Independence Day Musings

Week seven on the book field…wow, half way through the summer already! There have been so many incredible moments shared with a vast array of different kinds of folks during these past several weeks. Sometimes I come in off the field at the end of a long day just shaking my head incredulously, laughing, and thinking, “Really?!”

Twice in the past month I’ve had people offer to adopt me (but I like my own parents quite a lot, so I think I’m good). Yesterday I met a very solid and very large pit bull who apparently demonstrates his affection for strange visitors by bodyslamming them—wow. He almost knocked the wind out of me…but it was so unexpected that it completely cracked me up, and I laughed the whole way down the driveway as I left the house.

Then there was the little old lady with the highly over-protective German shepherd, who came zipping out through her doggy door to latch onto my tennis shoe with a heart-stopping growl and an emphatic shake of his head. He let go of my shoe after a few seconds, and then started circling me, looking for the next chompable location on my person…I was just about to knock him out by hitting him rather hard on the head with my bookcase when his elderly owner tottered out through the screen door to restrain him. Not gonna lie, it took me about five minutes to get my hands to stop shaking enough to write. But the owner was super nice. I love grandmas.

I’ve met more people out here in Tennessee than I have in the whole year previously, I do believe, but it’s been amazing, challenging, heart wrenching, and encouraging all at the same time.

For example, several days ago, I met David, the Hazmat guy, who told me that his job was to clean up biohazardous materials. From first impressions, he wasn’t exactly the type of guy that you’d expect to have a serious, compassionate, and sensitive side. There were tattoos all over his arms, a cigarette hanging from his lips, muscles rippling all over his arms, and a somewhat hardened look on his bronzed face as he met me at the door. As we stood on the doorstep and talked, however, I began to realize yet again that there’s much more to a person than what meets the eye. We talked for almost an hour…because sometimes, people just need to say what’s on their mind, and they want someone to listen. So I listened.

I had come to his door not knowing anything about him, his past, or his future—simply to see if he would be interested in something that pertained to the Bible. Sometimes, though, when you start asking questions, you uncover a whole can of worms…

“Thea, you know what it means when somebody works in Hazmat?”

I admitted to him that I didn’t.

“Most people don’t know this, but the human body is considered a biohazardous material. I’m the guy who goes in and decontaminates before the paramedics get there when somebody pulls out in front of a semi on their motorcycle and gets smeared all over the road. And I believe in God, but honestly, I struggle a lot with Christians…Thea, I see all these perfect Christian families…with their perfect marriage, and their perfect kids, and their perfect church. I see those perfect families go to church every Sunday, and go back to their perfectly manicured houses, and take their three perfect children to all their baseball and soccer games…and then I’m the guy who gets to go in and clean the brains off the wall when that perfect church wife goes ballistic and blows her husband’s head off because she finds out he’s a pedophile who’s addicted to kiddy porn, you know? And I see this all the time. So who are Christians kidding, you know? Where is God in all of that? Where is God when a woman takes her two year old and puts him in the oven and we find him with third degree burns over ninety percent of his body? My kids are the only thing that keeps me grounded. If it wasn’t for them, I think I’d just go blow my head off, because people are so horrifically, unimaginably awful…I drive down the street on my motorcycle, and I know that people judge me because of how I look, but when I look at them, I just look and think, ‘yeah, you’re another hypocrite,’—somebody who’s pretending to have it all together, but who’s actually a whole lot worse than I am, because they’re just pretending to be somebody they’re not, when at least I’m honest about who and what I am.”

Then he looked me right in the eye for a long minute and asked if I thought the Bible was actually true. Inwardly, I was crying…because I recognized that here was a guy who had seen so much hurt, so much pain, so much brokenness that he didn’t know how to handle it anymore, or how to respond. And as I answered, I prayed silently that somehow, in the midst of the darkness, God would provide David with a glimmer of hope—a glimpse of His own compassionate heart for humanity.

“David,” I said earnestly, “I don’t know what you believe about God. But I believe that God is perfect, and that He has a plan for each person, and that He put us here on earth for a reason. And I believe that it’s consistent with the nature of God for Him to provide us with a book of instructions that explains what He expects from His children. See, one of the beautiful things about our God is that not only is He holy, but He is just…and because He’s just, He doesn’t demand something of us without telling us what His expectation is. And so yes, I believe the Bible is true, and I believe it was given to us because our God is so compassionate and so loving and so just that He wouldn’t place us here without giving us guidance about how we’re to live…”

It was an intense conversation, and parts of it were pretty dark and pretty emotional…but as I left, there was a wistful sort of smile on his face, and shaking my hand firmly, he said softly, “Thanks. You’ve given me a lot to think about. I think I’m just gonna sit out here on the porch for a while and process.”

As I drove away, all I could see was his dark silhouette against the white frame of the house. He waved until I was out of sight.

Then there was Susan, who met me at the door and firmly announced that she had no use for any sort of Bible, because she was an atheist. Tennessee is in the middle of the Bible belt, and thus I was a wee bit taken aback at her announcement, but I like to know the why behind peoples statements, so I decided to press her a little further.

“Susan, I respect where you stand, and I’m not questioning that, but may I ask how it was that you reached that position? I mean, was there a time in your past when someone left you feeling betrayed, or personally attacked, and it just kind of turned you against the whole concept of organized religion?”

She blinked twice, and looked at me incredulously. Inwardly, I laughed, realizing that she hadn’t quite expected that.

“Well, Thea, it wasn’t really any particular person. It’s just that I work with a lot of Christians, and I don’t see their faith making any difference in their lives. You know, if they were nicer better people, or something, I would maybe consider the idea that God exists, but the majority of the Christians that I know aren’t nearly as nice as the non-Christians I work with, so why would I want any part of that? I mean, it really doesn’t make any difference in their lives, so why would I want that? I used to board horses, and one of my clients was a pastor…I was really excited when I found out, cuz I thinking, ‘Oh, finally, somebody who will be able to answer my questions intelligently,’ but he was a complete jerk, and that was kind of the last straw, because I just realized that it doesn’t even make a difference for the ones who are in leadership.”

Ouch. Big ouch. What hurts more is that I know she’s right. As a door-to-door sales rep, I meet lots of different kinds of people, and by and large, the pastors and the pastors’ wives have been the most obnoxious to deal with, while the Bible-believing church folks are often times more suspicious, less welcoming, and less Christ-like than the Buddhists and Native American spirit worshippers I meet. What’s up with that?!

As a church, as the body of Christ, we have some serious work to do in the area of accurately representing Christ’s message and His character. Don’t sick your dog on me and slam your door in my face and then invite me to go to your church, because seriously, at that point, there’s absolutely no reason why I’d ever want to darken the door of the sanctuary where you claim to meet God and be changed by Him. I grieve with the many folks out here who are desperately looking to see changed lives, and are met instead with a cheap counterfeit Christianity that consists of going to church three times a week so that you can tell folks where you go, how spiritual you are, and how you simply don’t have time to care about them and their problems because you’re so involved with your church sewing circle.

We’re called to live life in Christ, and to live it abundantly. And we need to put some serious thought into what that looks like, and follow that serious thought with some serious action. God never intended for His children to live lives of quiet, frustrated mediocrity. May we never be content with the good when God yearns for us to experience His best, and may we always remember that in as much as we have done it unto one of the least of these His brethren, we have done it unto Him…