Last night Paula and I got to visit for a little while with some guests of our neighbors, Neil and Joni Arter. Their weekend guests were Ben and Jaime Bailey. We stood out in the cool night air in the cul-de-sac where we live and we had a nice visit. They were preparing to return to San Antonio this morning, and we visited about OC and people we all knew...and how the network of friends and acquaintances weaves like a huge web, with each new person we all mentioned leading us into further conversations about yet other people we all knew.
Come to find out, Ben is the son of James Bailey, a well-known minister in churches of Christ. Many, many years ago, (in what seems now to have been in a previous life), I had worked as the state representative for a company called Ministers Life. James and his wife, Marsha, were working with a church of Christ in Augusta, KS., and I had traveled there to visit with them about some life insurance coverage. When I left their home, I stopped in Wichita to spend the night at a Holiday Inn, and, as I was unloading my car for the night, an attractive woman pulled up behind my car, in her own late-model vehicle. She rolled down the window (later I thought she must have seen my out of state license plate and realized I was not from the local police department). She asked me for directions to some place in Wichita. I told her I couldn't help her ---since I was from out of town and didn't know Wichita. Then she engaged me in a conversation of a different sort...
Turns out she was a local prostitute, and, as I continued removing things from my trunk and taking them into my room for the night, she continued talking and the talk progressed into a rapid sales talk. She was trying to convince me to hire her for the evening. She told me I would 'sleep better tonight, and feel better tomorrow'. I told her I was not interested, adding that I was married and a Christian. She then went to on offer me 'Eskimo Love', but, I declined, and she drove on through the parking lot, looking for someone who might be interested in her offer. She never did explain what 'Eskimo Love' was....and I went to my room and spent the night by myself, happy to be returning to my sweet wife the next day.
Talking and laughing with the Bailey's over this event in my life that occurred when I went to Kansas to visit with Ben's parents many years ago led us off into talking about a number of other things...different towns where Ben and his parents had lived over the years. Wood Street church of Christ, for instance, where James and Marsha had worked with that congregation for a long time. I was the first person baptized in that little church, in 1954. I shared with Ben and Jaime about how one of our elders back then heard a sermon from a young man who was 'trying out' for a pulpit job there. The young man said something that may not have been totally correct (at least to that elders' point of view), and the elder, a brother Schiflett, (sort of a self-styled 'head elder'), stood up in the middle of the auditorium, right in the middle of the sermon and told the young man that he was wrong. Unnerved, the young man stammered and stuttered his way through the rest of his sermon and was interrupted and summarily 'dressed down' at least one more time for his 'errors'. I'd like to know if that young man remained in the ministry, or, having been publicly humiliated, he decided on a safer career. Anyway, we talked about a lot of things out in the street last night, and then said our goodbyes. I thought a lot about our visit with Ben and Jaime. I don't know Jaime's parents, but they must be as wonderful as James and Marsha had been and are to their kids....and they must be so very proud of how their kids have turned out. Such sweet people!
We had a really good visit, and felt like we had made a couple of new friends. Thanks, Neil and Joni, for sharing your house guests with us! Isn't it wonderful, when you can meet people you really have never had a conversation with, and through your connections in God's family, you quickly find commonality and a common appreciation of many of the same people you've met in your different walks in life? It's often impromptu, random times like these that I treasure. Paula and I feel that we know Ben and Jaime now, and they will never be strangers to us. It's wonderful, being a Christian. There are a lot of sweet moments here on earth. Can you even imagine how wonderful Heaven will be? Ben and Jaime, I hope that you two and your two sweet kids made it safely back to San Antonio today!
Monday, June 15, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
In 1956, I was 12, and enjoyed working in downtown Dallas with my Dad, who, at that time was a professional photographer. His office was on the 2nd floor of a building that housed the Melba Theater. It was located near Titche's Department Store. We could look out the windows and see all the traffic and people right out our window. I loved being near so much commotion. I also loved helping with the photographic process, helping Dad with his large porcelain pans of developer and fixative. I enjoyed working in the darkroom, and seeing images come to life in the red-light of the darkroom. I enjoyed making copies on dad's machine that was one of the forerunners of copy machines. I was just a kid, and of limited usefulness to Dad, but there were things that I could do to make his life a little easier. I often rode home from work in the evening on a city bus, and enjoyed all the sights and smells and all the people who rode the bus daily from downtown Dallas to Oak Cliff where we lived.
One day, I saw a huge black woman board the bus and, after dropping her change into the box by the bus driver, I saw her painfully make her way to the back of the bus, where black people were required to sit (or stand, if no seats were available at the back of the bus). I was sitting near the back of the bus, at the rear of the seating area where non-blacks were allowed to sit. The bus was full, and there were no available seats for this woman. I was only 12 years old, but I knew enough to know that blacks were treated differently than were whites...they could only drink from 'colored' drinking fountains in the department stores and other public buildings. They had to use restrooms that were for blacks only. They could not eat in restaurants frequented by whites. They had to go around to the back of restaurants and pay for and receive food via the back door, where all the trash cans and restaurant filth were to be found. I knew they were treated differently, and I had never known a black person in school or the neighborhoods where we lived. Yet, they seemed like anybody else to me.
I saw the woman, standing there, hanging on to the 'grab bars' overhead, and saw how miserable she was from pain. I then did what I had been taught all my life to do...I stood up and offered her my seat. She gratefully took my seat and I stood there in the aisle, holding on to the grab bar as the bus continued on toward Oak Cliff. A couple of white men cursed me for giving her my seat, and called me names that I won't repeat here. I would have been afraid, had I not been on a city bus.
The white bus driver noticed that I had given my seat to the black woman. He didn't say anything while he continued driving, but when I got near my destination, and walked to the front of the bus to exit at my bus stop, he quietly thanked me for my kindness. That made me feel good inside. I knew I had done the right thing, and now an older adult told me so.
Not long after this incident, while riding home on the bus another day, with the same bus driver driving us all home, I noticed another large black woman, at a bus stop in downtown Dallas, having trouble boarding, due to some physical problem. I was a little surprised, but happy, to see the bus driver put the bus in park, open the door and then leave the bus to help the old black woman board the bus.
The next day, I wrote a letter to the Dallas Transportation Authority, praising the kind bus driver. I knew his name, and I told them the route that he drove and described what he had done.
I received a response from his supervisor, who told me that this bus driver had been given a commendation and a raise, for what he had done.
I felt good about that, and realized that there are a lot of nice people in the world, who do the right thing when they have the opportunity. That made my heart sing! My heart still sings when I do something that I know is the right thing...even when it is often inconvenient or costly in some way. It delights me when I catch others doing 'the right thing'.
I've told stories before about my Mom, or my wife, or my kids ---doing the right thing. I'm grateful to Jesus, for His influence in our lives....for making us want to 'get out of ourselves' and do things for others. I believe that it's not so much our sitting in a pew at church that honors God, but rather, living for Him by doing for others....what we do, not just at a building on Sunday, but what we do and who we are 24/7/365. How about you?...what makes your heart sing?
One day, I saw a huge black woman board the bus and, after dropping her change into the box by the bus driver, I saw her painfully make her way to the back of the bus, where black people were required to sit (or stand, if no seats were available at the back of the bus). I was sitting near the back of the bus, at the rear of the seating area where non-blacks were allowed to sit. The bus was full, and there were no available seats for this woman. I was only 12 years old, but I knew enough to know that blacks were treated differently than were whites...they could only drink from 'colored' drinking fountains in the department stores and other public buildings. They had to use restrooms that were for blacks only. They could not eat in restaurants frequented by whites. They had to go around to the back of restaurants and pay for and receive food via the back door, where all the trash cans and restaurant filth were to be found. I knew they were treated differently, and I had never known a black person in school or the neighborhoods where we lived. Yet, they seemed like anybody else to me.
I saw the woman, standing there, hanging on to the 'grab bars' overhead, and saw how miserable she was from pain. I then did what I had been taught all my life to do...I stood up and offered her my seat. She gratefully took my seat and I stood there in the aisle, holding on to the grab bar as the bus continued on toward Oak Cliff. A couple of white men cursed me for giving her my seat, and called me names that I won't repeat here. I would have been afraid, had I not been on a city bus.
The white bus driver noticed that I had given my seat to the black woman. He didn't say anything while he continued driving, but when I got near my destination, and walked to the front of the bus to exit at my bus stop, he quietly thanked me for my kindness. That made me feel good inside. I knew I had done the right thing, and now an older adult told me so.
Not long after this incident, while riding home on the bus another day, with the same bus driver driving us all home, I noticed another large black woman, at a bus stop in downtown Dallas, having trouble boarding, due to some physical problem. I was a little surprised, but happy, to see the bus driver put the bus in park, open the door and then leave the bus to help the old black woman board the bus.
The next day, I wrote a letter to the Dallas Transportation Authority, praising the kind bus driver. I knew his name, and I told them the route that he drove and described what he had done.
I received a response from his supervisor, who told me that this bus driver had been given a commendation and a raise, for what he had done.
I felt good about that, and realized that there are a lot of nice people in the world, who do the right thing when they have the opportunity. That made my heart sing! My heart still sings when I do something that I know is the right thing...even when it is often inconvenient or costly in some way. It delights me when I catch others doing 'the right thing'.
I've told stories before about my Mom, or my wife, or my kids ---doing the right thing. I'm grateful to Jesus, for His influence in our lives....for making us want to 'get out of ourselves' and do things for others. I believe that it's not so much our sitting in a pew at church that honors God, but rather, living for Him by doing for others....what we do, not just at a building on Sunday, but what we do and who we are 24/7/365. How about you?...what makes your heart sing?
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