Just before 8 am, Barbur Boulevard is littered with students walking to class, or, in Portland tradition—riding their bikes. I’ve always loved people watching, but I especially love people watching the community college students in the morning as I sit in traffic. The office I work in sits at the base of the hill that Portland Community College rests on. Each day as I wait in a stand-still of cars, I see students huddled and practically stacked on top of each other in the too-small cube of a bus stop. There is something markedly more exciting about the way community college students look in a bus stop than the way university students would. At your typical university, you can almost be guaranteed to see a slump of average dressed twenty-something’s, their laptops slung over their shoulder in the ever-popular Timbukt2 bag, or maybe an occasional backpack. But bus stops near community colleges seem to extract the very best mix of individuals—a fifty-year old black man with glasses half the size of his face and a rainbow fanny pack adjusted just under his belly, a lady with a mane of grey hair so long it seems you could take strands of it and turn her into a living Maypole, a young couple—just out of high school—rocking out as they share the headset of their i-pod. A fabulous smorgasbord of eccentrics.
There is a Starbucks just next to the Barbur Boulevard bus stop that I allow myself to visit every so often; a motivational treat on those mornings I’m ahead of schedule. This morning I continued the typical game of people watching as I waited for my double tall latte. A skinny man wearing a blindingly yellow t-shirt and stonewashed jeans approached the pick-up counter to watch the baristas work magic with their foaming wands. He must have been six feet tall, though he looked closer to five the way his upper body was slumped over like invisible cinderblocks were resting between his shoulders. His age was as indistinguishable as his height with one of those mysteriously misleading boy-man faces. He had very boxy features, and the way he walked with his stiff, squared shoulders was reminiscent of Frankenstein—almost eerie. But the minute he opened his mouth to make conversation with the barista, he oozed with the warmth and gentleness of a well-worn sweater. A very bright yellow sweater, that is.
“How are you?” he asked the barista with all sincerity.
“Doing well… and you?” replied the barista. She was petite and darling, with a reddish-colored pixie hair cut and curling orange slice of a smile.
“I’m doing fantastic!” he shouted, his excitement pelting like sun beams from his distinguishably radiant t-shirt. For a moment I pictured him as the spokesman for Sunny Delight or dressed as the Easter bunny (or something equally cheery). The moment was fleeting as I quickly decided he was too sqarish and awkward, and young children might run screaming. “I just found out I scored highest on my biology test and my math test!” he said, with particular squealing emphasis on the word ‘highest’. The funny thing is, he didn't sound arrogant in any way.
“Congratulations” the barista replied in a half-enthused tone. By this time, she looked a little uneasy with his forward kindness.
“Biology 102,” he restated, “At PCC. Highest grade in the entire class”. She just nodded politely in acknowledgement. “What’s your name?” he asked the barista.
“Amy” she replied, a little reluctantly.
“I’m Jag” he said back. Amy looked as if the only thing that made this canary-of-a-man more untrustworthy than he was at the beginning of their conversation was the fact that he had a name like ‘Jag’. Meanwhile, playing the role of the creepy people-watcher standing by the stir sticks, I was loving this Jag character as I continued to wait for my coffee.
“So nice to meet you!” Jag said to Amy. “So, did you go to college?”
“Yeah,” she mumbled.
“Did you get your AA?”
“BA. In English.”
“Oh, well, congratulations Amy! That’s something to be proud of!” Jag said, with all the enthusiasm of one who was discovering the joys of education for the first time in his life. There was something brilliant and genuine about his obvious delight in school. Something rarely seen in college students half his age who tend to be half as grateful. It was also obvious that he found Amy quite delightful. I winced a little as I waited for Jag to ask Amy out. It was clear to me she wasn’t interested in the least, but I was afraid sunny Jag hadn’t quite picked up her obvious cues. He was clearly operating off an exaggerated dose of confidence upon conquering not one, but two tests. But, unfortunately for Jag, women aren’t quite as easy to conquer—or understand—as biology tests. Be it Biology 102 or 465, for that matter. To my surprise, instead of making his move, he just continued to make conversation. “So where do you live?” he asked. Not the right question to ask. Never the right question to ask.
“In the city,” Amy replied, the typical freaked-out-keep-it-as-vague-as-possible answer.
“Where in the city?” Jag prodded, his intentions entirely sincere. I clenched my fist a bit as I began praying for Amy to let the poor guy down easy. He was only trying to make conversation—too nervous to even think about what he was asking her. She, on the other hand, was probably having terrifying visions of some Frankenstein-esque psycho that, if given too much information, would show up on her front porch, clad in yellow, at 2 am.
“Grande mocha, no whip,” Amy called out with a whinny of relief. It was Jag’s drink, and she knew this meant he would be gone soon.
“Thank you, Amy,” he replied. “You have a great day!” Jag bumped my shoulder as he walked out the door, mocha in hand, with a beaming, red-cheeked smile. In his mind, he had just had great success. Whether it was with Amy or the continued satisfaction of being top in his class—I couldn’t tell. But it didn’t matter. In my opinion, either way, he was a success. He had made conversation with a stranger, and he was just beginning to tap into the rewarding world of education. He had so much to be joyful about. I watched him, bright and boxy as a traffic sign, join the rest of community college students waiting huddled under the bus stop. Not a minute passed before he turned to the lady beside him and began to shout with glee. I’m pretty sure I can guess just what he said.
Last Friday I read something that has been spinning webs in my mind ever since. It was an excerpt from one of the writings of Lilias Trotter. Lilias was a talented artist, born into a wealthy Victorian family. In her twenties, she decided to give up her life brimming with art, society, and leisure to pioneer a mission work in Muslim North Africa. She devoted her life to the people she served, even though—like in many situations— her service was often disregarded or lacking in the depth she desired. In a moment of discouragement concerning the nature of her relational work, she wrote the following in her journal in 1907:
"A bee comforted me very much this morning concerning the desultoriness that troubles me in our work. There seems so infinitely much to be done that nothing gets done thoroughly. We seem only to touch souls & leave them. And that was what the bee was doing, figuratively speaking. He was hovering among some blackberry sprays, just touching the flowers here & there in a very tentative way, yet all unconsciously, life-life-life--was left behind at every touch, as the miracle-working pollen grains were transferred to the place where they could set the unseen spring working. We have only to see to it that we are surcharged, like the bees, with potential life. It is God and His eternity that will do the work--Yet He needs His wandering, desultory bees!"
Reminiscing again the idea of desultoriness, I couldn’t help but think of Jag—undoubtedly surcharged with potential life, dropping bits of his excitement here and there with each random individual he passed— all the while completely unaware of his actions. To my observation, not everyone was necessarily comfortable with Jag, but it didn’t stop him from sharing the source of his excitement. I want to remember to be something like Jag, or a bee—spreading the excitement and message of the source of my joy, touching life-life-life with the refreshment of Jesus—and sometimes looking foolish, but disregarding that foolishness entirely. No one bothers to think of how foolish they look when they are too excited about what they are sharing. I wonder what “miracle-working pollen grains” were dropped today in Starbucks, the bus stop, all the way to Portland Community College. I think of the trail I could be leaving—the joy that is so worth professing. The small drops that, without my ever knowing, could set “the unseen spring working” and change a single heart—or many. I laugh a little in remembrance of Jag. I imagine what he would look like if I painted several black stripes down the back of his yellow t-shirt. A whole lot like a bee, I guess.
Philemon 1:6 (NKJV)"...that the sharing of your faith may
become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in Christ
Jesus."
