I know I haven’t posted much recently. We’ve been on the road a great deal since October. Interestingly, I’ve started a number of pieces but they’re still sitting in the hopper, unfinished. Not normal for me.

But, that’s not the reason for this.

I had lunch last week with a friend of mine named Pete. I’ve known him for quite awhile, mostly as he is married to a friend and close former colleague. At some point, he became aware of this blog and, I believe, is a regular reader and sometime critic, albeit with a gleam in his eye and seemingly a true fan of my efforts.

He’s also a published writer and teacher of writing with no small success. On a couple of occasions he has encouraged me to publish my stuff, something I’ve heard from several others over the past two or three years.

Of course, Pete said I’d have to change my style to make it more accessible to a much greater audience. Surprisingly, he believed I would not have a significant problem publishing if I put in the effort. He said that it would also meet the needs of many people who would benefit from some things I’d have to say.

Of course, I’ve thought about this from time to time, obviously aware that the way I write  often makes it challenging reading. Long, heavy, and detailed.

From the beginning, I’ve always written when I’ve felt called to address a theme. And, then, I just sit down and type away like I’m doing right now. Basic stream of consciousness. I rarely pause for more than a few minutes and never organize ahead of time, nor go back and revise. The opposite from how I learned to write in academia and taught my many hundreds of advanced students.

In essence, this has been a labor of love and more of a journal. You may not know that, from time to time, I update the entire package as a manuscript. There are now 210 blogs or essays, covering over 800 pages single space. My internal working title is “A Pilgrim’s Journey: Love Letters to God.”

Anyway, I’ve decided to listen to Pete and several others and try to approach my writing a bit differently. Not sure where this will lead. It may mean major revisions to some of my earlier work as well as tackling new thoughts differently.

Pete did say I have an obligation to publish and reach a broader audience. Guess we’ll see! Wish me luck!

(Written yesterday. Some technical glitches prevented it being publicly visible.)

I want to tell you about Maria and our exchange this morning.

I normally see Maria once a week when Diane and I are not traveling. She works behind the counter at Panera where I have my regular weekly early Thursday morning meeting with Gary.  Recently, I’ve begun also meeting on every other Tuesday morning with a local pastor who is in the process of opening a new church not far from our home. While I only ever order a mug of coffee (free refills), she has always smiled and seems to brighten when I come to the counter.

Maria is Latina and not young. Gray-haired and grandmotherly in appearance, she presents a warm countenance and I always engage her with special thanks. In fact, a week ago, I asked a young woman who was cleaning tables to send the manager over. When he arrived I let him know what a great job Maria was doing and how she reflected so positively on the Panera organization. He was pleasantly surprised and assured me that he would compliment her.

When I arrived this morning, a little bit later than my usual Thursday morning time slot, Maria inquired about Gary and I reminded her that that was Thursdays and today is my meeting with a couple of pastors starting a new church. She seemed interested (we had never talked about faith before) but then said the most astonishing and troubling thing.

She first asked me if I knew that a number of men met regularly early in the morning at Panera and always carried their bibles. I said, yes, I knew that as I would see them in pairs or even in groups of four, five, or six, engaged in discussion and the occasional prayer.

To which she replied, “You know, these men with their bibles are some of the meanest people I’ve ever met.”

To say that I was struck by her statement on so many levels would be, itself, an understatement.

I am well aware that many professing Christians are just not nice people. I am well aware that many professing Christians do not reflect the Jesus that I know. I am well aware that many professing Christians are one of the main reasons why non-Christians are not at all interested in exploring Christianity. But, this was such an in-your-face denunciation of multiple groups of Christian men in a way that left no room for interpretation that I was struck hard. I mean, “… these men with their bibles are some of the meanest people I’ve ever met” … suggests obvious behavior in the early morning in such a benign place as the local Panera that just seemed incongruous.

So, I asked her to tell me, if she could, how they were being mean. (Fortunately, there was no one behind me in line. I checked.) She didn’t really provide me specifics but just repeated that they were mean. I decided not to push.

She continued by saying that “the great one they follow must be ashamed of them.” From that, I concluded that she had some kind of Christian background or leanings. To which, I volunteered, “Maria, I’m so so sorry. I follow Jesus and it really hurts to hear of this. I hope you do not view me that way.” She smiled and nodded her head, saying, “You are maybe the nicest person I know. Jesus must be proud.”

I told her I was helping to start a new church (well, actually, this is the second brand new church I’ve been involved with just in the last year … oh my). She asked about it and said she’d love to visit. She explained that she was in ministry around the world for 25 years, helping youth, after leaving her home country of Brazil. She now assists groups of very troubled people who have succumbed to addiction and other overwhelming problems.

A little while later, I introduced her to Jonathan, the lead pastor of this new church, named Trinity, after I told him of our exchange. We then discussed how much we wanted Maria and people like her to be at home in this new faith community. Later after our meeting, when I was leaving and no one was in line, I went up, reached my hand across he counter and we connected as brother and sister, faces beaming.

I am left with conflicting thoughts and feelings as I write this upon arriving home. In a sense, this presented a microcosm of both the positive and negative sides of the world’s most popular faith. Billions of people expressly recognize this itinerant Jewish rabbi from a backwater village called Nazareth as God, Nazareth itself existing in a backwater portion of a geographic place loosely called Palestine, which at the time of Jesus hardly appeared as a blip on the world’s radar.

Of course, people being people, insert all of our own experiences, personalities, biases and so forth into things that give us meaning and purpose. Christianity is hardly a single thing, as it’s really just a vast and diverse collection of people who think all sorts of things and behave in all sorts of ways, far too much of which doesn’t seem to reflect the essence of what is at the heart of the faith. Unfortunately, they are frequently held up as proof that the faith is just not true. This is a fallacy as if God is to be blamed for the massive shortcomings of mankind. (Are all parents to bear blame for all of the sins of their adult children?)

Clearly, way too many professing Christians are so focused on the hand in front of their face (perhaps trying to interpret a piece of scripture or to discern how many angels fit on the head of a pin) that they become blinded to that which is right in front of them, thereby missing the grand point of it all, which is really all about love and grace, lostness and foundness, fully experiencing both joy and sorrow, lending a hand to those in need and so on. They become the elder brother in Luke 15, the story of the lost younger son who returns broken into the arms of a loving and gracious father while the rule-following elder brother stands scornfully close by. I want to weep at this, all the time recognizing how each of the characters in that most famous of Jesus stories compete for my attention.

But, “mean?”

I can unfortunately imagine not being overtly nice, but mean?

Lord, thank you so much for dear Maria who by all measures loves you and has taken your example to heart. I don’t know any of the men she describes but you do. I pray that something occurs to open their eyes to see people as you do. I pray that, when people interact with them, others may notice something different about them and in a good way. That they are respectful, kind, patient and caring. Please, Jesus, soften their hearts and may their example point clearly to the one who embodied love like no other. Amen.