In the summer of 2006, Marge and I attended the 217th meeting of the Presbyterian (PCUSA) General Assembly held in Birmingham, Alabama. We’d lived there for four years, hoped to reacquaint ourselves with folks we’d known, and liked going to General Assembly meetings anyway. Most important though, was that the Assembly sponsors face-to-face meetings between pastor nominating committees and pastors seeking a new call. I needed a new call. Therefore . . . you get the idea.
It was a typically hot Alabama summer afternoon, and I sought the pleasure of air-conditioned comfort. While trying to embody the song lyric, “summertime, and the livin’ is easy,” I saw a young fellow with a placard heading outside. I’ve forgotten what his placard said, but I remember that I didn’t agree with it. Well, we live in a free country.
The protester hoisted his placard, and I watched him walk back and forth, back and forth. When he’d been at it a while, I fell victim to the teaching of scripture: y’know, Matthew 25:35 which highly recommends giving a cup of water. (Actually, scripture doesn’t specify how we help someone who is thirsty, but a cup of cold water sounds efficient.)
Surely, I thought, the protester had to be thirsty by then, but I did not jump at the chance to be helpful. I didn’t agree with his views, and I did want to be seen as one who did: not by the placard-bearer nor by anybody else. Soon, though, the message from Almighty God was linked to words I’d heard decades ago from my mother, Ann Holland Charles: “Do it anyway.” No escape.
There was a water cooler nearby and paper cups. Out I went, water in hand, to the young fellow. I gave it, and he drank it. There was no meaningful conversation. And back I went to air-conditioned comfort. When I left the building he and his placard were still at it. Scripture doesn’t say that conversation is necessary to add to the modest good deeds that Jesus calls us to do. Nothing against them, of course.
What I did so many years ago was no big deal, right? Most of what all of us do is no big deal. If that is so, then why do I still remember it? You tell me. –Pastor Bill–
And now attached is a picture on an altogether different topic: In my seven-plus decades of life, I’ve seen a vast number of dandelions that have gone to seed and any number of species of wild grasses. I’ve never before seen anything quite like what’s pictured here. The two plants seemed to have worked out an accommodation. Let’s learn from nature.
