Since they closed the Y in New Holland, I’ve been at a loss for a place to work out. Or not workout, more accurately. You get busy. Stuff happens. You know how it is.
Anyway, I always knew the Y was there and would be ready when my motivation kicked back in.
But then the Y closed. And now, a wave of motivation has come along. 40 Days of Gratitude is a great reminder that self-care is an important part of living thankfully. So, I joined a fitness club in Ephrata. Part of my gratitude practice.
I’m glad to be back a physical routine. I’ve already noticed positive changes; less stiffness when I get out of a chair and more energy, and I note the changes gratefully.
The downside of course, is the travel. It’s about 20 minutes away. The New Holland Y was less than five minutes.
So, figure you work out for an hour, tack on travel time, and that can add up to a significant chunk of the day. It hasn’t been a problem though…until the other day.
I got a call from the office while I was on the elliptical. A church member was in Ephrata Hospital, just down the street, less than a mile away. You could see Ephrata Hospital from the parking lot. That’s convenient.
The problem was, I wasn’t dressed to make a hospital call. I was dressed for the elliptical and the weight machines. In more than 30 years of ordained ministry, I’ve never done a hospital call dressed in anything other than a clerical collar. I’ve never even considered it.
So, without a second thought, I went to the locker room to change into my sweats, calculating how much time it would take to drive home, get changed into “work clothes” and drive back here, make the call and then drive back to the office for the rest of the day. Which would probably not have much “day” left in it by then.
But then I heard a small voice. Very tentative.
Do people want to see a collar or do they want to see a pastor?
I sat on the bench in front of my locker. Mmm, good question. But the voice wasn’t finished yet.
Would it be the end of the world if you washed up quick here, put your sweats back on, and just made the hospital visit?
One part of me said, “of course it wouldn’t be the end of the world” and another part of me stuck out his chin, folded his arms across his chest and said, “absolutely not!” (This part of me has always been kind of a jerk).
Then, I realized what this little voice was asking me to do. Out of the blue. I was being asked to reconsider my identity. Who am I, really? And what are the components that make up who I think I am?
More than thirty years of routine and habit had calcified into my identity. A white plastic collar tab inserted into a black shirt had become synonymous with how I understood myself, my role, and my understanding of God too when you get right down to it.
The nice part about coming up with an answer to “who are you,” you can stop asking the question. That’s why we love answers. And why God loves to come up with new questions. Like our own identity, our God is after all, the epitome of the question to which there is no answer.
So, here God was asking me, in that little voice, if it wasn’t time to consider a bigger question? Respond in a new way that was appropriate to the circumstances.
And I sat in front of the locker, not sure at all that I could do it.
Then, I suddenly remembered the first time I wore a clerical collar. I was doing my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at the State Prison in Camp Hill. I had just completed my first year of seminary.
One bright, summer morning, I put on a brand-new black clerical shirt with the clean white tab, and I looked at myself in the mirror.
Who was this person!?!
I felt awed and humbled and overwhelmed. As much as I’d looked forward to this moment, nothing could have prepared me for the shock of looking in the mirror and not recognizing the person looking back!
Over the years, that person has become familiar to me. So familiar, I often can’t tell where he ends and where I began anymore. And, maybe that’s why God was asking me to do something I hadn’t considered doing before this.
It was as though God was using this memory to ask another question, “can you recognize the God who comes dressed in a sweatshirt?”
So, a little like Jonah after being spit out by the whale, I got cleaned up and went to the hospital straight from the gym in my sweats. But I have to tell you I felt very self-conscious walking through the sliding doors of the hospital in sneakers. It was like one of those dreams when you walk out of the house naked.
I kept looking around, expecting someone to stop me. Demand to know what I was doing there. “If you see something, say something,” kept going through my mind, and I had my photo ID ready, just in case.
But no one said anything. They hardly gave me a second look. I imagined God looking down at me with a smug look. “See?”
I got to the room and immediately started to apologize for the way I was dressed, but the person I came to see didn’t appear to care. She was struggling with her address book. “I have to call my neighbor, but I can’t find the number.”
She handed me the address book, and I began searching for the name, which I eventually found tacked onto the end of a page.
“Oh good. Can you dial the number for me?”
“Sure.” I said. But then, I couldn’t figure out the hospital phone. I dialed and re-dialed, but I got nothing.
That’s when an Amish guy, visiting the woman in the other bed, stuck his head out from behind the curtain and offered his help with the phone…
“You must dial 9 and then 1, and then the area code,” he said meticulously.
I don’t often get to see Amish men without their hats. It gave me a whole new perspective. His thick hair was blunt cut above the ears, you could see the outline of the bowl they’d probably used to cut it all his life.
Which reminded me that he had a life, and a story. Like I did.
Seeing him “out of uniform,” out of his element, allowed a human connection. I empathized with his unease, and I enjoyed the fact that I was incognito in my sweats.
And then it hit me, my being in sweats put the entire exchange on the level of basic human kindness. No role to play, just two people trying to bring comfort to someone they cared about who was in the hospital.
In the midst of that, maybe because of it, he found time to help the guy behind the curtain who couldn’t figure out the phone. Which made the interaction nothing short of delightful. A surprise to note in my gratitude journal.
I did as the Amish guy directed and it worked. The call went through. I gave him a thumbs up and a victory smile and he nodded and disappeared behind the curtain.
Then it hit me…I had just gotten tech support from an Amish guy.
And maybe that’s why God leads us to places where we feel off balance. To places we resist going. Maybe that’s why God asks us to try new things instead of doing the same old things.
How else can God free us from the small familiarity of who we think we are, and surprise us with how big and wonderful our lives in this world can really be?
Charles Oberkehr 