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| "MY BROTHER'S KEEPER" |
| Most of us can think back over the years and remember that time in our lives when we had roommates. One or two usually stand out. For me, the one who stands out is David Pease. David was one of two other roommates I had as a junior at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York for the school year 1982-1982. We all took part in the Christian fellowship group on campus. The other roommate was Steve Thorne whose importance will soon be noted. We lived in slumlord's Mrs. G's renovated crawl space. The conditions here were poor. When I arrived that hot sweaty night the end of August, I was appalled. No amount of worrying ahead of time would have justified what I found - junk; carpeting pulled up, the smell of mold and stale garbage. If the key that had been mailed to me hadn't fit, I would have gone on with the taxi driver to a motel certain that a terrible mistake had been made. I was told that some cleanup was necessary and that David Pease was to get there early to whip it into shape in exchange for some rent relief. Well, if there was any relief around, I couldn't find it and from what I could see, David owed us money - not the other way around. When he turned up he must have noticed my blanched face and stricken appearance so he offered the short explanation, "Hey, I haven't done much yet", as if that made it okay. I suddenly had the mad impulse to put his head in a vise and see if there was anything in it but fear of what I would find kept me still. Over the next few months, I came to see David as a different kind of person. His laze faire approach to things was so different from what I was taught. I grew up in a Presbyterian Church, kept my room neat, my theology straight, tried to be on time and keep my word. I was even using a day planner that year! David's idea of a planner was the roughed in dates of when the semester ended. His room was a disaster and his personal habits rankled me. Ten minutes before classes began, I was about to grab my pack and leave. His alarm would go off. He would stumble out of bed and sleep walk over to the fridge and grab some milk and cereal. He ate standing up and very quickly - all this; it seemed, with his eyes closed. I still tried to apply the "live and let live" philosophy but there was one habit (other than putting the toilet paper on backwards) that really ticked me off. He always finished using the phone by putting the handset on the receiver backward with the cord draped over the front. I know this sounds trite but it bothered me. Whenever I answered the phone, I could never remember this and would have to fumble around with the thing untwisting it. Meanwhile the person calling would decide whether I was drugged, asleep, or the later stages of some neurological disease. Finally one afternoon I snapped. I couldn't take it anymore. I heard the phone ring and it was for him. I waited patiently like an eel in its lair until he finished and did his reverse hang up. I leaped out and said, "AHA!!!" He stood looking at me with a blank look on his face (not unusual really). In the ensuring heated discussion, Steve Thorne came out. He finally got us to both sit down and tell our story. I still remember him trying not to laugh as he realized what I was upset about. He said lots of weird stuff like couldn't we both be a little more tolerant of the other, that perhaps I could change my attitude and meet him halfway because after all , we were brothers in Christ. I thought, "Brothers in Christ? Bothers in Christ?" I had always believed that he had a hope for salvation but a brother in Christ? This shook me up. I thought that if could gut it through, David and I would go our separate ways; that someday he would go on to minister to his own kind. Then I realized that David represented an Archetype of life's inconsistencies that I couldn't stand. A symbol representing everyone who didn't use their turn signal or stacked fragile boxes upside down. Suddenly it hit me; there would always be someone like David Pease around. If I didn't find a way to work with them, that I would have a long and frustrating life ahead. I am still learning that lesson in its various forms. I find that as God works with me on the areas I struggle with, I find myself more relaxed and accepting of others when they do things differently, even within the church. Some days I feel like we are the body of Christ. Sometimes I feel like one more animal running loose behind the bars. If I wait patiently though, the zookeeper eventually gets everything back in order. By David Loomis copyright 2000 |
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