Monday, June 25, 2007

This is a crazy world. About now, some of you are scratching your heads and asking, "How long did it take for him to figure that one out?" I know, it's a statement of the obvious. I was thinking about that while sitting at the gas station earlier today. This sweet old lady got out of her Camry to gas up. She was probably in her late 60s, driving this really nice, really clean vehicle. Movement inside the vehicle caught my attention as I watched the lady cleaning specs off of the windshield. Dancing around inside the car was not one nor two but three full-sized border collies. Two of them were chasing each other from the front seat to the back and then to the front again--a maddening game at best. The third was gnawing (I kid you not) on the headrest like it was a bone soaked in bacon drippings. She was working that thing over, slobber dripping from her chin. All of this while the lady continued to pick and scrape at specs of dirt on the windshield. It just struck me as really funny.

Then, I got home and saw a news report on the $54 million pants suit (not pantsuit, pants suit). A judge in D.C. was suing a dry cleaner for losing the pants to his new suit and trying to give him another pair. The amount of the suit? $54 million!! Somehow, in this guy's mind, his pants were worth more than I will ever make in my lifetime. Worth more than the budget of my church or the school where our church meets for the next 10 years!! Okay, in case you missed it, this guy is a judge!?! Remind me never to show up in his court room. The guy has lost all common sense.

But, alas, there is hope. The judge hearing the case allowed better judgement to intervene. He threw out the case as frivolous (DUH?) and fined the plaintiff for court costs. Here is the cool part--the part that restores my faith in humanity. At the end of the story, almost as an afterthought, the writer includes a final statement from the Korean couple that owns the cleaners. She simply said, " We have no hard feelings against him. If he wants to continue to bring us his business, we will gladly take care of him." Isn't that cool?

That got me thinking. Do you think that couple knows Jesus? Do you think they ever heard "turn the other cheek" or "pray for those who persecute you?" Is it possible that what I read about was a little glimpse of someone being "Jesus" to the world? I hope so. It gives me hope. Restores my faith. Makes me believe in the goodness of some people. Makes me want to lose a pair of pants (couldn't resist).

I don't know. Maybe I'm rambling and looking for something to say. But when did it become so uncommon to see common sense? And what's it going to take for common sense to become common again? Okay, enough rambling. Got to get to the dry cleaners.

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