F2020-1 Because We Came In The Spring

Sometimes you meet rather strange people at church conferences. And I don’t mean people who are weird in some grotesque way. Rather, I mean people who say and do the kind of things that surprise you because you do not expect the particular response that they give.

I stood outside the church with another man as we waited for a Sunday School Teacher’s Conference to start. It was about 8:50 a.m. The man kept looking at his watch.

“We still have about ten minutes before the conference starts,” I told him.

“Oh, I’m not worried about that.”

“Then why do you keep looking at your watch?”

“Well, there’s something I don’t understand. I left Cleveland this morning behind a van with some of our Sunday school teachers in it. Now, mind you, I was behind that van and I got here before they did.”

“Maybe they went a different way”

“No, I told them how to get here - that is, if they followed my directions.”

“That’s probably what they did: they took an alternate route.”

“I even pulled into a McDonalds and went through the drive-thru for a cup of coffee. That added about five minutes to my trip. I can’t understand how I got here before they did.”

“Maybe they stopped somewhere for breakfast.”

“No, we all had breakfast together in Cleveland before we left,” he said, as he turned to look at the driveway. “I wonder where the heck they are.”

“Well, perhaps they went up to Canada first.”

“I’m beginning to think so.”

He puffed at his cigarette and looked at his watch again. It was a couple of minutes until nine. He had an etched look on his face - not so much an expression of worry as one of disgust. “We should have rented a bus.” He tossed his cigarette and quicky lit another one. “We might not get a break until noon,” he said, as if to explain the back-to-back cigarettes.

Just then a large white van pulled into the parking lot. There were three women and one man in the van. The driver made a large, sweeping turn, and then drove up to the sidewalk where we were standing. The three women got out and the man went to park the van.

“Boy, I don’t remember it taking this long to get here the last time we came,” one woman said to the man with the cigarette.

“Well, that’s because last time we came in the Spring.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” she said.

The three women walked into the church and left me and the man with the cigarette standing on the sidewalk. The driver of the van was walking slowly toward us.

“Wait a minute,” I said to the cigarette smoker, “what does coming in the Spring have to do with arriving late?”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with anything,” he said. “They’re women. You can tell them anything because they don’t listen to you anyhow. Did you notice how she didn’t even blink an eye when I told about coming in the Spring?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“Well, that’s because they don’t listen. Hey, I rest my case.”

He took another drag off his cigarette and the driver of the van joined us. He flipped his cigarette into the shrubs and the three of us entered the church. It was exactly 9:00 a.m. “See, we’re right on time,” he said, showing me his watch. “Even if it isn’t Spring.”