A typical early-evening phone call between Mary and me goes something like this:
“When are you coming home?” she asks, very sweetly. It’s just after 6 p.m.
“Shouldn’t be long.”
She pauses. “How long is that?”
“About 10 minutes.”
She knows what to ask. “Do you have to make a stop first?”
“Yes.”
“OK,” she concludes, “then I’ll go ahead and feed the kids. Come home as soon as you can.”
And then we hang up.
Tonight we had that conversation as I was walking through a parking garage in Old Town, just next to the Warren Theatre. I needed to make a stop and, after several blocks of walking, still hadn’t done it. But there was a woman behind me, so I stopped right then.
I asked if I could ask her a question. She stopped and pulled an earphone out of her ear, to clarify what she’d heard. She was 50-ish and short. I’d seen her a moment before, getting out of her four-door sedan. It had one of those “End This War” bumper stickers. So I figured she might be an activist.
I asked if I could pray for her, and she barely hesitated in saying yes. I told her I wanted to pray right then. “Well, it will have to be fast. I have a class to get to.” So I prayed fast. She thanked me warmly, and we shook hands. Then she headed for her class, wherever that was.
With my stop concluded, I went home.
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