"Serenity................................."

The first day back to school yesterday found me arriving a half hour early and being extremely lucky to find a parking place, the lot plugged tight and overflowing, concerned parents making sure the little diddles weren’t frightened with their initial steps into new surroundings. Mostly, for me, and for the same reason, it was a day of re-acclimating children whose whole world is a pattern to be followed, re-introducing them now to the safety of our room, re-assuring them that a twenty minute late arrival in the afternoon didn’t mean their bus home had abandoned them. With our monthly visit to the rescue mission scheduled for seven o’clock, this old man passed out in the living room recliner after dinner and renewed his strength, sleeping straight through both episodes of “Millionaire”. Meredith never missed me… It was a strange beginning to our service with the men. My son-in-law had to side-track and pick up his saxophone, having left it at the church this past weekend, and I thought that he and I might be a few minutes late; but, as it turned out, Dave was the one who got stuck in traffic, arriving after we had already sung an opening hymn. The room was one with us, though, from the very start. Tony’s words about the Kingdom of God, as Christ described it in the Book of Matthew, being a continuous work that takes place within any man who commits himself to the journey had all hearts listening to the simplicity of his message. In his choosing to begin with the example of how bread is leavened with yeast, speaking with first-hand knowledge of how the process is accomplished, he did not realize my own intent that evening to utilize Jesus’ declaration of being “the bread of life”… In truth, I learned long ago that it is His wisdom, His compassion, His grace, and certainly not our humanity in any form, that spans the gulf, whether in an outreach ministry or in an inner-reach Special-Ed classroom. Wednesday was a good day on both ends……