"Lubrication......................"

First day back to school was the usual bit of confusion: teachers’ schedules adjusted to allow for their own jump into the hodgepodge of initial odds and ends; that, in turn, causing our unit to go with the flow, finding format to it all a matter of being patient, knowing it all will come together eventually. Administration has taken away our room’s other assistant while leaving us with our same number of students; but somehow problems were minimal, the old man finding it fun to be back in the saddle, another journey begun. The worst of the mix was loading kids for their return trip home, so many parents there to pick up their children that the two-lane road out front jammed bumper to bumper, buses unable to access the loop, us trying to contain our group, their minds knowing only that it’s time to go… Evening Bible class would be the big disappointment, the teacher merely revisiting a theme wherein he has been anchored for a while, the topic rooted and grounded in the Word, but certainly not the one and only truth that Scripture sets before us. I recognize the passion, one’s eyes having been opened to an element of the Gospel previously not considered, the experience much like Christ announcing to that crowd gathered on the Mount, “You have heard it said…. But I say unto you”. It’s a lesson I’ve had to learn, myself, people not usually receptive to your individual enlightenment, it taking the Holy Ghost on both ends of any sermon delivered, the message needing divine connection, not just your own emphatic pounding of the point you wish to bring. As it was, we finished twenty minutes early with little in the way of accomplishing any real discussion within the group… Whether we are on the job or seated in the sanctuary, if it doesn’t stay “fresh”, humanity occurs. I say that knowing well that some days are better than others; but also assured in the fact that He, alone, is the bottomless well, the river that never shall run dry.