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Minutes of Meetings with God |
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Saturday Breakfast ... |
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| My wife and I go out to eat, probably more than we like to admit. However,
we usually don't go out for breakfast. Our habit is to fix toast or oatmeal
in the morning. We fill our day with whatever we need to do in the way of
work or responsibilities, then, back at home as evening comes, we start this
sort of ritual of conspiracy that helps us to agree that we're both too tired
or too frazzled to cook. So, we go off for something to eat. Sometimes, it
would be easier to just stay at home and fix something because it gets to
be a chore to decide "where" we are going to eat.
One recent Saturday morning, we both felt that we really wanted someone else to fix our breakfast for us. Gift certificates that we had to a local eatery made it easy to choose where to go. I'm still using crutches to get around because of a recent surgery; it takes more than the usual amount of time for me to get ready, get into the car, get out of the car, and go into wherever I'm going. In other words, doing anything much is a chore. When we arrived at the restaurant, I hauled myself inside with my crutches only to find there was a line both waiting to get in the place and at the cash register waiting to get out. I leaned on my crutches not far from the cashier as my wife went to put our name on the waiting list for a table. As I stood there, the cashier made the mistake of asking a young Amish man: "Was everything okay?" In an effort to be true to his religious faith's demand for truth, plain speaking, and gentleness, the young Amish man replied, "It was alright (he paused), except the food was cold and the service was slow." The cashier really didn't know what to say other than "sorry". At that point, I told my wife that it would be best if we left and found another place to eat. That one was clearly having problems and I didn't want a bad start to the day. We headed out. The Amish man was standing outside the restaurant door, and I thanked him for speaking up, registering his complaint, and doing it so kindly. I told him I admired what he had done and the way he did it. I found myself wishing that I did the same, more often. Mostly I won't say much or anything, I just won't go back to a place with bad service. My wife and I tried another restaurant, but it wasn't open yet. Finally, after driving almost all the way home, we found a place a couple of miles Southwest of the house. It was a eatery nestled in the heart of a local village. We'd eaten there before and knew the meal would be very good. And, we wondered why we hadn't thought of it in the first place. I navigated a high curb and a few steps with my crutches in order to get inside the establishment. Then we made our way to the non-smoking section and sat down at a table. I propped my leg, all wrapped in a cast, on one of the chairs. The waitress was there almost immediately with the menus and to ask if we wanted coffee or something else to drink. We placed our order for breakfast. While we waited for our food, we struck up a conversation with an elderly couple who were sitting at another table near us. At first, the talk was about why my leg was in a cast, but then, the conversation shifted to them, their life and their experiences. As we listened, we learned that they lived about a 20 minute drive away. We found out that they came to that restaurant pretty regularly (the wait staff knew them by name). And, we learned that they had lived in Detroit for decades. We learned much more about the husband of the couple than we did about the wife. It must be a guy thing! He had served in the military, in the Pacific, during World War II. He had returned home and worked in the maintenance garage of Detroit's transportation department. He and his wife had taken a trip some years back that allowed him to return to some of those places he fought during the War. They told us of a hotel fire, their brush with death as they broke out a window then slid 4 stories along a downspout to escape the flames. She had broken both legs. He had been hurt, too. But they had survived. They had made a trip to the Holy Land and had one of those faith renewing experiences that so frequently seems to accompany that pilgrimage. They had been particularly touched by their time in and around Jerusalem. As I recall, it was during this part of our conversation that the gentleman described himself as "a back-slidden" Methodist. In his younger days, he had been particularly active in the Methodist church. He had been one of the charter members who worked so hard to build the Cass Avenue United Methodist Church at it's current site. He was especially proud to have been part of that effort. He had been active in that congregation's ministry to men. He had done many other things that, unfortunately, I don't remember. We finished our breakfast. I found myself feeling very glad that we hadn't eaten at either of the other places we had intended. It seemed rather like "The Spirit" had brought us to that restaurant so we could hear this couple's story. It was a story of faith and adventure and endurance and love (they didn't say much in words about their love for each other, but the kind and gentle way they acted toward each other spoke volumes). As we were leaving, I told the couple that I hoped that they had done something to record the story of their lives, for their children, for their grandchildren, and for others. I suggested to them that they write down, or either audio or video tape those exciting things that they had shared with us. I let them know how special they were and how important their stories are, especially if the next generations are going to know anything valuable about the world that they will inherit. Their impulse was to discount the value of how they had lived and what they had done. They said they didn't think that their children and grand-children or anyone else would be interested in their lives. I thought it too bad that they did not have a strong sense of what it meant that they were mar-ried so long, survived so much, and did so many things for family, community, country, church and God. They are people who have lived their faith. We tend to think that it is only widely known people, wealthy people, people who "do things first or most" (Guinness World Record people), politic-ians, war heros, athletes, and so on that should tell their stories. We forget: God came to live among us as a carpenter whose life was comparatively short, especially by today's standard; that the carpenter's closest friends made their living by fishing; that the person who first put the Gospel into written word was a tent maker; that during the first hundred or so years of the Church, the message of God's love for all of us was most widely and effectively passed along by servants and slaves. If people are going to hear the Gospel, it is because we tell the story of our lives and how that Good News has changed us and how we live. |