I spent the summers between college years working in a school bus factory. I worked on the assembly line, installing the front steps in school buses. My nickname during those summer months was, “Deacon.” Everyone who worked on the assembly line knew I was in the seminary studying to be a priest. I don’t remember who gave me that nickname but it stuck with me over the three summers that I spent in the school bus factory.
The plant “lifers,” those employees who were on their way to spending their lives working in the bus factory, behaved differently when they were around me. They used cleaner language and told different stories – mostly they avoided sexual jokes and tails of their sexual conquests. Although on occasion, another employee would tell a particularly raunchy joke all the while gauging my reaction. They weren’t cruel. The problem was, I was a goose in this flock of Sandhill Cranes.
I must confess I didn’t enjoy being seen as different. I remember longing to be “one of the guys.” I did enjoy the occasional one-on-one conversation I would have with some of the workers. Listening to a co-worker share his story was a blessing. Being the “Deacon” on the assembly line gave me an opportunity other employees didn’t have.
I didn’t see myself as different from the other people working on the line. But for some reason they saw me as different from the other college age employees who invaded the plant in the summer.
The question I would ask today, that I was not able to ask then is, “how were these people God speaking to me?”
“Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins.” (See Ps 103:10a)