human interaction or.... "a ray of hope"

When one sets aside his blog for nearly a week, where does he re-enter? Probably by making excuses for his absence and begging forgiveness for unanswered emails and voice messages. Truth is, I’ve had plenty to blog, and have, just haven’t been compelled to put it out there. Instead, it’s been a week of actual human interaction rather than cyber thinking, theorizing, and thought pinging. Friday for example, I taught my theory class and 8 private lessons. Thursday, in addition to my normal schedule, I taught one of my Tuesday classes, presided over convocation, and taught two of my Tuesday and Wednesday private students. The day shift was done to free up some of Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning for preparation and recording of a live worship CD with 19 songs. That whole project took six and half hours (I hope that was enough). Otherwise Tuesday and Wednesday were normal teaching schedules and church rehearsal. Monday consisted of three meetings for six hours.
On Monday evening, I met a new friend, Ray. Ray is a big guy, my age, with a six-day-old cobalt blue Road King 1450. It looks like a limousine. He lives in a 200 year old house that belonged to his wife’s (Sonja) great great great great grandmother. There is a Magnolia tree in the side yard that is 125 years old. I can’t express how large and magnificent this tree is. The house had a detached kitchen in back as was the custom back in the day, to reduce the chance of fire in the main structure. There is also a slave house on the property. Ray doesn’t have any slaves though. Ray has moved the kitchen into the main house and turned the old kitchen into the master bedroom, with a covered deck/walkway connecting it to the main house. Awesome. He remodels houses.
Ray is perhaps the first person I’ve ever met who is actually described by the new term, “pre-Christian”. I’ve had problems with that term because it always sounded just shy of universalist to me. I think it probably was coined as an attempted update to “seeker”, but I always felt that “seeker” implied the need for direction from the “found” who were using the term “seeker”. “Pre-Christian” just sounds to me like it’s inevitable and we can just watch it happen. Anyway, that’s just how I am; but I always feel that our sometimes careless use of words, and their interpretation by others, may speak to our theology things that we don’t intend. Words carry weight among thinkers and non-thinkers, among seekers and pre-Christians, and we should be very careful to make sure they fall in line with our theology of the Gospel.
Ray, though, is definitely a pre-Christian seeker. He’s been to church 5 times – in a row. I am a seeker, but what he knows he is looking for, I’ve found. What I am looking for, he will begin presently. He told me about changes he’s made, about changes he’s trying to make. I wanted to sing for him my song, “give up”. I wanted to quote C.S. Lewis and Apostle Paul, who inspired the song. I wanted to say, “go on with your bad self until you realize you can’t do it”. The one who can, will become evident. But I just listened instead. There will be plenty of time to say those things, because Ray and I will become tight. I can sense it. Meanwhile, he’s seeking with all his heart and God promised that in doing that, we will find Him. He promised. I have a responsibility I know, to love Ray to belief. Ray seems to be asking the Mellencamp question. “Is this all that we’ve learned about living?” I’m going to show him some stuff I’ve learned about living and let him watch me learn some new stuff.
So fire up that Road King, Ray. I’ll introduce you to the King of the Road (ok, I know that was cheesy, but I’m 40, and its late.)
Pray for me and pray for Ray.