Parents, Are Your Feet Beautiful? *Post COVID

 Parents, are your feet beautiful? In elementary school my family had a mini-farm… seven acres on the Little Tennessee River near Alcoa - a town named after the Aluminum Company of America and not far from Maryville, or “Murvul” if you are local. I always wanted a pair of boots to walk around the farm in. My dad always had some good boots for hunting, checking on the cow, or “Joe the pony”* (cow is singular, it wasn’t a big farm) or working in the garden. I finally got some boots, some real clodhoppers. I was thrilled. I liked the way they supported my spindly little ankles that frequently turned over. I liked the way they clunked as I walked down the hall at Fort Sanders Elementary School. I liked how warm they kept my feet in the winter. I liked how they helped me climb the hills of my steep driveway on Fox Chase Lane. One day at school, a friend and I were headed down the hall and, for some reason that escapes me, we were unaccompanied by the teacher… My friend's mother was a wonderful teacher to special needs students there and I suppose our teacher, who knew her, trusted us to go down the hall, “responsibly” to the office. However, as sometimes happens at that age when you don’t have the benefit of a teacher reminding you to walk not run, our pace increased from a quick walk to a competitive run by the time we were at the end of the hall. As I turned the corner right there was a lady from my neighborhood who worked in the school office. My oversized clodhoppers were out of control and the toe of my boot caught her right in the shin. She fell to the floor grabbing her shin rolling in pain. All I could do was stare for a minute, embarrassed that I had unintentionally incapacitated her with my size three work boots, wondered why she had gotten in my way, and then I continued down the hall to catch up with my friend, who was wearing tennis shoes that could run much faster. I don’t know what I was thinking, she had clearly seen me run right into her. I had watched her eyes open wide just before the shin-toe contact (not the Japanese ancestor worship, but the cry out, “Oh God,” as we collided). Then I saw the grimace and tears as she fell to the ground. I couldn’t get out an “I’m so sorry!” or a “Are you okay?” or “can I get you some help?”... nothing, all I had was a silent stare. And then I ran off. Needless to say, she never forgot our less than fortunate collision in the halls of FSE. Many years later, long after I had repressed the embarrassing memory, she reminded me that her shin had never been the same, that when it was cold especially, it would still hurt. I and the boots I had loved so much were not fondly remembered by my neighbor and school assistant.

Unfortunately, that childhood experience kinda looked like my Evangelism strategy sometimes… find an unsuspecting unbeliever and kick them in the shins with something that I thought was so wonderful and then run away. I would call them a sinner and judge them without having known anything about them (we all, by the way, are sinners, but calling someone that is not a great way to start the kind of caring relationship God wants us to have with them, before we tell them about Jesus). I would knock on someone's door or approach them in public, collide with their world, then run off and leave them wherever they were, to wrestle with what I had just told them, alone. It was kinda irresponsible, like a kid running down the hall out of control with clodhoppers on. These were real human beings, created in God’s image, worthy of respect and value, each one with a story, and I had just made them the object of my evangelistic effort, sometimes just to be seen as a "good Christian." Ugh! The prophet Isaiah says, “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, “Your God reigns!””(Isaiah 52:7 NIV) As we bring the Salvation of Jesus to people, it comes with good news and peace and good tidings, not anger, condemnation, manipulation, and lingering pain. The Holy Spirit does the convicting, we are called to love them and care about them and care for them, disciple them. Jesus calls us to make disciples not converts. Discipleship takes connection and care. When we belong to Jesus, we begin to act like Him... gentle toward weakness, compassionate for those who are hurting and an agent of redemption and reconciliation. People should be glad to see us coming.

Hang in there people. God is glad to be with us. I’m praying for us all.

*for more on Joe the Pony...https://williampmcg.blogspot.com/2020/08/parents-are-you-being-mean-joe-words.html