WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT?

It was a lovely day at the park: hot, but shady and comfortable enough sitting on “Pumpkin” my favorite bench donated in honor of a good dog who loved the park. I had a new C. S. Lewis compilation with me — “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis” — but I wasn’t really reading it. I had just finished preparing a difficult lesson at church and I wanted to clear my head before heading home. The park is a good place for that I find.

Pumpkin is beside the greenway track that runs through the park and a few people passed by sporadically.

One young woman passed me, walked on a few yards, turned around and came back. “What were you thinking about when I passed by?” she asked me. “Honestly, I was praying,” I said. “What about you? What were you thinking about?” So began our conversation.

“I was thinking about how all humans are connected with one another,” she said, “but we never seem to notice. We don’t talk to one another, so I decided to stop and talk with you.” A fair bit of courage, that is.

I asked E. to tell me about herself. I will call her E., the first letter of her first name, though I actually asked her name only at the end of the conversation.

E. turned twenty-seven last week. I told her I turned sixty-nine yesterday and we wished one another a happy birthday. She told me that she is in AA and is three years sober. I congratulated her and gave glory to God for her sobriety; that is no small thing. She wanted to talk about God — that much was clear — but she didn’t quite know how or where to start. Knowing just a little about twelve step programs — knowing that they speak of a “Power greater than ourselves” (Step 2) and “God as we understood Him” (Step 3) — I asked her to tell me about that greater Power, about that God as she understood Him. E. spoke vaguely and hesitantly of God as an energy and then quoted Barry Taylor: “God is the name of the blanket we throw over mystery to give it shape.” In other words, sitting on this bench in a local park, I found myself amongst the Areopagus atop Mars Hill speaking to an honest seeker after the unknown god.

I am not very good at evangelism or apologetics. But, I can hold up my end of a conversation and I can mention Jesus now and again. E. had many questions. Now, this is the interesting part: many of her most pressing questions were about those issues I had spent the morning thinking about, praying about, and writing about. Kairos: I had started to forego time in the park this day, but something (someone?) had reminded me that I needed such time for my spiritual sanity. So I went. So I met E. So I could show her the Gospel in her twelve steps. So I could speak to her not about a vague energy or blanket but about the God who created her simply so that he might love her. So I could point her to Jesus.

There was no conversion, but there was a good conversation and we parted grateful for it.

Of your mercy, will you please take a moment to pray for E. and for her boyfriend. Both are in recovery — aren’t we all? — and both are looking for Jesus though they might not recognize it yet. And I know Jesus is looking for them.