| | The other day, as Shane and I were leaving church, a man approached us and introduced himself. He wore thick-lensed glasses and an early-nineties buzz cut, a plaid button-down shirt and a clashing-patterned pair of tennis shoes. Trying to stand confident, he told us his name, we told him ours. He asked what we thought about the sermon, we reciporicated. He wondered where we grew up, we inquired the same.
Our exchange, however, was anything but "normal." Shane and I allowed an uncomfortable silence to follow each question, as if we were hesitant to allow this man to know too much. When we asked him questions in return, we refused to ask any further than he had asked us. Our shifting feet must have given the impression that we needed to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.
According to the man, he had grown up near Chicago, surprisingly close to where I grew up. I took this to indicate that, being from the midwest, he and I shared a common background. His father worked as a scientist at Fermilab, a particle accelerator near my house. I took this to mean that he came from a brilliant family and must be brilliant himself. When his family moved to Denver, he tried to stay in Chicago and make a living. I took this to mean that he must have had a lot of friends to help him in the city. His money ran out, and he moved back in with his parents at age 30.
And then I realized that our new thick-lensed friend was a loser.
We had nothing in common. He wasn't smart, or at least hadn't finished college. He seemed to have very few friends. And he was still living with his parents.
"What are you guys doing this afternoon?" he asked us.
"Uh... we've got stuff that we have to do," we stammered.
"Oh. I was thinking about taking a walk around the reservoir." His tone indicated that he very much wanted company for his walk.
Instead of inviting him to accompany us on our "stuff" (of which we had very little), we let his statement hang uncomfortably in the air.
"Well, I think we're going to get going," Shane said. "It was nice to meet you."
"Yea, you too," he returned. He turned slowly to the door and walked away from us, as we turned our backs and went the other direction.
A few minutes later, we realized our mistake. We should have invited him to Shane's grandmother's house for brunch, or taken him up on his half-offer to walk around the reservoir with us, or invited him to go see the new superman movie, or we should have just been interested in him as a person rather than judging him.
With no better ideas, we ran around the parking lot trying to find him. We looked near the reservoir just in case he had begun his walk. We searched the church for him, but to no avail.
While many consider the "Church" to be an institution, it is really made up of a bunch of individuals. Of which I am one. By half-heartedly rejecting a person, even one with thick-lensed glasses, I whole-heartedly demonstrated that the church is not an accurate representation of Christ. I would not be surprised if I never saw my non-friend again. I will probably never have the chance to show him that I regret my insensitive reaction to his love and interest in me and my life.
Nothing on this earth can remove the guilt that I feel.
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| | Posted 7/4/2006 2:00 PM - 42 Views - 4 eProps - 2 comments
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