Dean
Thomas, that’s the youth pastor right? He’d invited all the youth
that were present at the last workday, to a discussion of sorts, in
the church’s teen youth room. The visitors were included also. Next
to him in the front of the group of about two dozen teens was a large
white board with a few dry erase markers at the ready. He hadn’t
gotten more than 5 words out of his mouth when the door opened rather noisily and in walked a tough looking teen with the same looking
leather jacket that we think was planting apple seeds in the back of
Jericho with Gramps the other day.
He
reached back outside the door and pulled in another rough looking
teen a little younger than himself. The younger teen had orange hair
and rings in both eyebrows. The larger of the two pointed at an empty
chair toward the back and made sure the younger wasted no time in
parking himself in it. This type of discipleship is not well
understood by most of the church goers, but the fact remains, there
they sat. The older gave the obvious gesture to the younger that he
was not to disturb anything or the younger may be limping home.
Pastor
Dean decided he shouldn’t take any time now to think about orange
hair or where jewelry should be worn. He clearly wrote his name on
the top of the marker board and promised they’d hear no preaching
from him tonight. He made good eye contact with each of the youth and
explained that he needed their help to make a list of famous walls on
the planet.
Penny
started the list of important walls by suggesting the Great Wall of
China, “My science teacher says the astronauts can see it from
space.” Dean added, “You’re right Penny, it’s something like
6,000 miles long. I guess a lot of it had fallen down because of
erosion. Who else can think of an important wall?”
Jimmy
Paine spoke right up with, “The Berlin Wall, that divided the city
in half.” There was a pause and then the bigger tough fella spoke
in a rather stern tone asking, “Well how about the Vietnam Memorial
Wall? My uncle Dave’s name is on it. I think there’s almost
60,000 names in the list.” That changed the mood of the group to a
more serious one. Pastor Dean said, “I’ll add another famous wall
near Jerusalem called the ‘Wailing Wall’”.
In
the next few minutes a couple more walls were added to the list, like
the walls around the Bible town of Jericho. Then Dean spoke with
great emphasis to the teens in saying, “There are actually some
other walls bigger and more powerful than the ones we’ve got listed
here. One thing that makes them more powerful is that they can’t be
described with a measuring stick, or lasers and such.”
While
the discussion about walls was going on, Lanny one of the custodians
walked past the door of the teen room. Sitting across the hallway
from the door was Granny Simms, of all people. The difference though,
was that her eyes didn’t have that bullet steel stare, but were red
like she had been weeping. Her weeping was that bone-deep kind, that
you couldn’t switch on or off if someone looked at you.
Granny
could hear most of what was being said in the discussion and wanted
to add a big wall she knew about. She was well familiar with her wall
because she had built it all by herself. The wall within her was
called INDIFFERENCE. She was brutally honest admitting she hid behind
her wall and stayed in her comfort zone. But the youth in that room
had brought her to the place near Nehemiah’s state of mind causing
he and her to weep over the condition of walls that are so important
to God and His children.
Long
long ago Nehemiah was emotionally crushed to see the amount of repair
needed to God’s property and people. Granny Simms asked herself, as
Nehemiah surely did, “How can people say they love God, His house,
and His family, and sit behind their wall of tradition and stubbornness and see it crumble in the eyes of the whole world? Surely
God can provide the tools and materials to rebuild that which He
loves so dearly; even if it involves leather jackets and orange
hair.”
Granny
slowly walked out to her Hudson wiping her nose again, asking God how
she could help build teenage soldiers in God’s army with the same
resolve as war ships that never say ‘I can’t’ or
‘wait-till-later.’
A
couple days later Granny Simms was purchasing a screen door spring at
Lennard’s Hardware and then turned to leave. She spied a teen in a
leather jacket looking at the paint-ball guns with a casual interest.
Granny walked toward the young fella and recognized him as the older
of the pair that attended Thursday's discussion Pastor Dean had. She
greeted him with, “Hi. Good to see you again. I’ve never
introduced myself to you before. I’m Hannah Simms, some have called
me ‘Hard-case Hannah’ but most everyone calls me Granny. What do
you like to be called?” “Drake” was the teen’s unfriendly
response.
“I
thought it was a great thing for you to bring your young friend to
the discussion,” she said in an easy tone. “Well, Bennett isn’t
my friend exactly. He kind-of follows me around ‘cuz his folks have
all but disowned him. I s’pose most everybody needs someone to hang
out with…” His words hit Granny like an icy cold ship’s anchor.
“Um…
Drake. Somebody has set up a picnic table at the side of Jericho. I
got a couple weird ideas I’d like to bounce off you if you could
meet me there… say…about 10:00 tomorrow morning. Could you do
that?” He said, “Oh… I guess I might make it. This better not
cost me anything.” “Nope. Not at all. All I want is your opinion…
Good. I’ll see you around 10 at the picnic table. And don’t
forget I’m called Granny,” she exclaimed over her shoulder while
leaving with her screen door spring.
The
next day Granny’s old Hudson pulled in the parking lot. She pulled
the emergency brake on as the engine wheezed to a stop like an old
horse. Drake was already there and throwing some sizable clods of
dirt to the ground. Granny walked toward the table while trying to
understand what the teen was doing. The old table creaked as Hannah
sat down, placing the brown sack in front of her. Drake clapped his
hands to remove dirt and dust then walked to the table and took a
seat opposite Granny.
She
never was too much for small talk so she quietly removed from the
sack a couple napkins she spread on the not-so-clean table in front
of them both. Continuing to empty the sack she told Drake, “I’ve
baked something new that I’d like you to taste-test for me.” She
set a homemade apple turnover on the napkin in front of them both. It
was easy to see the brown-sugar glaze on the top and his nose told
him this was going to be finger-lickin’ good.
She
sat a small container of milk in front of each of them. Granny split
open the pour spout of her container and started drinking directly
from the container. It surprised Drake since he’d only seen fellas
drink like this. Evidentially trivial etiquette just gets in the way
of important tasks like building war ships and planting seeds.
Drake
saw Granny glance at the cluster of busted clods he had been working
on when she arrived. With some apple turnover still in his mouth he
kind of mumbled that it’s a way to get his pent-up feelings out and
over with. He said it’s a bit like his mom and dad often fighting
with each other where neither ever wins. Granny’s heart told her
the questions on Drake’s mind, “Why can’t grownups decide they
are different and work around the differences? Do grownups spend all
their time trying to find things to fight with each other about?”
While
the tasty turnovers proved their worth by disappearing in spite of
conversation, Hannah asked, “You look pretty strong. How hard can
you throw a tennis ball? I have an idea for youth to really put their
muscles and tension to work in a fun way. You finish your turnover
and I’m going to test you with a tennis ball I just happened to
have in ‘ol Gerdy” (her Hudson). She returned with the ball and
an old blanket that looked like it had tangled with the same cranky
cat that mutilates straw hats.
Drake
polished off his turnover and milk watching Granny make a circle with
the blanket on the sidewalk about 5 feet out from a Jericho wall that
had no windows. It was positioned so that you had to bounce the ball
in the circle where the sidewalk shown through. She drew a line with
her foot, in the dirt about 8 feet away from the circle facing the
wall.
The
idea was that if your throw hit the blanket instead of the sidewalk
circle, the ball would just stop. The ball had to hit the circle and
ricochet onto the wall and bounce back to about where the ball was
thrown from; something like a two-rail pool shot.
Hannah
said, “Drake, our pastor likes to ask every new person he meets the
question, ‘If you died tonight, do you know if you’d go to
heaven?’ S’pose he asked you that, what would you tell him?” In
a bit of a sorrowful tone Drake said, “No Granny, I know I wouldn’t
go to heaven ‘cuz God don’t want the likes of me with Him up
there.” Hannah moved her gaze up to the clouds to keep back the
tears. Her heart asked heaven for the right words to show this young
man that he is exactly the kind of youth God wants to bless with His
free simple salvation.
Granny
slowly quoted John 3:16 to Drake, showing him that he could put his
name right where the word ‘whosoever’ is. They talked a bit
longer before each departed for home.
