The interesting and weird stuff
So okay, I went to New York, and I met some
people, and I got to preach in a fancy church, and it was all very affirming and
nice. Maybe I'll get to do something like that again.
But now for the interesting stuff. The little
odd things that happen when you go to strange, new places.
Airport Books
Here is a list of some of the best book titles
from the airport store. All of the religious, self-help variety. Yes, these are
real.
- Fasting Made Easy (Really? Somehow easy
doesn't seem to fit with the whole fasting thing)
- One Minute Pocket Bible (For people on
the go)
- The Prayer that Changes Everything: The
Hidden Power of Praising God. (This is sort of a wildcard prayer, I guess)
- One Minute Prayers (For your ADD
friends)
- You're Late Again Lord: The Impatient
Woman's Guide To God's Timing
- Be A People Person (SCARY Cover)
- The Diet Code: Revolutionary Weight Loss
Secrets From Da Vinci and the Golden Ratio
- Real Life Real Love: A Marriage Guide
(Written by a Catholic Priest???)
People Person or Used Car Salesman?
You Make The Call
If one of these
books was written by your brother or is your favorite book ever, I apologize
ahead of time to save you the trouble of emailing me. You're right. The book you
love is awesome, and I'm obviously out of line and WAY out of touch.
Bill & Sabre
Last Sunday (April 2nd), two men visited our
church. I chatted with them before the service and found that they read Real
Live Preacher and were in town, so they stopped by. This happens every
other month or so. Someone wanders into the church because of Real Live
Preacher. Jeanene was doing chapel services at her hospital, so she wasn't in
church to meet them. One of the men was from Syracuse, New York.
I said, "Hey, what a coincidence. My wife
and I are flying to Syracuse this coming Thursday."
He said, "Wow. Why don't you and your wife
stay with us that night?"
"Okay!" I said, enthusiastically and
without thinking much about it. And without thinking about the fact that I
really don't like staying with strangers. And without considering how I was
going to tell Jeanene that we were now spending the night at someone's house in
Syracuse, someone we do not know and she has never met.
The Jeanene conversation was....interesting.
Here's a summary.
"Um, hey about Thursday night in Syracuse. I
got us a place to stay."
"Great, where?"
"With these people. This guy named Bill and
his wife, Sabre."
"Who are these people?"
"Some folks who visited Covenant today. They
seemed nice and all."
"What do you know about them?"
"Well, you know, they seemed like nice
people, and they....nothing really. I don't know anything about them."
By some miracle she agreed, and it turned out
that Bill and Sabre are indeed incredibly fun and generous people, the sort of
people who invite strangers into their home. So now we have friends in
Syracuse. Feel free to stop by their house if you ever pass through there. Tell
them I said hello.
You Know You're a Redneck If...
This was the first time I've ever been to New
York. We were in the Finger Lakes region. Very agricultural. VERY beautiful. I
pulled into a gas station and saw this out front.
Click for larger
image
The buttons: Premium Night Crawlers,
Salted Minnows, Trout Worms,
Meal Worms, and Leeches.
How does the joke go? You know you're in
redneck country if you can buy live bait from coke machines outside the 7-11.
This is the sort of thing I would expect to see in Texas, but never have. This
guy in a beat-up car saw me taking a picture of the machine. He asked what I was
doing. I said, "Y'all must REALLY like fishing."
He nodded enthusiastically and said, "Yep."
Fancy Hotels vs. Not-So-Fancy Hotels
Now Cornell University has a VERY nice hotel
called the Statler. It's right on campus, and the University paid for one night
there. But I was spending three nights in Ithaca. The Statler is $180 a night,
which is about $120 more than I'm accustomed to paying. So I booked a room at
the Econo Lodge. I didn't ask the rate because, well, it's the ECONO
Lodge. How expensive could it be? I went to the desk the next morning to pay and
found out the room was $150 a night.
What?
Yeah, there was no mistake. Trust me, I asked.
Twice. That was the price. So we went back to the Statler and stayed there the
last night. I usually won't spend a lot of money on luxury items, but I was
willing to pay $30 to upgrade from the Econo Lodge in the
Big Lots
parking lot on the edge of town to the Statler, right on campus, where they
turn down your sheets at night, and everyone in the place somehow knows your
name and says, "How are you, Mr. Atkinson?"
Yeah, right!
Almost A Disaster
Did I tell you that I almost MISSED THE WORSHIP
SERVICE ALTOGETHER! No? Okay, you'll love this. First, let me remind you that
Cornell flew me to New York, put me up in a very nice hotel, AND paid me a
stipend for preaching last Sunday. So if I had not shown up for the
service....I'm just saying it would have been a little awkward.
Sunday morning I was to meet the University
Chaplain in the hotel lobby at 10:30. I went downstairs to one of the business
kiosks about 8:30 to tinker around with my introduction. I was relaxed and just
messing around, really. My watchband broke so I was looking at my computer
clock, which was still set for Central Standard Time. I didn't bring my phone
with me, and Jeanene had NO idea where I was.
At 9:25 (or so I thought) I heard someone
outside the kiosk say, "Oh, he's still in there." I realized that I had been in
there for a long time, and I really didn't have anything left to do, so I
decided to be nice and vacate the kiosk for someone else. I went upstairs and
found Jeanene in something of a panic.
"You're supposed to be downstairs in like
five minutes! Where have you been?"
So basically, if some woman hadn't wanted the
computer kiosk, I might have missed the service. What an embarrassing disaster
that would have been. On the other hand, it would have made a GREAT story for
the blog, right?
When it comes to clocks and calendars, I'm
definitely more challenged than most. Sadly, I am no stranger to
this sort of thing.
And Now For Something Nice
I was touched and amazed to find that some
people from that part of the state drove to Ithaca to attend the service. I met
some of them afterwards. It's the custom of Sage Chapel for the minister to
stand by the door and shake hands with people as they leave. A young couple came
up. I'm sorry, but I don't remember their names. I met all of these people in
about 15 minutes.
He and his wife are starting a church. He
intends to be "bi-vocational," as I am. That means having other job(s) so that
the church doesn't have to support you completely. We talked. I gave him the
manuscript of my sermon. He cried and I did a little too. And we hugged.
Just one of those nice moments. I hope they
read this and email me so that I can stay in touch.
rlp
