Cruise Control

be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us  Ephesians 5: 1-2

This Friday I was waiting for my 2 pm customer whose first name interestingly was Santa and whose last name was a hyphenated Hispanic one. A vehicle with a few Hispanics was waiting a ways away and when I approached them and asked if one of them was Santa they said no. "What time is your test scheduled?" I asked and one of them said it was for 2:30, which would have been the time for Jackie's next test. She was currently out on the road with a client.

About 5 minutes later another vehicle with a Hispanic man parks next to them. When he gets out of his car I call over and ask if he is here for a test and is his name Santa. He tells me no but that he has come to translate for the person in the car next to him.

My person does not show up and after they are over 10 minutes late and I don't really have the time to do theirs anymore if they do show up I remove their score sheet from my clip board, write "NO SHOW" on it and file it with my other completed test sheets.

At 2:15 Jackie gets back from her test. Her client's car parks near the Hispanic group's cars and when she walks back to our car she tells me that my client is waiting over there. I get out and yell over, "Is one of you named Santa?" The translator now says, oh ya, she is sitting right here in the car.

At this point I lose my cool. I know I really should do the test because they have been sitting there, even though it is now way late and they have screwed up my schedule big time by not identifying Santa even though I asked twice. And they compounded it all by telling me the wrong time. So I hop out of my car angry and say very loudly; "YOU ARE NOW TOO LATE TO DO THE TEST BUT HUSTLE YOUR CAR OVER HERE RIGHT AWAY!"

By the time Santa gets there I calmed down a little. It is of course a matter of me not having been clear enough or them not understanding my questions because of the language barrier. I treated Santa as calm and pleasant as I could and the test ended up only going half the route because she was driving 5 plus mph over the speed limit after I warned her for going 5 mph over early in the test. She and the translator understood and everything ended quite pleasant although for the rest of the day I was feeling a little upset with myself for my outburst.

Friday night I happened upon a blog written by a guy whose name is John Romaine. From the few posts I read I would guess that he must be someone around my age. He told a story about recently stepping in as a part time minister for a church which was in the process of searching for a new permanent pastor. The head board member asked him to sign a contract which laid out 3 things they wanted him to agree to do.

The first was to have 20 hours of office time. The second was to visit long time members who were no longer attending and the third was to conduct communion in the same way as had been their tradition. He did as they asked and everyone seemed to be very pleased. The fact that he also used the bible quite a bit when he preached was an unexpected bonus. John said that in addition to this he stepped out in faith and started visiting the local nursing home on Tuesday mornings. After a couple of weeks the people there expected him to come every Tuesday.

John told about his first home visit to an ex member. It was an older couple. They talked, sang hymns together, he gave them communion and after he left he realized that he had received as much as he gave. He also had a meeting with a man who had caused some division in the church (reading between the lines maybe he was one of the reasons the other pastor left) and that seemed to have gone well. And now after having preached for 9 weeks there were some new families that were starting to attend.

I thought this was a very nice post and reading on I came upon another one which happened to really prick my conscience.

At a different town where he used to be a minister there was an undertaker who was a Christian. When someone died and there was a shortage of funds to pay for his services the undertaker would provide his services without charge. Knowing that John was also a like minded Christian he asked him if he would help out when needed.

One day a man who was a known drunk fell in a swamp and drowned. The undertaker gave John a call and told him where to meet at the cemetery that the city used to bury poor people like the drunk. It also happened to be located in a swamp. John said that at a normal burial there would be a team of people from a funeral home who would let people out of their cars, lead family and friends inside a canopy, give John the signal when to step in to do his thing, and then arraign for the people to leave and the crew to fill in the grave.

The undertaker said things would be different here. John would be required to stay and wait for the crew to finish their work before he could leave.

It was raining heavy when John got there. The undertaker and the mother of the drunk got out of the hearse and stood by the graveside under the undertaker's umbrella. Meanwhile John was getting soaked to the bone. John says he read a psalm by David who recounts when he was running for his life and thought there was no hope but then remembered that he could still call upon the Lord who could deliver him even from the pit. John said that the mother pressed her head into the undertakers chest and cried, the undertaker cried and even he cried. After the short service was over the mother and undertaker get back into the hearse and John had to wait there still in the heavy rain waiting for the crew to finish putting the wet soil into the water soaked grave. The crew told him he should go sit in his pickup and they would tell him when he could go.

That was the story. Short and sweet. No great teaching to go with it. And yet it tore me apart. Here was a man who was living as Christ would want him to, loving and serving others even when it surely wasn't easy. And me? Do people see Christ in me? Am I on cruise control, sitting high and dry in my comfort zone?

Today for my tests I had a mixture of Asians, Hispanics and Africans for clients, bringing with them all the odd and unusual behaviors that sometimes makes testing a challenge. One of the Vietnamese translators out of the blue asked me if I was a Christian.

Thank you Father for reminding me whom I should look like and for hearing my cry last night.