On a rainy Sabbath morning, the pastor stuck his head into our adult Sunday School class. “Hey Alan, you left your headlights on.” Embarrassing for me, but impressive that the pastor knew one congregant’s vehicle from another.
Returning from dousing the headlights, I sat down at the table and immediately spilled a cup of coffee, which act I punctuated with an inappropriate word.
A class member calmly handed me a napkin in the instant before liquid inundated books and papers. The little expletive was overlooked.
The gentlemanly teacher went on teaching.
I should have been cowed into silence but instead decided to redeem myself via class discussion. I made a witticism at which a couple of people chuckled – not enough to deem the joke a success but rehabilitative for me.
Afterward, the teacher and I conversed as though nothing untoward had happened. And because of his patina of normalcy, nothing had.
People had reacted to my awkwardness with simple kindness, thus restoring my dignity. Grace had subsumed every disruptive thing I could do to a Sunday School class.
Gimme that old time religion, I decided on the way home.
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