We Mayor or May Not Have Tried to Borrow a McDonaldland Playground Character.*

 We Mayor or may not have tried to borrow a McDonaldland playground character. In college, in my rebellion years, a group of friends and I decided we would give Mayor McCheese a new temporary home until his newly redesigned playground was completed at the Mickey Dee’s near campus. He was obviously bored in the parking lot while he waited for his playground to be rebuilt. So, a plan was hatched to relieve his ennui while his place at McCityhall was revamped. A friend, who happened to be a PK (Preacher’s Kid), was driving his dad’s car that night. We grabbed an old quilt and threw it on top of the shiny two door caprice classic that had a like new wax job, so it was slick as glass. The four of us carefully lifted the most McHonorable sir to the roof. He obviously liked the idea, he was smiling… kind of. When I asked about tie down straps, we had obviously not thought this thing through. One said, “you guys just hang out the window on each side and hold it, just like those people do with mattresses.” So, silly us, we did. We had made it out of the parking lot and turned onto the road with a giant downhill beside campus. About one third of the way down the hill, police lights and sirens came on. My PK friend, the driver, panicked for a moment and accelerated. With the increasing speed, the newly emancipated Mayor began to slide on the “hard shell finish” of the recently Turtle Waxed roof and was about to be ousted from his motorcade. I and my passenger side human-tie-down-strap began to be pulled out our windows by the less than aerodynamic, bulged eyed, top hatted, metallic beef, bun and cheese head. The metal bolts that would normally hold his Honor in place on the ground had found their way off the quilt and onto the paint job of the pastor’s car, leaving squiggled gashes of exposed metal on the top as we attempted to keep the McCityofficial from flying off onto the campus police cruiser quickly approaching behind us. Our driver finally came to his senses, deciding that we couldn’t outrun the police, especially with our statue on top and so he found a safe place beside the road to pull over. We climbed out of our windows expecting the worst. We were all “getting our story straight” in our minds… that we were only “borrowing” it to put behind our campus apartment for a few days. I was already rehearsing what I would say to my parents, who would have to drive 3 hours to come get me out of jail. The campus police officer climbed out of his cruiser and couldn’t talk because he was laughing so hard… saying something about the look on Mr. McCheese’s face as we sped down that hill. He walked up and laugh-slapped one of my friends on the shoulder so hard he almost fell into the ditch with the words, “you boys!” We didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. He had called the other campus police to come see what “these knuckleheads” had done. Fortunately, the PK knew this particular officer and shared that we were just bored and planned to bring this impeached McPublic official back in a day or two. The officer who continued to chuckle as he talked, said, “you boys take him right back up there now, and everybody can go back to campus…and y’all find something else to do with your time tonight.” He went back to his car chuckling and shaking his head. So, we took our McDonaldland friend back to his boring spot in the parking lot. My friend had “some ‘splainin’' to do to his dad about those four divots in his roof, but we were all relieved to sleep in our own beds rather than being in the lockup for kidnapping the Mayor. We noticed our next time through the drive thru that Mayor McCheese, Ronald, the Hamburgler, and Officer Big Mac were all incarcerated, securely chained and padlocked with a temporary fence around them until the playground was completed. But Mayor McCheese never felt so liberated as that night he took a ride on the wildside. Thankfully this was back before security cameras and cell phone cameras, so there is no record of these misguided shenanigans, and I would probably deny they ever happened.

Everyone in that car that night we took Mayor McCheese, had grown up in the church and claimed to be a Christian. There were lots of these times during my rebellion that I needed to be reminded that we don’t do those kinds of things.That "boredom" is not a free pass to act like a jerk. We were God’s kids, not kids of the Evil One, but we weren’t acting like it. The truth is I wasn’t listening, even if someone tried to remind me… sad, I know. God’s grace awaited me if I would just turn back to Him and quit acting like I didn’t belong to Him. Fortunately, I eventually repented. The apostle Paul had to keep reminding the early church Whose they were, the things they no longer did, but also who they now are. He says, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”(1 Corinthians 6:9–11) I still need to be reminded that I have been “made right” with God and that I am now in Christ and the way I honor His boundaries and treat His people are expected to be in keeping with Who belong to now. Let's keep acting like His people.

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