About last night…

Ok so my day started off as usually with the 5:15 am alarm clock.  Snooze button once, shower, start the coffee, begin sipping a cup of coffee, read the bible, wake Megan, wake Josh, say good morning to Heather, tell Megan to get ready, tell Josh to get up, grab a bagel, load tables, coolers, supplies, coffee pot… into the truck, kiss Heather, say bye to the kids and out the door to work.

Work… dang I have several deadlines coming up and they are not done yet.  THAT’S always fun.  The house… I still haven’t gotten my loan extended, my loan officer called a week or so ago and said “Hey it was nice working with you, but Im moving to another job.  Good Luck with the house.” So I need to set up a meeting with the new loan officer.  ON the phone he said he didn’t see any real problems.  BUT that’s what the last guy said too.  I only have $50,000 left to finish everything and have yet to create a new budget to see if its even enough.  Got a call and ended up driving to the house in Cochran for a late lunch.  Then I had to make a hard decision and in an effort to not hurt feelings… I hurt feelings, creating this wedge that could totally get in the way of ministry.  Needless to say… Im currently living in a state of negative margin.  The stress level in my life is off the chart… Even though I don’t worry, I don’t walk in stress, I don’t live in the moment of… OMGsh what am I going to do…  Stress is still stress.

I know… What does THAT have to do with the events of Thursday evening?  I don’t know I just felt like complaining? Whining? Venting?  Letting you see my state of mind?  State of life at the moment? Something like that.  

4:45 finally rolls around and my workday is done.  Drive to Wal-mart to pick up a duraflame log to see if it will put off enough heat so we don’t have to clean up a fire mess at the end of the night (it was not enough heat btw).  Arrive at J-cup around 6 to hang out and talk with ppl from group while enjoying a medium latte with two splenda. 6:45 we head downtown.  Odd huh, we are sitting in J-cup… located downtown… but when its time to go three blocks away to do hotdogs, we say… OK lets go downtown.

Ok, so we setup the tables, grill, dogs, buns, everything is going as usual.  We have even borrowed the Lee’s porch fire pit thing and I bought a big coffee maker so we have had fire and coffee the last three Thursday nights PLUS the blanket drive Ben and Company put together was absolutely done with perfect timing.  Its pretty cool actually how the small fire and coffee invites people to hang around and talk.  Which as you all know, is what Thursday nights are really about.

So that’s the scene, now imagine, the hotdogs are cooking, people are drinking coffee, talking, enjoying the community, and you begin to hear… Fuck this… blah blah blah… Fuck yeah… fucking yeah fuck fuck fuck.. blah blah blah… fuck… What you say?  Fuck yeah baby hoe… blah blah fucking blah…

SIDE NOTE:  Yes I COULD have just typed f*ck or  f-this f-that… but let me ask?  As you were reading that last small paragraph… did you feel violated at all?  Did you feel the hair on the back of your neck kinda lift up?  Or that creepy crawly feeling going up your spine wondering how many more times I was actually going to say Fuck?

Well that is what was pouring out of this one guys mouth as he made up his own rap song on the fly for everyones enjoyment.  I gave it a moment to see if the F-spell would pass…. It didn’t.  So I walked over to him and said… listen dude… theres no saying Fuck down here… as he continued his fuck chorus…  (OK Im done with that word now btw)  So I was like… no really, I wont have you saying that here.  So he stopped saying it and changed the words to his impromptu rap song to… Hoooooooes…. Bitches…  and Bitches… and Hoooeeees.  At this point Brandie was coming over to do what many times helps as random people break out into vulgar song.  She was bringing the guitar and a praise song to override the vulgar one.  Of course she walked up right as he changed to the new set of words…  She politely asked him… please don’t say those words…  He didn’t stop RIGHT then… but he did stop.

Shortly after I hear the beginnings of an altercation.  You see the crowd begins to shift… you see the chests begin to bow… the voices begin to raise…  Its really the same every time, well usually.  So how do you handle these situations?  That’s what I ask myself all the time.  The answer:  Each one is different.  You have to listen to the spirits prodding and hope you are hearing.   Sometimes, all it takes is a rational voice stepping into the middle asking everyone to just calm down.  Sometimes it takes a group of four men to step in-between a man and his wife as he looks like hes going to pound the crap out of her.  So last night, as I walked up to step into the middle of this argument, it was centering around chips or something.  Then Old Guy telling Young Guy… Don’t touch me.  And Young Guy telling Old Guy… get your hands off me or I’ll beat you down… and Old Guy of course responding… Go ahead and try, I’ll beat you down…

Enter me… I stepped inbetween the two, tried the voice of reason, but I could quickly see reason was clouded by alcohol and emotions.  Young Guy then grabs me and says… What if I throw you on the ground and beat you?  And words simply came out of my mouth without thought… “Well, then I will get up, hug you… and tell you I love you and its ok.”  Young Guy let go of me and didn’t know how to process such a statement.  But was still running his mouth, still threatening, still cussing, At this point Aaron was standing behind me too, trying to keep Old Guy from responding to the cussing and threats.  Young Guy grabbed me again, cussing, threatening, talking about all he’s going to do and once again words just seemed to come out of my mouth that weren’t really mine.  Seems almost odd to recount them now, because really, it wasn’t me, but the Spirit in me and I don’t ever want say… Hey look what I did.  Or anything along those lines when it so wasn’t me.  So anyway… with that disclaimer…

I grabbed him back… pushed him back away from me.. away from old guy… And in a loud firm voice told him… That simply WILL NOT be allowed here… (him still talking smack)  NO… In Jesus Name you will STOP… Right NOW… this is GODS place… this is HOLY ground… I WILL NOT TOLERATE IT…  You will stop RIGHT NOW. (or something along those lines)

Then theres like this frozen moment in time when everyone stops moving, everyone stops talking, like a collective drawing in of breath and waiting to see what will happen next.  My next thought was this… he’s so close and in such a position… if he wanted to stab me I would really only have time to tell him I forgive him…  Yeah crazy I know, but that was the actual thought that ran through my mind.  Then… he didn’t stab me but rather I saw him soften, I saw incredible sadness wash over him.  I saw a man who was hurt and needed a savior.  He stopped fighting, stopped puffing up his chest.  He said, ok, your right, Im sorry.  I just want some chips.  Do you have anymore chips?  So I go get him one of the few bags of chips left.  He says thanks and says he just wants to sit down and eat his chips.  So he goes over to a ledge, sits down, and eats his chips.

Then the blue lights appear.  A couple good citizens thought the problem was escalating so they called the police.  My first thought… Wheres Kerry???  (hehe j/k)  One of the guys from downtown told me he called them.  So I go to intercept the police to tell them its all good, everything is fine, it was just a couple people in a shouting match but everything has calmed down.  Young Guy sees the police and decides he better go.  He walks across the street and the police begin to follow him.  I was like… hey you guys… really, you don’t need to do anything.  So I walked across the street to talk to him.  I told him… Hey I just want you to know, we did not call the police on you.  I don’t know who did.  I want you to know, your welcome here, we love you, Jesus loves you for who you are… Now… there will be no fighting and stuff… but your welcome here.

Wow he melted again as tears came to his eyes.  He hugged me and told me about some things going on in his life.  His wife left, and a few other things.  I discovered he is a young man sinking into depression because of the circumstances of his life, not able to find hope anywhere so he is numbing it with a bottle of alcohol.  I pray the words about Jesus will someone take root even through the cloud of drunkenness.  We hugged again, he walked off and I went back and thanked the police for responding and coming down.

He circled around the area, coming in and out of the crowd for the next 45 minutes or so before we packed up.  

Then I really needed to go talk to my friend and co-leader and try and work through this wedge I created earlier in the day.  I realized by not wanting to point out some faults, I was actually making the whole situation seem like it was all about something it wasnt and me simply screwing anyone that got in the way.  Which was not the case.  It was a needed talk and I do apologize for all the trouble I caused.

Then dinner with a few people from group.  Then I gave someone a ride home.  Then I had to drop off tables and supplies for next week, because remember those deadlines at work?  Well next week I am doing a whirlwind tour of Middle GA.  Wednesday I’m headed to Valdosta to work… then Albany to Work… then to Columbus (yes all in the same day).  I will spend the night in Columbus.  Work in Columbus Thursday morning, drive to Athens, work there… and try and make it back to downtown Macon by 7pm.  We’ll see.  But just in case I don’t, I needed to drop off the stuff.  Talked for a bit about the downtown events and about what to do in the future during such events.  I don’t know really, each one is handled different.  In the end I just rely on the Spirit to lead.  Sometimes that looks like inaction and passivity… but sometimes… that’s what is needed…

Had a cup of coffee so I didn’t fall asleep on the 30 minute drive home… laid my head on the pillow (I swear it felt like only 10 minutes) then hit the first snooze button…