. So I chatted with Bill for a few minutes and then made my way through the line greeting our friends and enjoying a few minutes catching up with everyone. As I got through the line, I started up a conversation with my friend Keith. Keith is an African American fellow, probably about 6’4 and just a really nice guy. He’s gotten himself an apartment recently and we helped him get a television. He needs other stuff, so we are trying to help him out there also. But we were really just having a conversation about the whole thing that happens on Sundays in the park. Here we are in the middle of a couple hundred people and mostly people seemed to be in pretty good spirits. One of the things that makes it difficult for us is when our friends show up on Sundays in various states of intoxication. That goes with the territory, but it just makes it a little tough. This morning? Not so much of that and that’s a good thing. So as Keith and I are talking, I hear a bit of a ruckus kicking up. I don’t really see anything happening, but there is shouting and something definitely happening. Then I see a fellow walking right smack in the middle of everything. The look on his face is nothing short of rage and the language he’s spewing is pretty raw. Real raw. As he gets closer, I can tell he’s not happy with us. F*&$ing Christians! His words. Not mine. Said it several times as he walked through. Basically telling us how bad we were and that we were up to no good. Said it loads of times. Usually when something like that happens, my first inclination is to try to calm the situation. Especially in light of all the ladies and young kids that come down to help. But this happened fairly removed from all of them, so I just looked at Keith and we looked back at the guy. I simply told him…”God bless ya man!” And that riled him up a little more. And then he said the thing that stuck with me and the thing that made his behavior make a little more sense. He said, well, what he’d said several times. Dropped the f bomb on the Christians and then said Satan ruled this world. And you know what? He might have a point. But as I look back and try to picture his face when he actually turned back around and made that comment? I have to believe it was the adversarial one himself. However that works. The cool thing about the whole thing? I was talking to Keith about the great fellowship that happens on that corner on Sundays and he was telling me how much he looked forward to coming down on Sundays. And he had a funny look on his face when I told him how much we looked forward to Sundays. And then this guy walks through the park tearing into us all. And he’d take a few steps, turn around and let us have it again. And then something else happened. As I said, our serving line was pretty darn long today. And when this all happened, I was near the back of the line. That’s when I heard several people in the line start blessing the guy. God bless ya. God bless ya. God bless ya. Must have heard it 5 or 10 times. And even if it was in jest? Well it was spoken. And Keith and I just chuckled. And Satan just kept on walking. By himself. And we just kept on doing our community thing. In the Lord’s name. Because as Keith said, wherever two or more are gathered. And he laughed again and said there’s a whole lot more than two! And there were. :)

Now the whole thing was a little unsettling to me. Because I really dislike confrontation. So when I see this guy yelling at people in the park and screaming obscenities, I’m thinking someone just might take offense at his behavior and take care of a little business. Never happened. There was far too much good happening for a little adversarial activity to ruin it. I really believe I saw a fellow who was filled with hate and rage and Satan was livin’ high on the hog in this guy. Was it the face of the evil one himself? Who knows, but this guy was filled with troubles. And he did not like Christians. That’s ok. We won’t hold it against him. Can’t. We’ll pray for him and maybe some crazy Christian will show him a little light someday. All I know is we had a fantastic day down there today in spite of this one fellow. Everything went so smooth. Happens like that when God is running the show I suppose. Not to belittle the issues that we come across down on that corner. But man when God goes to work there, it never ceases to amaze me. In fact, I can’t wait for next Sunday. And the all the next Sundays. Spring is here and amazing things are in store. We got in the van to leave today and both Robin and I wondered for a minute what we were going to do. Last year, we didn’t experience this kind of a surge until mid summer or so. It’s still April! But we don’t have to worry. The Man is in charge and we are simply along for the ride.

Finally, I got a call this week from a fellow that was recently able to get home. Back to Phoenix. We helped him secure a bus ticket and he called to let me know he made it back. That is always so cool to me. I mean, if you figure it out, the bus ticket cost pennies on the dollar to a guy who might have a chance now that he’s out of a homeless shelter and back home where he might be able to make it. Brian is back home and hopefully he’ll remember who got him there. Wasn’t us.

I read this quote somewhere this week so I’ll steal it. I like it. "Community is between individuals, with no blurring of the boundaries of I and thou."

I wanted to mention Starfish Soaps this week but I’ve rambled on enough. Next week. For sure. Unless He has other plans.

John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same." Luke 3:11

Peace and have a great and blessed week.

…it matters to that one… :)