High Priest of Hospitality

After finding our bags tumbling out of the baggage travelator, Greta smiled, thankful that our cargo had arrived and that we wouldn't be waiting at the airport for extra hours.  It had been thirty-three hours in transit since we left home in Adelaide, and now that we were in the Midwest (much different than the swimming-in-smog-and-cigarette-smoke of L. A.) it felt as if we could relax a little bit.  Even as we were waiting for our bags, I kept anticipating bits of conversation punctuated with profanity, as seems to be the trend nowadays, but the worst I got was,

"I wish the dang bags would show up."

I love it.  It had been a long time since I'd heard the word 'dang' or its cousin, 'darn,' which were the polite way to consign anything unsavoury to the lowest confines of 'heck.'

Midwesterners in their polite and self-effacing way can make people feel comfortable.  Even as we were moving out to the curb to await our pick up, some of the other travellers would apologise having their bag move in front of us, or brush against our arm as we jostled to the noisy street full of slow moving, honking cars with drivers craning their necks hoping that they wouldn't have to make one more lap around the entire airport.

It only took ten minutes for Aaron to arrive.  He was so excited, as were we, that it almost seemed as if he was going to leave the car in drive as he jumped out to meet us.  From behind the windshield, his bright shiny cheeks, flushed red with excitement (come to think of it, his cheeks are always flushed red with excitement) he waved.  Stopping in the middle of the road, cars tooting away behind him, he put on his hazard lights and rushed over to us.  A big hug in the middle of the chaos and confusion of the pick up zone, and then he grabbed one of our bags and lugged it over to the minivan.

I've known Aaron for twenty-three years.  The reason I know this is because it's the exact amount of time that I've known Christine.  We three, along with four others, met on Youth Encounter, a company (now defunct) in Minneapolis that put together Christian ministry bands which travelled around the globe sharing the good news about Jesus.  If most people would have been a fly on the wall that day we met, no one would have guessed that we were going to be a Christian band.  The Aaron of twenty-three years ago had long, long straight red hair - head banging kind.  His face sprouted red freckles and the tufts of hair on his hands were red also.  To top it all off, he had a red guitar.  Aaron's ability to stay up all hours of the night being social, laughing, or talking was legendary, but there's no time to get into that now.  Needless to say, the middle aged Aaron driving us home to his house was a very different spectacle.

I can honestly say this:  I never would have imagined that Aaron would be driving a minivan.  Let me qualify that - I never thought that Aaron would own a minivan.

People change.  I know that's an inevitable reality, but I think society far too often gives up on people because of their present without thinking about how God can change their futures.  How many times in the Bible have people been overlooked because of their present circumstances?  Gideon - too young, too poor, too this and that; David - same qualities; Mary, mother of Jesus - young Jewish girl with seemingly no prospects for royalty; Even Jesus himself.  Remember Nathaniel's words, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?

I am included in the group of humans (perhaps most of us are) who discount people by their present rather than look long term at their presence.  As I have known Aaron for these twenty-three years and counting, his incredible affability, his good humour, his kindness and his immense talent have allowed many people in the Minneapolis area to know of this middle-aged-musician-cum-stay-at-home-dad/home-renovator.  His ability to be hospitable is immortalised, in my own memory, best in our trip to the bowling alley later on in the trip.

Aaron, Beth (a true living saint) and their three children, Ellery, the youngest at just a couple of months of age, took us out for a jaunt to throw fifteen bound marble balls at ten pins.  In the easiest of circumstances, bowling with three children is a test of will power, but as Aaron bowled with his children, laughed with us and even helped Beth change Ellery's diaper after an incredible nuclear explosion, he then drove us to the baseball game.  Anything to take care of his guests.

The world would be an even better place filled with more people like Aaron.