Tiny Tornadoes, Midday Drumming, and Unexpected House Calls:

I’m not gunna lie, I am completely oblivious to my surroundings. I feel like I am terribly disconnected from the outside world with no sweet clue what is going on and where! No joke, we could be having a severe hurricane here and I probably wouldn’t be the wiser.

Something needs to be done about that.

Today evidenced a little bit of my obliviousness in that there are apparently severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings for Alabama. Hmm.. Funny. I had NO idea! Of course, though, I can’t find this out from the shelter of my home, I have to actually go OUT in this weather. I’m not too sure how to remedy this one with ease.

Me, being the idiot that I am, decides that despite the tornado warnings, I am going to walk to the post office. It’s not that far away, really. As I am walking there, I hear some very loud.... and very good drumming. Mmmmm.... live drums.... tastes like rock.

As I walked by, I got this thought in my head.... “Maybe you should stop and introduce yourself, Damien.” “Oh, that’d be too weird,” I thought. But as I picked up the mail I figured, “Eh, what’s the worst that could happen?”

So, I begin my walk back with leaves spiraling across the road in from of me. I approach the door and knock. No answer. Still drums, but no answer. I knock again. This time I hear a voice yelling “Would you cut that out for a second!” Promptly following, the door cracks open to an older, middle aged woman. I fumblingly introduce myself and tell her that I just wanted to stop and see who was drumming. The door closed and moments later, her son came out with bleached, just-woke-up, longer hair and pierced lip.

Rollin was his name and new to the area he too was. As we talked, I told him that I was a pastor and liked to play some punk and ska on guitar along with other genres of music. He asked if I’d want to get together and jam out some time. Of course I would. He gave one request, that I wouldn’t force Jesus on him.

It’s funny to think about that request. How many times in our fervor to evangelize do we try to superimpose Jesus onto people, like by some formulaic discovery, we can imbue people with the Holy Spirit and “making” them Christians. Will I have the responsibility of sharing Christ with Rollin? Absolutely. But he is the one who has to see that it’s something that he wants.

So, in my stupidity of walking outside when I could have been struck by lightning or sucked up into a tornado, I found someone who needed to encounter Jesus.

Hurray of being oblivious.