How About Them Cubs?

 

Those of you who know me pretty well might find this hard to believe but there are times when I am left speechless.  One of the many difficulties of living life on the road is spending a lot of time with people you don’t really know.  I have a different sort of sense of humor and it doesn’t always fly real well with some people, so there have been some awkward moments.

 

There are those times however where the awkward moment has nothing to do with you but you are stuck in the middle none the less.  Recently a friend e mailed me and took a guess about the church in the soap and water story.  He was wrong, but I still didn’t reveal the right answer.   However his guess reminded me of an incident that would make a good story.

 

We were in a church for an all day Sunday meeting.  The 5 of us were camped out in the family room of the pastors house and it was a less than comfortable situation.  We meet a lot of people and as you can imagine, some people we click with and some people we don’t.  Sometimes there are clear cut reasons and others the reasons are not so clear.  But one thing that makes life interesting is that everyone is different.  My initial reaction to this particular pastor was that if a man eating lion got loose in his town he would not need to worry, not even break a sweat.  But anyway on with the story at hand.

 

In between Sunday services we were back at the pastor’s house having lunch and making conversation, basically passing the time and trying to get to know each other.  After we finished eating, Carmen pitched in to help clear the table.  Mrs. Pastor told her “just stack the dishes on the counter, we don’t do them on Sunday”.   Judging from the stack on the counter they followed the same practice Friday and Saturday as well.  After the dishes were cleared and we were setting around talking about baseball and drinking coffee, the pastor said to his wife “Dear, some of that cake would be good about now” to which she replied “what cake?” he attempted to remind her with “That cake we talked about yesterday.”  You could tell by looking at her that the light then clicked on.  She said “Oh, that cake, I didn’t make it.”  Mr. Pastor had to ask one final question which came out innocent enough.  “Why not?”  He asked almost sheepishly.  To which she responded “Because you didn’t ask me to make it, you told me to make it and I don’t do orders!”  and stomped out of the room.

 

I realize that husbands and wives have disagreements and differences of opinions.  I also realize (after 15 years of marriage) that sometimes things are not as smooth as you would like them to be.  However as a general rule, most couples do their best to not display these things in a group setting.

 

After Mrs. Pastor  stormed out of the room, we were just kind of setting there in an awkward silence that went on far to long.  In spite of what I have already said about this pastor and other opinions which I have not voiced, I really did feel bad for him.  Here he was with a visiting preacher and his family who he hardly knew and he was just put in place by his wife.  How much more embarrassing could it get.  He kind of looked like he could limbo under a rug.  I did my best to break the silence that had gone on far to long.  Remembering the baseball conversation that was interrupted but the whole cake ordeal.  I blurted out,  “Hey, how about them Cubs?”

 

Such is the life of a traveling preacher.