The Deacon's Bench - May, 2011

I was talking with the father of one of our friends who hails from Vermont a few years ago, and the topic turned to the notorious eccentricities of certain folks from the northeast.
“Sometimes I’m struck by how hard it can be to get to know someone in this neck of the woods,” I remarked at one point.
My friend’s dad listened politely, agreed, and then asked if he could tell me a story. I said “Sure.” Here’s how it went:

“About thirty years ago this fellow from New York bought the farm across the road from mine. I hadn’t asked him to do that, but he did it anyway and I decided I’d just mind my own business; I never said anything to him.”

I thought maybe there was something about the man that irritated my friend’s father, so I asked him what his neighbor was like.
“Don’t know,” he said.
“Don’t you ever talk with each other?” I asked
“Why?” he wanted to know. “What does he know that I don’t?”
“Isn’t he friendly?” I inquired.
“Oh, he’s friendly enough,” he said. “Always waving.”
“You had to have spoken to your neighbor some time!” I exclaimed incredulously. “Come on now, what are your conversations like?”
“Never had one,” my friend’s father insisted. As I started to say something, he interrupted me and corrected himself:
“…except for once last year.”
“Oh, do tell me about it,” I urged him.

“I was in the Post Office just trying to mail something. There was a line and I had to wait. He came in and stood behind me. Next thing I know he tapped me on the shoulder. ‘What?’ I said. Then he said: ‘I don’t mean to be a pest,’ but I knew he really didn’t mean that. Him just being around was pest enough for me. Then he says again, staring me in the eye like I’d done something to him, ‘I don’t mean to be a pest, but when do you people around here decide whether you’re going to accept someone or not?’ I stared back at him and said ‘At your funeral.’”
I was telling that story to God the other day, expecting that God would find it amusing, but God didn’t.
“Folks treat me like that sometimes, too,” God said.
I felt a little sad for God just then, but God said:
“Don’t feel sad. I love them anyway. Sometimes I just wait and wait. So many people put off becoming friends with Me until…”
“Their funeral?” I interrupted.
“No, it actually doesn’t take quite that long most of the time,” God said.
“Why do people put it off?” I asked.
God laughed and said “There are so many things that get in the way. Some folks just plain don’t see. Others are too busy with all the other interesting gifts with which I shower them in life. Still others are afraid of Me, can you imagine? And some make up a very strange image of Me in their own minds and become friends with their image instead of with Me.”
“Weird,” I remarked.
“We’re just scratching the surface here, Tim,” God said.
“Does this bother You?” I asked.
“No,” God said. “Everyone always gets 100% of My love, all the time. Surely you know by now that I never hold back. The extent to which my lovely people get to enjoy what’s been given to them gets back to what your friend’s father said: whose business are they minding – theirs or mine? To be involved in loving, serving and sharing; to forgive and be forgiven – that’s so much of the business I’m in. Be like that and we can be friends! Be like that and have life to the full!” I took all that all in and ruminated for a bit. Then I asked:
“I’d like to be more that just friends, God. Can it ever be more than that?”
God looked at me with love and said with a wink: ““Sure Tim - after your funeral.”