CHRIST IN WINTER:
Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter…
Darrell and I—his wife
called him Jim, but she’s the only one who did—had a lot in common, especially
a love of baseball. There was a single A baseball team only 30 or so miles away
from where we lived. On sunny afternoons, we’d hop in my car and drive over to
watch the Lumber Kings. His car was nicer than mine, but he always wanted me to
drive. I found out that was because the backstop wasn’t very high and foul
balls off a lefthander’s bat arced up and into the parking lot, where a lot of
dented cars were parked. No wonder his car was nicer.
That was also because he
was a retired medical doctor, so he simply had made more money over the years than
I had and could afford a nicer car, which ne naturally did not want dented by
foul balls. But he usually paid for our ballpark ice cream, so it evened out.
We did things as couples,
too, mostly, as with older folks, going out to eat. There was a riverboat
twenty or so miles from us. They served lunch on it. The four of us would go
over—in his car for these excursions—and have lunch and enjoy the lazy trip up
and down the river. It was like going back in time.
Which suited Darrell fine,
because he was quite conservative politically. That was our only real
difference, except for Chap Stick.
I can’t recall when I
first started carrying a Chap Stick in my pocket and using it whenever I felt
the need. In high school, I think. Which meant I had about fifty years of Chap
Stick use in my experience when I met Darrell. I got to the place where I tried
not to use it in his presence, but sometimes I forgot, or the lip dryness
became too much, and I pulled it out and applied it and he went into his gentle
rant.
I am aware that I use Chap
Stick more than most people. But it’s inexpensive, especially since it’s all I
put on my Christmas wish list and so Santa puts some into my stocking. That
supply lasts me all year. And why have the discomfort of dry lips when you
don’t have to? After all, it’s not harmful.
That’s what I asked Darrel
when he would get so upset when I used Chap Stick in front of him. “Is it
harmful?” After all, he was a physician. Maybe he knew it was carcinogenic or
something. “No,” he said, “but it’s not necessary. It’s just a habit. It’s an
addiction. You don’t need it.”
I never did understand why
my inexpensive and harmless “addiction” bothered him so much. Did he think Chap
Stick was a “gateway drug” to worser epidermal addictions, like hand lotion, or
tattoos?
Whatever the reason, it
bothered him, and he wasted a lot of energy—both his and mine—on it. I really
think that his addiction to objecting to Chap Stick was worse than my addiction
to using it.
Darrell always claimed he
was objecting to Chap Stick as a physician,
because of his concern for me, but it was really about concern for
himself.
It was the “ick” factor,
in a very minor way. Seeing someone doing something he thought was icky
bothered him. Being socially conservative, he thought it was his duty to change
people who were doing icky things, even though my Chap Stick usage was not
harmful either to him or to me, and provided employment both to folks in the
Chap Stick factory and to Santa Claus. It really was not his circus or his
monkeys. It wasn’t even his business. He could have just looked the other way.
But the ick factor is just too much for some folks, even if they are nice
people.
Anymore, whenever I find
myself objecting to anything, and claiming I’m doing it out of pastoral
concern—the way Darrell thought he was reacting out of medical concern--I ask
myself, “Is this because of the ick factor?” It often is. Body piercings.
Tattoos. Quinoa. Cheering for the Cubs. Yes, those are icky, but I am not in
charge of those for other people. So I look the other way. I’m better off that
way, and so are they.
JRMcF
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