It was embarrassing, but understandable: he was an old guy out to dinner with his family at a beach restaurant and his baser nature got the best of him. I watched as he leaned his chair back on its rear two legs to watch her as she passed by, yet again. The chair wobbled, and he awkwardly righted himself on 4-legs and no one seemed the wiser for his school boy like leering... except me.
The waitress was wearing a blouse and her skirt was made of white gauze. If you are not a student of textiles let me explain: I don't put up gauze curtains in my house because... you can see right through them. Now you know. She had on this skirt - and no "slip" - so consequently you saw ... buns in very skimpy panties. It was not like he and I were the only two to notice. Some of my senior citizen women companions raised eyebrows, others snickered like school girls in the gym. It was one of the weirdest moments of my adult life.
Everyone's worst behavior seemed on display - hers, his, theirs - and I found something else struggling inside of me. I know that if it was my family that we were going out to dinner with, we would have not sat down at the table. Because, well, after all... anyways...
What was happening in my head was I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit because He says things other people don't say. He asked me what I think she wants out of life, out of this moment. He asked me to consider why. "He started prepping me" for what He needed to accomplish. I'm telling this story ten years after it happened because I am NOT bragging about how great I am, or self-righteous or any junk like that. I am telling it because if He can't find anyone better, brighter, holier to accomplish His plan, then He is going to end up using knuckleheads like me. And if He can use ME ... He can use YOU - if you want to be in some very odd situations.
I think God has this giant game of human chess that He is playing. He is trying to move His pieces (us) closer to Him, and sometimes we just do dumb stuff that we need to re-think. As the voice on my GPS says, in a frustrated computer tone: "re-calculating." If you want to be that "instrument of peace" that St. Francis prayed to be, then you are going to help people with the "re-calculating." It's not usually long term employment; it's kind of short term jobs on an as-available basis. Sometimes lunch is involved. Just sayin' that aint too bad.
First, I tried to steer the table-talk away from the waitress' morally-challenged dress code. Then we ate lunch. And we talked and laughed and planned the rest of our day. The sun was amazing and the shops and shore were just steps away. After we paid the bill I told my friends, "go along, I will be with you in a minute." And they went out the door, as I shooed them along, and one of them kept looking back over her shoulder, apparently dying of curiosity.
I approached the waitress. I looked her in the face and kindly said, "I just want to tell you, you have beautiful eyes." She bashfully dropped her face and thanked me as if she never had a compliment before in her whole life. She didn't know what to do with it. It was innocent and got the focus off the other issue. It was an invitation for her to self-appraise her beauty in another way: non-sexually.
Here's the deeper psychology of why I said that. I refer you up to the question: "What do you think she wants?" I think she wants attention, self-esteem from other people (who are probably bigger train wrecks), and of course, bigger tips (from lecherous customers). And so she is willing to sell-off part of herself to pay the rent or whatever she's got going. And this rotten world will let our girls do that ~ sell part of their souls to anyone bearing cash or attention. She is someone's daughter, grand-daughter, sister. She belongs to a family, I presume. And if someone looked at my daughter like that old geezer in the chair did, I'd knock the legs right out from under his chair. It was disgusting and pitiful... but given the way that people are "wired" it is understandable. Understandable, but not excusable.
Yet God did not call me to knock that chair over. (How I wish I'd get THOSE kind of assignments - they fit my fiery spirit better!) He called me to help a young woman re-imagine her own self-image and begin a path towards healing and accurate self-esteem. Maybe we've all had moments where we sold ourselves short, and wish we had a do-over. I hope that was it for her.
I remember the biblical story of the woman "caught in adultery" who was dragged before the feet of Jesus by the Pharisees. They were hoping to gin-up an old fashioned stoning. The woman was probably a quivering, fearful, humiliated mess. Intriguing that she was dragged to him alone because as far as I am aware, the act of adultery involves TWO people, not one. He was seated and leaned over and began tracing the sand with his finger. He said to her accusers: "Let the one who is without sin, cast the first stone." It says that one by one, they dropped their stones and walked away. What did he write? the name of the man, was he one of their buddies? or did He write the words: "Somebody's daughter." Did they think of their own daughters at home, and what if they made the same mistake? Because of how he handled the situation That Day I think she realized she was Somebody's daughter, ... His.
################
No comments:
Post a Comment