If there's one big thing that happens around here every year, it's the Little League World Series. People come from all over the world to witness this spectacle. I got to be a part of it this year. I was supposed to volunteer at the concession stand for two days, but instead I only did one day. The first day I was wearing sandals and they wouldn't let me work. I had never worked in the food industry before, but I made sure not to wear sandals on the second day.
So on the second day I worked the cash register. So if you were at the LLWS and got some food, there's a possibility that I spit in your hamburger. Just kidding! If you were at the LLWS there's a possibility that I waited on you. It was great to get a chance to volunteer at this event. A few days later I checked in with a temp agency I am registered with to see if they had any jobs available. I was hoping for a full-time job, but they didn't have any. But they did have a job available over the weekend at the Little League World Series, so I took the job. The job was on Saturday and Sunday, the last two days of the LLWS. My job was to work for the Mars candy company handing out Snickers coupons at the exit of the Little League Stadium. We worked near a security station where they had metal detectors for people coming into the stadium. On Saturday the weather was being unpredictable, it had been raining on and off all day. In fact, we had to wait awhile for the rain to stop before we could start our shift handing out coupons. The sky finally cleared up and the sun came out. We weren't down there long before dark clouds came rolling in again and it started to rain a little.
It was just a small sprinkle at first and then it started coming down harder so we went into the security station to wait it out. All of a sudden the rain just started hammering us. It was coming in sideways into the security station. Stuff was flying everywhere. After it calmed down, the person in charge of the Snickers booth told us we could go home for the day. We were still paid for the four hours even though we only worked two.
The field I parked in was fairly dry when I got there, but when I walked back to my car this is what I found:
There was a girl there in the field that I knew from church. She was there with her boyfriend and she was unable to get out of her parking spot because of all the rain that had fallen. So her boyfriend and I had to move the wooden beams that were behind her car so she could back out instead of have to drive through a pond. I had to take my shoes off to get into my car. You can actually see my shoes behind my car in the two pictures above. The field was a muddy mess.
Good thing I have four wheel drive.
The second day was much nicer than the first. Security was tight though because vice president Joe Biden was there to throw out the first ball. I actually saw his limo escorted by secret service and some police cars out on the highway on my way to the stadium. They stopped all traffic on the highway so he could get to the stadium. So I ended up being fifteen minutes late for my shift. I told the person in charge of the Snickers booth that I was late because the vice president held me up. I figured it would be the only chance I would have in this lifetime to use that as an excuse for being late.
So we spent the next few hours handing out Snickers coupons. It was a fun job especially if you enjoy people watching. One time I tried to hand a coupon to this one guy and he said "No." It wasn't until he said "No" that I realized who it was. It was Jared Fogle, you know, the Subway guy.
Of course he wouldn't want a Snickers coupon, that's understandable. He could have been nicer about it and said "No thanks" or "No thanks, and try the new Chicken Teriyaki sub at Subway, Eat Fresh!" But he didn't, he just said "No". Jared was there to represent Subway of course, he's been at the LLWS a few times.
So we finally finished up our shifts after California won the final game. As I was walking towards my car Joe Biden's plane flew overhead so I snapped a picture of it.
How do I know it was Joe Biden's plane? Because I live in the middle of Pennsylvania, we don't have planes that big in these parts, not at our little rinky-dink airport, no sir-ee. So the one thing that makes our little part of the world famous, but also chaotic once a year is once again over and we can all get back to our peaceful existence here in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
This story takes place about six years ago. I was on my way home one night from seeing a friend who lived more than an hour away from me. I was still a good half-hour from home when my car started making noise. I pulled off at the next exit, parked under the overpass and my car died. Did I mention I was on I-80 in Northeastern, PA? There was nothing off this exit, no gas stations, restaurants, or hotels. If anything, there were probably some hunting cabins nearby. Oh yea, and no cell reception. I tried starting the car a few times...nothing. My 94 Chevy Cavalier was dead.
I grabbed my backpack because I didn't know if I was going to get back to my car before I went back to class on Monday or not and I started walking. I knew there was a rest stop up ahead, I just couldn't remember how far ahead. It was about 9:30pm in November when I started walking and it was 35ºF, which isn't too bad for walking, it's still a few degrees above freezing. Traffic was pretty heavy along the interstate that night which created a breeze which made it feel much colder than 35ºF.
I have to be completely honest though and say that I was angry. I was angry at myself, I was angry at God for letting this happen. I spent a lot of time cursing and yelling at God as I was walking along the side of the road. So I just kept on walking having my own little pity party for myself.
The whole time I was walking no one pulled over to give me a ride. Although I did come across cars that were pulled over on three separate occasions that night. The first car I came across was full of people. They opened the window a crack so I could talk to them. They told me they were waiting for a tow truck. I almost asked them if I could ride in the tow truck with them to the rest stop but there probably wouldn't have been enough room to ride along, plus I could tell they were pretty freaked out since I had come out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere. When I noticed their discomfort I told them that I would keep on walking, there was a rest stop up ahead.
The next car I came to had one person in it. I tapped on the window to get his attention. He didn't even acknowledge me. He must have thought I was some crazy serial killer too. Maybe it was the fact that I was carrying a backpack. For all they knew I may have had someone's severed head in there. But it was just art and design books for school. I kept on walking.
A little further down the road there were two cars parked along the highway. Two guys were looking under the hood of the one car, checking the fluids. I struck up a conversation with one of them. They told me they were Penn State students. I thought to myself, "This is it! I go to Penn College which is owned by Penn State, which isn't exactly a sister college to Penn State, it's more like a third cousin." So I told him I was a Penn College student and asked him for a ride, I mean, we're practically brothers, right? Wrong! He said he would have given me a ride but his girlfriend was pretty freaked out by me. I looked in the car and his girlfriend was busy chatting and laughing with her friend in the backseat. She probably didn't even know I was there. I looked at him and thought "Are you sure you're not the one that's scared?" So as he was getting in his car he said "The rest stop is only 15 seconds down the road" and they drove off. There were no good Samaritans on the road that night.
So I started walking again. After a few minutes I came across a sign that read "Rest Stop 1 Mile" At least I knew how much further I had to walk. Then I thought about what that dork from Penn State said "The rest stop is only 15 seconds down the road". Even if I was driving I would have had to go 240 m.p.h. to make it in 15 seconds. I did the math in my head, I had enough time while I was walking.
I finally arrived at the rest stop. There was a pay phone, remember pay phones? I'm sure that when I have children they will one day learn about them in their history books. I didn't have any change so I had to buy a bag of chips from the vending machine to get change. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I'm sure it was close to 11pm so I called my grandmother. Everyone else I knew was probably in bed, but my grandmother usually stays up until 11 or 12. She doesn't go to bed at 7:30pm like most retirees. So she came and picked me up.
The next day my mom drove me out to my car. We had AAA meet us out there. We were following the tow truck back home and I counted how many miles it was between where I broke down and where the rest stop was. It was only five miles. It seemed like a whole lot more than five miles though. Probably not because of the cold, the dark, or the fact I couldn't get a ride, but it was because of my crappy attitude. Like I said earlier, I had spent a lot of my time walking along the road moaning and complaining about my situation and being angry at God for letting my car break down. My car wasn't the only thing that broke down that night.
What I was lacking that night was joy. You might ask yourself "Why would you be joyful during a situation like that?" I think too many times people confuse joy with happiness. They are two different things. We can be joyful even when we aren't happy. I guess being joyful is another way of saying "Look on the bright side" That's what I should have been doing. I should have been joyful that I was getting some good exercise and that when I arrived at the rest stop I was able to get a ride because I have a family that cares about me and I serve a God that looks out for me and will always love me even if I get angry with him.
We put too much faith in our "things". We expect our cars to take us where we want to go. Sometimes cars go bad, but God is always good.
Before I get started I just wanted to say that "hate" is a strong word. I do not claim to hate anyone or any group of people. Although I do hate some of the stupid things people do. Just wanted to throw that out there.
How would anyone know what you stand for if all you do is take a stand for what you are against? Protesting has never made any sense to me at all. Dictionary.com simply defines the word protest as an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent. Dan's definition of a protest goes a little something like this: A group of people who are too lazy to actually go out and make something happen so they resort to holding signs with words and/or images on them and believe it's going to change things.
I think it's the equivalent of holding up a banner with the name of your favorite football team at a football game and expecting it to help your favorite team score a touchdown or a field goal. It's the activists who get the work done by going out and doing what they believe in, not the protesters who think they are accomplishing something by basically doing nothing. How many times have you seen a protester holding a sign and you think to yourself "Wow, words on a sign! Some of them are misspelled and the letter spacing is awkward, but this sign has changed my life. Thank you for holding that sign, Mr. sign holder guy!" Yea, me neither.
A couple years ago I went to Scranton, PA with a friend of mine to see a photography exhibit (no, we did not take a tour of the Dunder Mifflin paper company). Afterwards we decided to walk around Scranton and take some of our own pictures. We came across a group of people who were standing on a street corner holding signs and protesting everything from gas prices to the war in Iraq. It was a bunch of kids and one older guy who put the whole thing together. He was wearing a shirt that said "I'm running from my president." We talked with the gentleman for a few minutes. He seemed like a nice guy and the reason why he was doing this was to keep the kids out of trouble, which seemed like a pretty noble thing to do. It's too bad he didn't have them doing something more productive. One kid was holding a sign that said "Honk for peace" so every few moments someone would honk their horn. Everyone in the world could honk their horn, it's not going to create peace.
There is one group out there that I find very disturbing. I won't give out the name of the organization because this post is not about pointing fingers at people. This group I'm referring to is an extremist group which is mostly known for their protests against homosexuality as well as protests against funerals for troops who have been killed in Iraq. They claim to do these things in the name of Jesus Christ, yet they do nothing at all that represents what Christ is about. Could you imagine attending the funeral of a loved one who was killed in the war and a group of people come along with protest signs and they start yelling things like "He deserved to die". It's horrible, I can't imagine what has gotten inside their heads and brainwashed them to make them behave in this way. They claim that they do this out of love. Where exactly is the love? Their idea of love looks a lot like hate to me.
This is how love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7,"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." Let's compare the Bible's definition of love with the actions of this group.
Love is patient: If the members of this group were patient, they would take to time to talk with others rather than shove their beliefs down peoples' throats.
Love is kind:Telling everyone that God hates them is not kind at all, plus it's a big fat lie.
Love does not envy: They don't really seem to envy since they believe they have it all figured out and they think they're right. However it's possible that they may be angry because there are some things they want but cannot have because of their beliefs. Love is not boastful or proud: I've heard a few interviews with a certain member of this group on the xxxchurch podcast and the Nick & Josh podcast. She sounded very boastful and proud of the groups actions.
Love is not rude: Interrupting a military funeral = rude. Need I say more?
Love is not self-seeking: This group is convinced that they are the only ones in the world that are not going to hell. All 90 of them. Sounds like a pretty self-righteous attitude to me.
Love is not easily angered: I had mentioned before that I've heard interviews with one of the groups members. They entire time she was yelling and cussing at the people interviewing her.
Love keeps no record of wrongs: This group is constantly listing off the things they believe everyone else is doing wrong.
Love does not delight in evil: This group delights in the lies and the hate they spread. Those things are evil and they are going to have to answer for all of it someday.
I wasn't planning on spending this much time talking about this group but it just kind of turned out that way. I am very disturbed by their actions. But if I'm going to quote the meaning of love from the Bible then I must remember that I need to love everyone, including the members of this group and pray that they may someday see that what they are doing is wrong.
I had a funny idea recently. What if we could assemble a group a people to go around and protest protesters. We could carry signs like the one I designed above and ones that say "Protesting solves nothing!" of course the signs would have to be handmade along with poor spelling, poor grammar, and awkward letter spacing. I think it would be a fun social experiment.
I'm going to bring this one to a close but I just wanted to say that I believe there are some things worth taking a stand for, but it's going to take much more than a stick and some posterboard.
