January 16, 2013
Rachel and Doug
If you own a
telephone or a TV you are likely acquainted with Rachel from Card Services and
Doug, a victim of mesothelioma. Not to diminish Doug’s health issue, but do you
ever wonder what happened to Doug? Did he go into remission or did he succumb
to his disease? Once in awhile I’ll run into a fellow believer whose
conversation is similar to that of Rachel and Doug and they repeat the same
thing over and over again. It’s as though they take their favorite passage of
Scripture and turned it into a witnessing advertisement. Not that repetition of
Scripture is bad, but I wonder where the church would be today if Paul had witnessed
like that.
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----Several years ago I attended a men’s Bible study and breakfast once a week with a brother suffering from prostate cancer. We were only half a dozen or so strong, so there wasn’t any escaping whatever conversation surfaced at breakfast time. Now, actually worse than all the Rachel’s and Doug’s who can not seem to find a new detail to add to their old topic are the sympathy panderers who can never forsake the hearing of another’s ailment no matter how many times the same-old-same-old has been heard before, or where it is being heard now.
-----I cringed every time the blessing had been said. Without failure, the first topic coming up next was the ol’ bladder, the infections, the PS numbers, the needles and where they could be stuck, the blood, the puss, the vomiting, and on, and on for everybody’s passing around the table as if chanting this nauseous misery would nobly saint him. Surrounded by such inescapable flaunting of every infirm body part between his trousers’ four pockets, I would stare into the inner stir of my omelet wondering if it was looking more like something far less than yummy. Even worse than what mental images will do to a plate of food was the weekly anticipation of this fine conversation intensifying that urpy effect. Eventually I just stopped eating with them.
-----To this day I am not apologetic about my attitudes, even though the brother was raised to full sainthood after he died. Showing affection toward and interest in one another is an amazingly important part of fellowship. But knowing when and where which topics are important to engage, and which to abandon, makes fellowship authentic and beneficial to everyone. Two small tips about topics: first and foremost, avoid what you‘ve already made very well known. Then deflect every topic that turns your neighbors green for no real purpose.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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