Salvation: being salvaged from the junk heap mere moments before toted away.
There are roads.
There’s the road to Emmaus, where a stranger is encountered who warms the heart with conversation and fellowship, ending up being the personification of what is truly believed.
A road that heads for Damascus, where headstrong intentions are interrupted abruptly by the realization of error and wrong-doing, eliminating blind ambition, having scales fall from the eyes.
That road to Jericho is one where the thieves of life come and strike their will, leaving a victim lying desperately in need of human kindness, which will allow for a season of restoration.
Of course, the road to Golgotha climbs upward through ridicule and humiliation, nailing the afflicted to a cross so that through the death of foolishness can come the resurrection of hope.
And finally, the road to Bethlehem, where a starry-eyed hope illuminates the night sky with the notion that there’s something more, something better, something righteous.
There are many roads that achieve a similar destination.
We must realize it is not where we travel nearly so much as with whom we travel.
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School was nearly out. I cannot tell you the relief I felt to finish out the year.
Having survived my infatuation with Jennifer, I had disguised my feelings by using revenge or attempts at ridicule, to make it seem that I no longer cared about her.
We were two days prior to summer vacation, in the midst of a school-wide festival, which had loosened the reigns on the tight restrictions usually imposed on us by teachers and principals.
I was feeling so darned good that I felt like I could say “damn.”
I was in the hallway with my friend, Craig, when we both noticed that Jennifer was standing next to the boy’s locker room door, absent-mindedly staring out the window into the school parking lot.
I had an idea–another way to embarrass Jennifer and therefore appease my male ego from her rejection. I whispered my inclination to Craig and he giggled.
So we ran forward, grabbed Jennifer, opened the boy’s locker room door, and pushed her in. It seemed hilarious in the moment. We lodged our bodies against the door as she pounded and screamed to escape. Her pleas sounded a bit comical to us, so we were in no hurry to set her free.
Suddenly she stopped crying out and the pushing on the door ceased.
So both Craig and I ran back into the festivities, hoping to blend into the crowd so that our misdeed would go unnoticed. Little did we know that in the boy’s locker room was Coach Swartz–and that he had walked out of the shower to discover that Jennifer was there, peering at him, creating what could only be the personification of an awkward moment.
He quickly covered himself, ran around to the other door, to peek and see who was keeping her from escaping.
Now for a moment let me talk about Coach Swartz. He was a collision of cool, crazy and confusion. He was cool because he was very handsome and all the girls in the school thought he was dreamy. Crazy, because he taught health class, and thinking that he was a doctor, passed out some erroneous advice. And confusing because he once told us at football practice that black people couldn’t play quarterback because there was extra oil on their hands, and they couldn’t hold onto the ball.
We also knew his first name was Jack because he had a paddling board which he used to punish students, which he had surnamed “Jack Smack.”
Returning to my story, Coach Swartz, with his hair still wet from the shower, ran into the festivities, found Craig and me, took us into his office and explained his overexposure to dear Jennifer.
He wasn’t mad, but said we would have to be punished. He wasn’t even mad as he took the Jack Smack board from its perch on the wall and hammered us both on the ass, seven times apiece.
Matter of fact, from that moment on, I think he liked us more, winking at us in the hallway as he reflected back to his one-man Chippendale show for Jennifer.
Even Jennifer never complained about our prank.
So you see, even though I got my butt whipped, I didn’t learn anything about being a better person through this experience … whatsoever.
The producers of jonathots would humbly request a yearly subscription donation of $10 for this wonderful, inspirational opportunity
Click here to get info on the “Gospel According to Common Sense” Tour
Please contact Jonathan’s agent, Jackie Barnett, at (615) 481-1474, for information about scheduling SpiriTed in 2014.
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