That Time When ... A Delivery Took an Unexpected Turn

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:01:05 -0800

Not a flower delivery van, I know. Photo by Norbert Kundrak

Sometime before I was a Tech Writing Manager, QA Manager, or Test Engineer and sometime after I did data entry for a newspaper, TA’d for a computer class for senior citizens, and was a Sandwich Artist – I worked as a Logistics Engineer at a local flower shop. I delivered flowers for 4-5 years during and after college. There are some things I miss about being delivering flowers. The regular push to interact with diverse people who were experiencing a very broad cross-section of human experience. Most folks know about the positive things: celebrations, birthdays, anniversaries, new babies, and holidays. But we also made deliveries for sad events: to funeral homes, gravesides, and wakes.

One day, I had a leafy green plant to deliver. I remember parking the van in front of a single story apartment complex and walking up to the door. The horizontal blinds are drawn shut, despite the warm and sunny Southern California afternoon weather. In my left palm, the potted plant. Under that arm, my delivery clipboard. I reach up my right hand and go for three moderate knocks on the door. Two knocks is too incidental, four knocks too insistent. Hard knocks can come across as threatening, soft knocks can go unheard.

After a moment, the door slowly opens. A middle aged man in his pajamas stands in the door. The man’s appearance was disheveled – his eyes are red and puffy, face unshaven, hair in disarray.

The next thing I notice is the smell of cigarette smoke, heavy both on the man and wafting out of the apartment. Instinctively, my eyes scan the entry way of the dark apartment. The entry way opens directly into the living room. A sofa sits in front of a window. A coffee table sits in front of the sofa. On the coffee table, an ash tray – many cigarette butts had found their home in that tray.

“Delivery for Mr. _____?”

He acknowledges my question and signs the clipboard. I hand over the plant, which now seems smaller and less green than it did a moment ago. In slow motion, he sets it on the coffee table. Cigarette in hand, he opens the attached card. His eyes alternate between looking at the plant and the card. I remain in the doorway. He sits opposite the sofa and window. When he sits, he sits with unknowable weight on his shoulders.

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I don’t know why I said that. I am on the clock, I have other deliveries. My boss expects this delivery to take 15 minutes. Furthermore, I don’t know anything about this person and feel utterly ill-equipped to provide anything of value.

From this point on, I don’t remember anything he says. I remember the smell of cigarettes. I know that I sat on the couch. I know that as I sat on that couch, this man shared and wept. Loudly. Openly. A tightly held grief that burst forth in great waves.

Time passed. I remember getting back into the delivery van. My limbs and time itself feeling leadened and weighted. What happened? How long was I there? I wasn’t sure. I knew that I bore some of the man’s grief – but also a different feeling. I only now am beginning to have the vocabulary to describe that time. Intimate, weighty, and … sacred. A brief window into another soul’s grief and sorrow.

I drive back to the flower shop. My explanation of what had happened to my boss was met with some bewilderment. I don’t know what happened to that man afterwards. But I’ve never forgotten him, this story, and the hope that somehow, the brief moment I spent with him brought some daylight into his life.

Photo by Patrick Perkins

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That Time When ... I Thought I Was the Best Basketball Player

Sun, 13 Dec 2020 10:33:56 -0800

When I was in fourth grade, my grandmother signed me up for a church basketball league. I didn’t know anyone or have any friends on the team, but for some reason that didn’t deter me. Why? Because I literally thought I was the best basketball player. Let’s run down the facts as they stood at the time:

Experience playing organized team sports? None
Played basketball on a regular basis? Nope
Knew a lot about the sport from watching televised basketball? Nah. I don’t think I had ever watched a real basketball game before.

So why did I think I was god’s gift to this 4th grade basketball team?

I played a ton of NBA Jam on Super Nintendo. I won 4th place in the local Blockbuster Video Game Tournament . I knew that if you pump faked a couple times, that you could increase your odds of making a shot. These virtual virtues would no doubt translate over to real basketball. How could they not?!

You are allowed to laugh. I certainly laugh, and cringe about it.

So, anyways, I thought I was the best basketball player because of my superior NBA Jam skillz – that is until I showed up for our first practice. I remember the coach. I remember the other players on the team. And, I remember the moment we were told to do a lay-up drill. What’s a lay up? How do I dribble? Where do I stand for a free throw? I did a few pump fakes during a scrimmage and put a shot up, but air balled?! People laughed at my airball. Oh. This. Is. Not. What. I. Thought. It. Would. Be. Like.

That practice was only a preview of the crushing blows my outlandish 4th grade ego would take that season.

Later that season I remember one particular game where our team trailed another in the 4th quarter. Time was ticking down, the opposing team was in possession of the ball. Full court press time! I was guarding the player with the ball. Our coach shouted out to me,

“Foul him! Foul him!”

“What?” I was bewildered. What does that mean? You want me to intentionally hurt him? I had literally no concept for what an intentional foul looked like. And so, I slapped (yes, slapped) at the player who was dribbling up the court. I don’t know what he was thinking, nor do I know what the referee was thinking, but I think they were all really confused by my behavior. I’m pretty sure someone else came up later and fouled the player so we could stop the clock.

In retrospect, its amazing to me that I lasted as long playing basketball as I did – up through freshman year of high school. It’s also a revelation to me that people put up with me at all on that team - from my coaches to my teammates. I’m still very grateful for that time. Prior to playing on that team, I really had no pre-existing concept of what it meant to be on a team, to develop skills (practice) with intentionality and discipline, and how you actually play basketball.

Most importantly, years later those relationships would be used by God to put me in a position to hear and understand the Gospel for the first time. One of the friends I made on that team drove me to youth group almost every week. And youth group led to ultimately to me hearing the Gospel.

Thank God for NBA Jam.

That Time When on Looking for the Fig Tree

That Time When ... A Delivery Took an Unexpected Turn

That Time When ... I Thought I Was the Best Basketball Player