I had always known there were two kinds of drivers to avoid:

Lane Dead – Driving along slowly in the interstate left lane, not paying attention to cars riding right on their bumper or passing on the right.

Light Sleepers – Distracted and oblivious, they notice that the red light has turned green just in time to get through themselves but prevent those behind from proceeding.

On our drive home last Monday from Chicago (we enjoyed a weekend with daughter Linnea), Diane and I were identifying multiple variations of the Lane Dead:

On I-94 in Indiana and for many miles into Michigan, the highway has three lanes.  The lady in the Honda Odyssey who is gripping the steering wheel tightly and going exactly the speed limit in the middle lane, ignoring the cars roaring past on the right and the left, is Lane Righteous. She is not breaking the law like all these speeders, although she is ignoring the rule of the road to stay right unless passing.

The Lane Righteous are most dangerous when moving into the left lane to pass the person who is driving just below the speed limit.  They creep along together, usually while passing a truck in the right lane and earn the title Lane Dim.

Some drivers see the signs that the left lane is closing ahead and speed up to get around as many vehicles as possible. The ones who cut others off just at the last minute are Lane Cheetahs (Cheaters…)

Some will jump over in the left lane as soon as they merge onto the highway, especially when they are behind a truck.  If they cut off the current person in the left lane, they qualify as Lane Bullies.

It is amazing how many people drive just over the speed limit in the left lane of a two-lane freeway.

-The original Lane Dead are those talking to the passengers, not paying attention, and are Lane Oblivious, much like the aforementioned Light Sleepers.

-Some stay too long in the left lane because they have previously been caught behind an even slower driver in the right lane and struggled to get back into the left lane to pass.  These are the Lane Paranoid.

-Some, usually in a Mercedes-Benz, don’t move over because they feel they belong in the left lane.  They are Lane Snobs.

The hardest case to name is the person who does not like to pass trucks.  They don’t have cruise control, slow way down when going around big vehicles and then speed up like crazy once they get past.  We first thought of Lane Timid, but that does not fit the maddening surge that means everyone behind them will slow down again at the next truck. The best we have so far is Lane Twitted. 

The last category is best seen on Mt Hope Avenue, headed west from East Lansing to Lansing, where it goes from two lanes down to one. The right lane has the right-of-way, but many drivers cruise along in the left lane and expect everyone to let them in when the lane changes.  Perhaps they have never seen the signs and so are Lane Assumers, which is appropriate because we know what happens when you assume.

Feel free to comment with descriptions of any other Lane Dead drivers you have encountered.

During the New Members classes at our church, Associate Pastor Ben describes a structured daily prayer discipline – name a category for each day of the week, and concentrate supplications in that category that day.  The list is flexible; right now I am using Sunday – Missionaries; Monday – School and Government officials (including teachers!); Tuesday – Church ministries; Wednesday – Neighbors and Friends; Thursday – Church Elder District; Friday – Extended Family; Saturday – My Personal Character and Scheduling.

On Wednesdays, I try to walk around the block, using the Lighthouse Ministry idea of praying a blessing on each household (See a bit more about Lighthouse in tomorrow’s post).  The simplicity and combination of physical and spiritual exercise appealed to me, but  I was convicted recently that rather than being a Lone Ranger Prayer, I should be willing to share the concept with people I encounter on the walk, and maybe ask some to join me. 

Accordingly, I set out one day ready to explain what I was doing.  I immediately choked with the lady across the street; she was just beginning her own walk with her two small yappy dogs and we talked about the pets.  My resolve increased at the corner, when another neighbor driving by slowed and rolled down the passenger side window. Here’s my chance!

He asked jokingly, “Are you lost, little boy?” And he immediately followed with “You look like an Alzheimer’s patient wandering back and forth on the sidewalk.” (Note to self – DO keep your eyes open, and walk with a little more purpose.)

I replied that I was strolling the block praying for people as I walk by their houses.  He jumped to, “Isn’t it awful how some are so rundown?”

“The people or the houses?”

“The houses!”  And he launched into a series of complaints on how people were not taking care of their lawns and what he had been doing recently to beautify the neighborhood.   This was NOT what I expected.

But then, in the last part of the circuit, another neighbor was coming down the driveway as I went by.  I knew she had some church background, so I just blurted out that I was finishing my walk around the block, praying for people as I went.  I explained about praying a blessing on people because I don’t know what people need, but God does.  She asked for two at her house, please.  Nice. That was more what I was hoping for.  I will continue to share and expect God to lead to further conversations.

One of my favorite restaurants is Bagger Dave’s in East Lansing, probably because the fries are warm and soft, and they will put an egg on your hamburger.  I am not sure where Dave got his bagger experience, but mine was at Meijer.

I was at the store in Okemos for a couple of months, waiting for the summer Married Housing crew to get started.  It was my first union job.  Baggers could not work any more than 40 hours in a week – no overtime.  Baggers were part time.  Baggers couldn’t work 40 hours for more than four weeks in a row, because then they would become full time.

Regardless of all the rules, I had a great first week – nights, forty hours – changing all the fluorescent light bulbs in the store.  This was before the Open 24 Hours store policy, so we would wheel the scaffolding systematically through the aisles all night long. The best part was throwing the old bulbs in the dumpster and watching them explode.  Clearly, our environmental savvy was not high. 

There were several other cool tasks involved.  Getting outside to collect and pull in the carts was refreshing in the spring.  June bugs had to be cleaned off the doors early in the morning where they had piled up overnight.  And when someone dropped a jar of pickles or mayonnaise , the call went out for “service on lane 12” to clean up the mess.

There were no UPC codes, scanners, or computers.  The cashiers had to find the price tag and enter the amount by pushing buttons on the cash register.  Then they threw the item down the lane for the Bagger to “bag.” There was no plastic and no one brought their own cute recyclable bags – everybody got bagged in paper.  Some baggers were quick and talented enough to handle two check-out lanes at a time; you had to respect the devotion and dexterity but it still didn’t help them become a full-time employee.

 

Sometimes you never quite see the angels that visit.  In late 1981, after recovering sufficiently from Guillain-Barré Syndrome to get off the respirator, I was transferred from ICU to the Neurology ward where I spent three weeks in physical and occupational therapy to recover some lost skills.  I needed to re-learn how to crawl, button a shirt (there are multiple reasons why those hospital gowns only have ties, not buttons), use a straw, write, etc. 

Unfortunately, the air in the hospital was very dry and I had contracted some sort of sinus thing that blocked off my nasal passages.  I hate to breathe through my mouth when falling asleep – I wake up with a sore throat; my mouth gets all dried up; it is just very uncomfortable.  The hospital theoretically provided all the water you wanted; the orderlies would bring it around in big Styrofoam cups with lids and a straw.  The cup would be placed on the long thin adjustable and moveable table where meals were also served.  For a recovering paralytic, if you were propped up in bed on enough pillows and could support your left arm well enough with your right arm, you could reach that cup and get yourself a drink.  But several conditions could thwart thirst-quenching: table too far away, arm not supported, lid not on tight.

It was very hard to sleep that first week back in the ward.  Waking up and needing a drink, pushing the bell to call a nurse, waiting for help, taking a drink, sitting up briefly to clear the sinuses, and then falling fitfully back asleep. 

One night I got some help.  My bed was several feet away from the wall with the window.  The meal / water table was usually parked on that side with the wheels underneath the bed.  There was one of those wide wood frame arm chairs with the big plastic-ish cushiony seat and the back support tilted just a bit too much, in the corner by the head of the bed.   Sometimes visitors would sit there, but usually they stood or sat in the chair on the other side of the bed, nearer to the door.

On this particular night, each time I awoke with a parched throat, a visitor was sitting in the chair by the window.   Before I could get completely awake, my friend would simply say, “Allan, take a drink.”  The table was in the right place, the cup was reachable, I would get a drink and fall back asleep.  The assisting person was wearing a dark brown hoody and had his face covered; I figured at the time it must be some orderly or nurse assigned to keep me comfortably hydrated.  I was certainly appreciative but don’t know that I ever said thank you.

The visitor had left by morning.  I asked the nurses and orderlies who the guy in the brown hoody was, and they all said they did not see anyone.  I thought it odd that Diane or one of my friends would have come in at night, since visitor hours ended at 8pm.  None of my regular callers had a clue about the identity of the stranger; most suspected he was an angel assigned to my room for the night.  Good for me!

I had great fun collecting stamps as a kid.  My dad got me started with a big bag of different square bits of paper from all over the world, plus a cool stamp album that had pictures of many of the most common issues. I loved finding the stamp that matched the pre-printed picture, then “mounting” the stamp with a gummed “hinge.” It was just so orderly  to have the stamp fit right inside the allotted album rectangle.

I learned world geography and countries – I have excellent outdated knowledge of all the former British Commonwealth countries that have since gained independence and changed their name.  One of my easiest Boy Scout merit badges was Stamp Collecting.

My interest in philately faded when sports came along in teenage years, but I kept the collection and would look it over from time to time.  My specialty areas were sports stamps, Scandinavia, and Germany.  Unfortunately, the first basement flood wiped out the collection; it turns out that paper not only loses to scissors, but also to water – every time.

Separate from the album collection, I had purchased abundant sheets of 29, 32, 33, 34, 37, and 39-cent stamps, much like my dad had done.  Whenever I went to the Post Office to buy stamps, I would purchase sheets for “collecting.” It seemed like a good investment – who knew the Internet was coming? 

I found out the value of all those sheets of stamps when I called the local coin shop one day and asked if he was buying.  The stamp guy at the store said they just participated in a stamp show over the weekend, and the going rate for the store was to buy at 50% face value and sell at 75%!

No one uses stamps anymore!  Email has ruined the postage stamp futures market.  Even worse, all the latest stamps are self-sticking; you don’t have to do any “gross” licking to apply the new-fangled ones, so who wants my old ones?  The best use of old stamps is to mail them.

I do have a Plan B.  The US Postal Service still sells 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10-cent stamps.  I bought some of each so that every time I mail something (usually a bill!) I have a nice little game of matching up old and new stamps to reach the required first-class postage.

And earlier this year, Jesse and Amber sent out two-ounce wedding invitations! Since the going rate for two ounces was 66 cents, I provided combinations galore!  32+34 = 33+33 = 29+37 = 66!  And sometimes the happy couple would personalize the stamps – Baseball stamps to baseball fans, building stamps to architects, etc.

There are two morals to the story.  First, collecting should be fun – enjoy the stamp bits or baseball cards you amass and don’t expect to make money on the adventure.  And, most importantly, remember that earth treasures rot or lose value or get ruined, so store up your treasures in heaven (Matthew 6.19-21).

Tim and Wanda Madden came to town this past Sunday, so we had a small “Community” reunion of couples (Gerry and Judy Gothro, Steve and Marilyn Herwaldt, Allan and Diane Knapp, Pat and Judie Quinn, plus the Gothros’s daughter Jennie and her two kids) who lived in the same Lansing, Michigan neighborhood circa 1977-1987.  Community was our best effort at living out all the “one another” commands in the New Testament – love one another, bear with, encourage, admonish, teach, forgive, honor, serve, etc.  See Colossians 3.12-17.

We all attended University Reformed Church and developed special bonds of friendship during those years.  We had not seen the Maddens in at least ten years – the last time they came through town, the party broke up when a phone call came that the Herwaldt’s dryer had caught fire – but it was easy to catch up on kids, work, church, and lives.

Community was not perfect.  There were times of conflict, and at least three couples involved over the years ended their marriage in divorce.  But we remembered several excellent activities we shared:

–          Work and Feast Days.  One house was chosen each summer month.  The owners made a list of fix-ups they would like to accomplish, and they bought materials.  Two or three people created activities and crafts for the kids.  Most people worked on the house tasks, providing tools, sweat, and fellowship.  A couple of people made lunch.

–          Weekly meetings.  The location changed over time, but there was always a Bible study, prayer time, and excellent singing.

–          Welcome Back from Vacation.  When a family would go away, the others would stock their refrigerator and provide a meal on their return.  Sometimes the house would also get cleaned, but food was the real reward.

–          Daily / Weekly Morning Prayer.  The men would meet to pray early in the morning, some years every weekday, sometimes once a week.

–          Shared Raising of Kids.  So many babies born and grew up in the neighborhood, and they learned to play with one another – Hot Lava on the hill, Fox and Hounds in the school yard, pretend games galore in back yard play areas. And the parents learned wise ways of teaching and training.

–          Special Rescues.  There were a couple of stories of Mom Melt Downs that required immediate attention.  “Intervention” was not a popular word yet, but we knew how to do it when the baby rolled down the stairs in her walker or the wringing washer quit in the middle of six loads of jeans.

The evening ended with much appreciated “prayer for one another”,  including thanksgiving for abounding grace in our lives, supplication for family and friends in need, and praise for the creator who brought us all together back then, and on Sunday.

In the early 1980s the consistory at the University Reformed Church read a book by South Korean pastor Cho on how his church grew to be the largest in the world.  He was looking for people with enough time, flexibility, and money to do the Lord’s work. The answer to his prayer turned out to be housewives who organized and ran small groups out of their homes. The prayer phrase stuck with me. At the time, I was working in New Hudson, Michigan a one hour drive away from home. I was making enough money to support our current lifestyle, but the drive time put a major crimp in the time and flexibility portions of the equation.

I prayed for a couple of years to find that job with enough time, flexibility, and money to do the Lord’s work. I never really did anything about finding such a job, but I prayed regularly. The first thing that happened in response to the prayer was that I got fired (really more like laid off, but “fired” is more dramatic). I realized my prayer had not been specific enough about job transition.

We were nearing the end of our severance pay when I received a call from my friend  in Grand Rapids, a Data Manager for a sister company to the one I had been fired from. We had worked together on several projects, and he had a proposal. “I have a data project I need to have done. I can’t hire you but I would be able to contract with you to complete this project. Are you interested and available?” It sounded scary but I knew where Grand Rapids was and I trusted my friend.  He turned out to be a great help in setting up a sole-proprietorship.

A couple of months later, I contacted a headhunter who sent me to a Lansing company with a research project they wanted completed on a contract basis. The work would require several weeks of nearly full-time effort, so I needed to check with my Grand Rapids friend. When I outlined the situation to him, he was unexpectedly ecstatic. “This is great. The work here is almost done, and I can’t afford to pay you for more. I was worried about breaking the news to you.”

The director of the Lansing project gave my name to other Local companies, and I landed a short contract at one of them.  Another friend had heard of the work I had done in Grand Rapids, and offered some contract work at the Lansing location. I started a database project for my father-in-law’s company. I was now juggling several part-time projects and had less time available to look for full-time work.

Then Diane and I had an epiphanal conversation in the van on our way home from a birthday party with her family in Jackson. Two separate conversations had occurred. I talked with my father-in-law Tom about the work I was doing for Fab-Alloy. He encouraged me that I was doing good work, and said, “I may regret this but I need to tell you that you should raise your rates. Your good work is worth more than what you are charging. We pay someone to set up our computers, and they charge more than twice what you do.” What an encouragement!

Diane, on the other hand, had a much harder conversation with her mom and sisters about my work situation. They wanted to know, “is Allan going to get a real job?”  Diane didn’t have an answer, and so on the way home she asked tearfully, “Are you going to get a real job?” That’s when it hit me – self-employed contracting work was the answer to my prayer. I had plenty of time and flexibility to do the Lord’s work, and I was making enough money to pay all our bills.  Not only that, but I had learned enough about contracts, taxes, billing, bank accounts, and the other company requirements to continue indefinitely; I had picked up those skills a little at a time. 

For over a year God had set up the conversations and the timing of contracts to start new work just as old work was finishing.  I now had a couple of paying clients and some leads on others.  The answer to Diane’s question was “No”, and the response to God was, “thank you very much.”

I feel very sheepish that it took me so long to realize this answer to prayer. It helps me understand the two guys on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24 who were walking along, talking and complaining to Jesus, and not recognizing him. I know from experience sometimes God breaks in to help otherwise “blind” people to understand what’s going on.

So what is God’s work?  At the beginning, I needed to be a good father and husband; Diane and I were in charge of the Children’s Church ministry; and I was on the Board of Elders at church.  Over time, we moved with the kids to Youth Ministry and the college ministry at church.  Working at home has had so many bonuses, from scheduling workmen and meetings outside the office, to delivering Meals on Wheels at lunch time, to making lunches or attending school activities with the kids, and being home when they arrived after school. When Diane started teaching, I could be the home anchor for everyone, sending them off in the morning and greeting in the afternoon.  I could schedule vacations or days off as needed.  And steady work has allowed generous giving.

I never intended to be self-employed, I have no “marketing” skills other than making business cards, and yet God’s answer to a simple prayer has been to provide contracting work for twenty-five years.

 

Here is another great short-term job provided by God. After my freshman year at MSU I returned to Webster Groves, Missouri and worked for the Street Maintenance section of the Public Works Department. I knew it was a great job the very first day.

Our four-man crew consisted of head man Big John, a permanent employee named Mosey, a college student named Dan, and me. Our first assignment was to break up and replace several sidewalk sections that had been shoved aside by tree roots.

We arrived at the spot and spent several minutes looking at the sidewalk before Big John and Mosey decided they needed to get the “sludge.”  Dan and I were left to guard the sidewalk and wonder what the “sludge” was – probably some water powered pressure device for cleaning out the concrete.  When they returned with a good sized sledgehammer, the mystery was solved and Dan and I were assigned to bust up the sidewalk. 

Then we used an axe to carve off the offending roots (we did not have to “ax” for permission), put down a frame of two by fours, placed steel reinforcement bars in the cavity, and mixed and poured concrete. 

The final step was putting up a make-shift barrier to alert people to avoid the new cement. We put four re-rod poles on the corners and John handed Mosey a rope to connect the poles.  The quote of the summer was delivered by Mosey after staring intently at the site.  He had attached the rope to one pole and then asked while gesturing clockwise and counter-clockwise, “Big John, should I take the rope around this way or that way?” 

It turns out it did not matter which way Mosey went because a huge storm tore through town that night, knocked down that tree, and pulled up all of the new concrete that we just laid down. We went back the next day to take away the debris and do the whole sidewalk thing over again.

Matthew 6.19-21 tells us not to accumulate treasures on earth “where moth and rust destroy and thieves break in and steal.”   I know about destruction and loss when it comes to baseball cards.

Those cardboard collectibles were so much fun when I was a kid.  No one worried about keeping them in “mint condition.” You could handle them endlessly, trade with your friends, check out the statistics on the back of the card, and put them into groups with big rubber bands around them.  You used a clothespin to attach a card to the frame of your bicycle so that it flapped against the tire spokes. Whirrrrrp, just like a motorcycle.  Cooler than cool.   

The images on the cards are burned into my brain, particularly the 1959 Topps set with the round picture of the player surrounded by bright solid colors.  They were lovely cards, although it did not seem fair to give famous St Louis Cardinal hard guy Bob Gibson a PINK rookie card.

After grade school I gave up on the cards until the early ‘90s.  Like every male my age who had a little extra cash, I wanted to regain the joy.  Everyone had visions of the riches available.  I visited a card shop where a 1959 Willie Mays card was available for $80!  I explained to the dealer that I had that card when I was a kid, but my mom threw out all my cards at some point in the last thirty years.  The dealer deadpanned, “It’s because of moms like yours that this card is now worth $80.”

Jesse liked basketball cards better than baseball. We would go to card shows and look for our favorite players.  Unfortunately, all that extra baby boomer money met card makers who churned out billions of cards.  Not realizing simple supply/demand economics, I bought boxes and sets as “investments.” What a shock to end up selling 3,500 over-produced 1990’s common cards to some guy for $7; He said he could package and sell them in China. Made in USA, indeed.

And floods also work against earthly investments.  A few years ago, the sewer system backed up into our basement when the city was making repairs.  Cardboard boxes of baseball and basketball  paper products do not stand up to water.  The opposite of mint condition is Fair or Poor; these cards were now in a new category of “Stinky Soggy”.

On days like that it was good to remember the second half of Matthew’s verse: “Lay up treasures in heaven.”