93 year old Pop Quiz

Insight is a wonderful thing. I get some every so often and it blesses me to my core because I know from where it comes. It was Thursday and I ventured out to a most unpleasant venue....a mall. Why? Because it housed a JC Penney's and a Macy's, both of which carry a wide selection of Levis jeans. I was on the hunt for some jeans like I used to buy with a classic cut and no "extra room in the seat or thigh". Those parts of me don't need extra room....it's above the belt where the issues lie.

But I digress. The JCP clerk told me to head downstairs but to take the elevator as the down escalator was under repair. Off I went, pushed the down button and waited....waited for what seemed to be an extra long time. Finally the door slowly opened and out tottered an old man, bent over, with a quad-cane in his right hand and a package in his left.  I passed by him as I entered the elevator and as I passed him he looked at me and, as he thrust the package toward me, said "Here, carry this for me to the front door". Wow, didn't see this coming.....

So what transpired in my mind took about 3-5 seconds. It started ugly. I could hear "Say what?  Who do you think I am, a personal assistant? But then Kingdom sanity broke in and I was aware of a "Wait a minute! I've seen this before.....my answer is to simply say OK and accommodate him. I had failed a similar Pop Quiz at the mission some months before and was shown a painful side of my false self.  Here was another go at it.  I muttered out a somewhat reluctant OK (it was a weak assent, not a glorious be-ready-in-all-circumstances,victorious "Absolutely!").

While we walked to the "front door", I was able to re-order my selfish emotions, get them shut up and seated and walk as a servant, not as a man who is in the middle of his own circle of life.  He said he was 93 and it was hard to get around but he could still get out some and he had gotten some fantastic bargains and it was all possible because he had never been a drinking man. Phew, all in one breath! We turned a corner and there was a younger woman with the look of someone looking for someone. I presume it was his daughter. She looked at me with a somewhat puzzled look.  I gave her the package and simply said "He asked me to carry this for him."  No thank you's, no graceful good-byes. Simply an abrupt conclusion to what I call a spiritual Pop Quiz.

My walk these days has me squarely in an arena that sounds like this: I am a branch in desperate need to be fused with the Vine of life. I have finally accepted the fact that...."apart from me you can do nothing." (Seven decades to accept this fact is hardly a world record!)  As a branch,  my choice isn't an optional decision. Not being able to do anything is the starkest of statements as to what my chances are away from the Vine.

One of the books I find myself soaking in is Frank Laubach's Letters by a Modern Mystic. The heart of what he shares in this book connects with my deepest pools.  In today's reading he said if asked his chief difficulty in serving the people group he was called to, his answer is: " No chief difficulty really except to keep ready spiritually." (Italics mine)  And, as declared in the paragraph above, my being ready will never be accomplished through greater personal effort....but only by a dynamic abiding in the Vine who came to rescue me and restore me into who I am meant to be...to give me the wherewithal to "be ready spiritually".

Abiding is a particularly winsome type of activity. It has much more to do with not doing, certainly not striving. A kind of none active activity I mostly appreciate the Pop Quizzes. While having nothing to do with getting an A or advancing to the next grade, they serve as a potent reminder and  provide some feedback on the quality of my abiding. Santiago, although I understand it's not about getting grades, nevertheless, I personally see you getting a C- on the quiz containing a 93 year old Jesus. While there are miles to go, you didn't get an F this time! Rejoice! Abide!