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I bought a sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit combo this morning at the Bojangles in Jasper, ate my meal in the restaurant, and took the super-sized coffee I had purchased out to my car to drink while I looked at social media on my cell phone. I had remembered I needed to renew my vehicle tag soon, and so I completed that task online. Then my Facebook video memories showed me a wonderful video Wendy had recorded last year, of me and Leo and Fafa and their Mom playing together. They were asking me to act out various emotions, and I thought watching this was appropriate because of the improvisational comedy night in which I plan to participate at Tater Patch Players Theatre tonight.
I had just finished watching this video when a young man with white skin, brown hair, and a plain blue t-shirt came up to my window. He wanted to talk to me about something that concerned him: namely, the bumper stickers on my car. I have several, mostly of Northern Sun manufacture, mostly liberal in their sentiment: A Black Lives Matter sticker right in the middle, one that says I'm for the separation of Church and Hate, an ecumenical "Prays Well with Others" sticker, the Ansel Adams quotation about having to fight the government to preserve the environment, and one that's pro-science that I'm not recalling exactly right now. I also have, prominently placed on the top right next to my tail light, a Joshua McCall for Congress sticker. But I suspect this fellow was most concerned with the religious and liberal slogans on most of the stickers.
He wanted to give me the name of a website he thought I should go to, that talks about Jesus' teaching. I smiled and thanked him, but rather than take down the website information right away or send him away abruptly, I decided to engage him in conversation. I thanked him for wanting to share his Jesus message with me and I expressed my concern that some preachers these days are distorting Jesus' message, just as it has been distorted in the past to justify acts of genocide and slavery of other human beings. He appeared to agree with me that both of those were examples of distortions of Jesus' or biblical teaching, and that our Savior would probably not be pleased with them. He then said something about a prophetic scripture that described Jesus' feet looking as if they'd been burned or blackened in a furnace. It's possible this scripture exists, though I don't remember it. I told him I was raised Southern Baptist and have read the entire Bible twice. Then I said that, being Middle-Eastern in the place of His birth, Jesus was likely to have had brown skin and black hair. He smiled and agreed. "Definitely not Caucasian," I said, and he laughed.
At that point, I got my pen and a piece of paper. "Sure, I'll look up that website." He gave me the URL and I wrote it down: otgministries.com. It serves One True God Ministries. He told me, "You might be surprised!" I said, "I'll definitely look it up. Maybe something will surprise us both!" I thanked him and he left with a smile, I finished my coffee, and I headed home.
Somehow improvisational comedy tonight does not seem nearly so scary. :-)
I had just finished watching this video when a young man with white skin, brown hair, and a plain blue t-shirt came up to my window. He wanted to talk to me about something that concerned him: namely, the bumper stickers on my car. I have several, mostly of Northern Sun manufacture, mostly liberal in their sentiment: A Black Lives Matter sticker right in the middle, one that says I'm for the separation of Church and Hate, an ecumenical "Prays Well with Others" sticker, the Ansel Adams quotation about having to fight the government to preserve the environment, and one that's pro-science that I'm not recalling exactly right now. I also have, prominently placed on the top right next to my tail light, a Joshua McCall for Congress sticker. But I suspect this fellow was most concerned with the religious and liberal slogans on most of the stickers.
He wanted to give me the name of a website he thought I should go to, that talks about Jesus' teaching. I smiled and thanked him, but rather than take down the website information right away or send him away abruptly, I decided to engage him in conversation. I thanked him for wanting to share his Jesus message with me and I expressed my concern that some preachers these days are distorting Jesus' message, just as it has been distorted in the past to justify acts of genocide and slavery of other human beings. He appeared to agree with me that both of those were examples of distortions of Jesus' or biblical teaching, and that our Savior would probably not be pleased with them. He then said something about a prophetic scripture that described Jesus' feet looking as if they'd been burned or blackened in a furnace. It's possible this scripture exists, though I don't remember it. I told him I was raised Southern Baptist and have read the entire Bible twice. Then I said that, being Middle-Eastern in the place of His birth, Jesus was likely to have had brown skin and black hair. He smiled and agreed. "Definitely not Caucasian," I said, and he laughed.
At that point, I got my pen and a piece of paper. "Sure, I'll look up that website." He gave me the URL and I wrote it down: otgministries.com. It serves One True God Ministries. He told me, "You might be surprised!" I said, "I'll definitely look it up. Maybe something will surprise us both!" I thanked him and he left with a smile, I finished my coffee, and I headed home.
Somehow improvisational comedy tonight does not seem nearly so scary. :-)
