Joe got Mayor Jake to go with him to
see Tom Ames show that Friday. The comedy club was old but it had a lot of
character. It had some theatre seats on tiers in the back of the room and a
dozen or so tables in front next to the stage. Joe and Jake got their drinks
and were directed to one of the tables. There were four acts that night, three
comedians including Tom and a magician who was also a comedian. The magician
opened the night. He hammered nails into his head and pulled a frog out of a
ladies’ purse. Throughout his act he kept up a running monologue of wisecracks,
jokes, and sarcastic comments to people in the audience. Joe thought he was
pretty funny, but Jake laughed so hard he fell out of his chair. Tom was the
second act. As he came up to the mike he saw Joe.
“Thank you everyone for coming out
tonight. How do you follow an act like that? I wanted to give a shout out to a
buddy of mine, Joe, who’s in the audience tonight. Let’s give it up for a
classy guy.”
Everyone applauded and Joe felt a
little uncomfortable, but he smiled and enjoyed the rest of the show.
“I got into an argument with a
co-worker the other day,” Tom began, “Big mistake. That’s because she was a
woman. No offence ladies, but arguing with a woman is totally different than
arguing with a man. In the history of arguing, no man has ever had an argument
with a woman. No, I’m serious, a man never has an argument with a woman…he has
an argument with every woman who ever lived. Let’s say you’re at a restaurant
with two women who were arguing with each other. If you make the mistake of
taking one woman’s side, the two of them will join forces and destroy you. Case
in point: Let’s say one of them got mad and cut her husband up into little
pieces and fed him to the ducks. Now let’s say they are arguing over whether
she should have done it or not. Listen carefully men. What I’m about to say
could save your life: Don’t take sides! Don’t-tell-the-murderer-she was wrong!
If you forget this advice and say anything-ANYTHING!-suddenly you will have
both women on your chest with steak knives in their hands. Not only can you
NEVER win an argument-EVER…you should get on your knees and thank God above you
are alive. ALIVE!
“Which, for some reason, reminds me
of toilets. Listen, guys, you’ve heard the decree: always put the seat down! It’s
like having your Miranda Rights read to you by the arresting officer: ‘You have
the right to remain silent-and put the seat down. Anything you say or do-other
than ‘I’m sorry, I will always put the seat down’-can and will be held against
you in privy court. You have the right to apologize to me and every other woman
on the planet. If you cannot think of what to say, I will tell you. Do you
understand these rights as they have been read to you?’ It doesn’t matter how
many men use the toilet; you MUST put the seat down. Take the Smurfs for
example: there are like five million MALE Smurfs, right? And then you’ve got
Smurfette, the only female Smurf. Even though she’s the only female, you can
bet your life that Smurfette rules the bathroom. Count on it. I can see it all
now. Papa Smurf comes home from a hard day of smurfing, or whatever, and goes
in and uses the toilet. Ten minutes later he’s listening to a tirade, that
would have put Hitler to shame, about why he should have put the seat down. I
can imagine it would have gone something like this:
“Papa
Smurf!”
“Yes,
Smurfette?”
"Did
you forget something?”
“Forget
what?”
“I
think you know.”
“But
I don’t know.”
“Well,
you should know. I shouldn’t have to tell you.”
“Tell
me what?”
“There
you go again!”
“Smurfette!”
“Achtung!
You dumkopf!”
“Where I work-don’t ask me why-they
only have one toilet for both the guys and the gals. You can probably figure
out where this is going. At our staff meetings we have these “conversations.”
The emotional investment during these conversations would make you think we
were discussing the end of human existence or something. So, one time we
actually discussed the whole process. Guys are supposed to put the seat up so
they, you know, don’t pee on the seat, right? Okay, that’s kind of a courtesy.
Now because of this kindness we are
forever obligated to put the seat back down. It’s a law now. So, to comply, I
do all the women a favor and leave everything down and pee on the lid. That way
the seat stays dry and everyone’s happy, right? I can only do that at work. I
tried that at home and my wife doubled our life insurance policy.
But seriously. My wife and I do
have a solution to this problem that seems to work. Take notes, it may save
your marriage. I love my wife. My wife loves me. When I need to use the toilet,
the first thing I do is look at it. If the seat is up, no problem. I was the
last one to use it. If the seat in down, I put it up. I flush, I wash my hands,
I leave the bathroom…My wife comes in. The first thing she does is look at the
toilet. If the seat is down, no problem. She was the last one to use it. If the
seat is up SHE PUTS IT DOWN! Did you get that? What is wrong with this
pic-ture?...that’s right, nothing! Oh yeah…the toilet paper, too. If I replace
the roll the flap hangs off the front. If my soul mate replaces the roll it
hangs off the back. You know, we’re both intelligent people. We figured out how
to get an adequate amount of paper off the roll no matter how the flap is
hanging. It’s like magic.”
Tom’s monologue lasted another ten
minutes or so and Joe was impressed. Afterward he and Jake went backstage.
“Great show, Tom,” Joe said. “I
loved the Smurf bit. By the way, this is Jake. He works at The Refuge.”
“Are you the guy who fell out of
his chair?”
“Yeah, that’s me. I can’t even
blame it on booze.”
“So, how is Eddie doing?” Joe
asked.
“He’s doing okay, Joe. He wanted me
to make sure and say hello to you. He says he owes you his life. He wants to
reassure you he’s taken his last drink. The Cornells took all the alcohol out
of the house to honor his commitment. He’s going to meetings, and so far so
good. That’s how it is with recovering alcoholics. One day at a time as they
say.”
“Send him my regards, will you?
Tell him I’m praying for him.”
“Will do, Joe. I’m not religious
like you, but I get it.”
“Thanks, man.”
They left and headed out to the parking lot.
It was about ten thirty. Just as they got in the car Joe thought he saw someone
coming over to speak to them, but the person stopped at the corner of the lot.
As they drove out Joe realized it was the mystery man who’d confronted him the
other day.
“Hey, Jake, you recognize that
guy?”
“Never seen him before.” He
answered as they turned on to the street. “Why?”
“I’ve seen him twice since I got
back. We had a tense conversation at the bus stop the other day. He seems
angry, or something.”
“Just a minute.” Jake turned the
car around right in the middle of the street and somehow managed to take out a
little pocket camera he had in the console between the seats and roll his
window down. As they drove past Jake took a picture of the man, then hit the
gas and sped off.
“I’ll upload this pic to my website
and ask around. Lotta people lookin’ out for each other these days. I’m beta
testing some face recognition software. I’ll try that too. Something might turn
up. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“I’m impressed, Jake. Is that a spy
camera?”
“This old thing? Nah, I just keep
it around for stuff. I’m not that good of a photographer or anything, but it
comes in handy. Like right now.”
They drove back to The Refuge and
Joe didn’t think too much about the mystery man. But on Wednesday it all came
to a head. Joe had decided to take his lunch break at the little park with the
statues he’d found when he first came to the city. He was sitting on bench
eating his sandwich and letting the sun warm his face when someone approached.
Joe looked up but the person’s face was right in the sun and he had to squint
and shade his eyes. He didn’t have to wonder for long who it was. As soon as he
spoke Joe knew it was the mystery man.
“How’s the sandwich?” the man
asked.
“It’s good. Why do you ask?”
“Just making conversation,” the man
said smiling.
“I think you’re following me.”
“Really?”
“This is the fourth time I’ve seen
you in the last few weeks.”
“We’ve been watching you for a
while, Joe,” Was all the man said.
“Oh?”
“Long before you came back to the
city.”
Joe stood up and moved so he wasn’t
looking into the sun. “So you are following me.”
“We were there on the mountain when
you hurt your leg. We were there that night on the ship when Bruiser beat you
up and threw you in the ocean. But since you’ve come back we’ve been watching
you almost every day.”
“I don’t get it. Why me? Why now?”
“Let me tell you a story, Joe. There
were these two guys. Farmers. One farmer has the biggest and best farm in the
valley and the second farmer is just barely getting by. The one guy-everybody
buys his stuff. He’s making a killing. It went on for years like that, just
getting better all the time, but then the second farmer figures it out and
pretty soon he’s selling vegetables and all kinds of stuff. He gets better at
it, and better at it, and before long he’s the other farmer’s biggest
competition. Now the other farmer is hurting. He can’t sell like he used to.
He’s sad.”
“Can you get to the point,” Joe
said. “My lunch hour is almost up.”
“You’re the second farmer, Joe.”
“How is that?”
“You’re a threat now to my boss.
Before you came down the mountain nobody cared. But now you are telling people
about The Way. We can’t have that.”
“And you want me to stop, is that
it?”
“Let me finish the story, Joe. Like
I said, the first farmer is sad. So late one night he goes over to the other
farm and torches it; the barn, the fields, everything.”
“Seems a bit excessive.”
“My boss doesn’t like competition.”
“That’d do it.”
“All or nothing.”
“And that’s why you’ve been
following me. You want to threaten me.”
“I’m just trying to help you, Joe. Let’s
just say I’m trying to save you. Things stay the way they are and a lot of pain
is in your future, and maybe, probably, not just you. You might want to think
about that.”
“So, tell me, who’s your boss?”
“I don’t need to tell you that,
Joe. You already know.”
The man turned and walked out of
the park. Joe watched him go through the gate and disappear as he went around a
bend in the path. He hadn’t shown it, but the threat really scared him. It
wasn’t just the threat of “pain,” whatever that meant. The several encounters
with this man were so out of context. They didn’t seem to have any relationship
to anything. He hadn’t hurt anyone, or created any enemies. The few people he’d
had trouble with-Eddie and Bruiser-were now his friends. This didn’t make
sense. Joe finished his lunch and headed back to work. That night at dinner he
asked Sam about it.
“I don’t know the man you’re
referring to,” Sam began, “but I think I know what’s going on.” Sam paused and
gathered his thoughts, then, “this mystery man as you call him is a tool of The
Enemy.”
“I don’t have any enemies,” Joe
protested.
“Oh, but you do, Joe. They may not
be your enemy, but believe me when I tell you that you are definitely theirs.”
“What do you mean?”
“Alright, here goes. The Enemy is a
person as real as you and I. He is the Adversary of every Christian.”
“Really?”
“Joe, what do you know of Satan?”
“The Devil?”
“Yeah.”
“Not much. He’s evil and takes
people’s souls I think. Oh, and he’s the ruler of Hell.”
“That’s partly true, Joe. He is
evil, but he can’t take your soul and he is not the ruler of Hell. Hell is more
like his prison than his kingdom. But the reason why I bring him up is that he
is the enemy of all who follow the Way.”
“That reminds me,” Joe said. He
then told him the little parable the mystery man had told him in the park. “Is
that what you’re talking about?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking
about,” Sam said. “Before you became a Christian, and while you were still a
recent follower of The Way, you posed no threat to the Enemy, but now you do.
The mystery man’s role is to use one of Satan’s most effective tools: fear. In
a very real sense fear is the opposite of faith.”
“I thought doubt was the opposite
of faith,” Jake interjected.
“You’re right, of course, Jake,”
Sam said, “but it’s not too hard to see how closely those two ideas are related.
Joe do you know of the story of when Jesus walked on the water?”
“I’ve heard of it, that’s all.”
“The disciples were on a boat and a
storm came up. They looked and Jesus came walking out to them. The disciples
were afraid and Jesus said to them: ‘You of little faith, why are you afraid?’ Now
it seems to me they were afraid because they lacked faith in God. That’s how
the Enemy works. He gets you thinking about your circumstances and before long
fear spreads to every area of your life: you become afraid to lose your job, or
your health, afraid to try something new, afraid to lose a spouse or a friend.
Pretty soon you are frozen by fear and God is out of the picture.”
“I think I get it, Sam” Joe said.
“Do you remember I told you about Luther? That’s pretty much the same thing he
told me.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I’m going to
go out on a limb and say that the next stage of your life is going to be harder
for you in ways you haven’t experienced before. You can face these challenges
with faith or you can cave in to fear. It’s like a crisis point, or a
crossroads. You will either be stronger or weaker on the other side. I’ll be
praying for you, Joe.”
Joe lay in his bed that night thinking about all he’d
been through. It didn’t seem fair. He’d given up so much, been through so much,
he sort of thought it would get easier, not harder. What was he to expect from
all this? But he did see Sam’s observation that he could be at a crossroads. If
he gave in now he’d be choosing comfort over service to God. That’s the same decision
he’d faced when he sat on the park bench so long ago. It was also the same
crisis he’d faced the day Richard Barker offered him a job. And then there was
Gloryhaven. He wanted to stay, but Paul had shown him why he couldn’t. What was
it Paul had written in the note he put in his Bible? Joe thumbed through his
Bible and miraculously it was still there. Joe read the note again and came to
the part where Paul had written: “…Remember: all your best days are ahead of
you.” That was always true. His best days were always ahead. That implied
growth and growth implied struggle. Well, so be it. If he had to fight the
Enemy, he wasn’t alone. God was with him, and that was enough.Questions:
1. Why
is the mystery man so hostile to Joe?
2. Why
did he choose this point in time to confront Joe?
3. What
is the point of his parable?
4. In
what way is doubt the opposite of faith?
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