On The Street



After a very difficult week where one of our student's passed away, I came home Friday night fairly emotionally concussed. There is really only one therapeutic response for this...sleep. My mind needs to rest and rejuvenate in total silence. After about an hour and change of deep rest, I was ready to roll and do something. The neurons had cooled.

One of my good buddies had FB Messaged me while I dozed, announcing that it was the weekend. He knows me well enough to realize that I was napping. It is fairly common on Friday afternoons. If I don't nap, then a quiet night at home is usually my next best option. School counseling typically takes a pound of flesh from me, and sometimes much more. This was one of those weeks.  

Thus, we planned to hang out with the agreement that it needed to be outside and include beer. So, we decided upon Columbia Kettleworks, our go-to in this part of the county. Close to my haus, great beer, and the town needs cash.

As we sipped our brews, an older lady in a motorized scooter made and moved her way up the sidewalk towards us, chatting with the patrons, while rummaging through the trash receptacle for aluminum cans. Pa. doesn't have a coin refund on cans so I am not sure what her gig was with this. When she came to us, we got in a long conversation with her.

She essentially shared with us her life story, as she puffed on the hand-rolled cigarettes her grand-daughter had fashioned for her. Starting at the beginning, she regaled us with tales of being one of ten kids, a hard-working farm girl, who had many difficulties in life, scrapes and sagas. It is not my place to tell her story in specific details yet I was reminded that we all have a story.

I was also reminded that Jesus identifies with the non-rock stars of life and I am pretty sure that if we are unknowingly entertaining angels, they are not going to look like the high and mighty--for it is too easy to pay such homage and respect. No, unassuming and usual would be the clues of a divine encounter in my estimation. And the truth is, almost all of us are of the unassuming and usual genre. In a 100 years, few will know of us, if we have not blown ourselves up by then. A fitting ending to the hubris of humanity. Until the final day comes, and it is, we are to treat God's image-bearers with the respect He deserves, no matter who the person is.

We are known to God and derive our dignity from Him. "For in Him, we live and move and have our being." (Acts 17:18).    



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