Tom's Message: Birthday Kids
Hey, everyone!
And if it’s your birthday this month, “Happy Birthday”, Everyone-Born-In-November!
Wish we had some HUGE squares of Kroger’s birthday cake (15”X24”! With close to 3 tons of icing on each one!) and little cups of ice cream (vanilla only) like you used to get in elementary school, kept frozen solid-as-a-rock by dry ice (that surprisingly you can buy right up front at Krog’s beside the regular ice freezers! Who knew?!) and a can of straight up Coca Cola…
to offer you!
Because that sugar-i-ness brought some wide smiles on loads of faces at the Morgan County prison on Wednesday night!
A committee that meets with the warden decided that it’d be an encouraging initiative to ask volunteers each month to buy all that mess and figure out how to get it there before it became an even bigger mess, and serve it up in one of the visitors gathering places to all the inmates who had a birthday that month…
So, the chaplain asked me if we could take a turn...
It turned out to be way more complicated than I thought!
And way more fun!!
I had to run all over and try to figure out where to get cakes big enough for 100 big eaters, how and when to order them, when to get them, how to keep ice cream frozen for a 20 mile trip with a 2 hour lay-over, all the time hoping the security scanner machine didn’t zap it all and turn it into individually wrapped puddles!
Pottsie is the best of all at thinking and planning these things and he was going to help but he had some commitments and appointments first so I just had to think like him! I thought about making myself a bracelet that said “WWPD” (“What would Pottsie do?”) to keep me on track!
And we got it all bought, loaded, transported, unloaded, security-checked, cut, served and waiting.
Then the birthday fellas came in!
They were sooooo thankful!!
I gave them a little talk (“Hey, guys! We spent a lotta money on y’all so I get to tell you about Jesus for a minute!” Seemed like a fair trade to most!)
And then we just sat, talked, laughed, asked names and birthdates…
Suddenly they were almost kids!
Kids celebrating their birthday!
When someone would celebrate their presence in the world!
You woulda thought each one felt that a “100-guys-birthday” was meant for him alone!
I wondered how many almost tearfully reflected on birthdays of old, when long ago someone was glad they’d been born…
And for how many this would be the first time anyone EVER honored the day they entered God’s world.
In a place where everyone has a number and all wear the same depressing, dreary clothes, for someone to want to know their name and celebrate the day it was first spoken, seemed to infuse them with a child-like, fresh hope that life could be more.
For about $250 and 700 to 800-plus empty calories apiece, it sure seemed worth it to me!
I remember reading about a conversation a Navy chaplain at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center had with a 19 year old Fire Control Technician. The chaplain (he was called “Chaps”) explained that they didn’t really use names there; people went by nicknames tied to their jobs. A Naval officer was called “Nav”. The Operation officer, “Ops”. A second class petty officer who was an air traffic controller went by “AC2”.
Fire Control Technician third class McMillan, who answered to “FT3”, was a deeply troubled young man.
FT3 was angry and always ready for a fight because, not surprisingly, his dad had been an angry alcoholic and physically abusive his whole life. FT3 had come to understand that he was obligated to take it all because he owed it to his dad for bringing him into a world that was hostile to his presence in it.
His life was unraveling.
“Chap” sat down with him. Pretty early in the conversation painful episodes with the dad surfaced.
One involved a trip to Disneyland.
His dad made 14 year old FT3 pay his own admission from mowing lawns. At the gate, he discovered he was $10 short. His dad made him sit in the car in the Disneyland parking lot the entire day while his family enjoyed the “happiest place on Earth”.
He sobbed in the telling.
Chap skimmed his military record quickly while FT3 told of his heart-break, and ignoring protocol said, “Gregory, you’ve really suffered!”
FT3 looked up shocked upon hearing his name.
Chap asked, “When was the last time you heard your name here on base?”
“Eleven months ago.”
“When did an officer ever say it?”
“Never.”
“Gregory, I’m Gary. And we need to become friends.”
So, “Happy Birthday”, everyone! Whenever it is!!
And just so you know, we’re ALL so glad you’re here!!