I hate to travel. I like my daily routine, and I like sleeping in my own bed, which is why I still don’t know how I ended up with a schedule that had me away from home 100 nights out of 120 this summer. Still, there are silver linings in the new and different, and one of them is the people you meet. Like the front desk clerk at the hotel where I stayed recently.
His name was Josh. He wore a crisp beige poplin summer suit, like my interview suit when I was graduating from business school in the mid-80s. A simple gold cross peeked out from his equally crisp white shirt. By the time I came to the desk with my third request of the evening, I couldn’t help commenting on his cross. It was just the right size, and the chain caught the light. “I’ve had it since my baptism,” Josh said. “My godmother gave it to me.”
I’ll admit my heart perked up. Here was a young person who clearly saw something in Jesus. So, I asked a follow-up question, hoping to go a little deeper than things that catch the light. “What does the cross mean to you?” I asked. He didn’t hesitate. “Oh, it’s just my lucky charm.” Like a four leaf clover you keep in your pocket and touch when you need something to break your way? He couldn’t mean that, could he?
That’s when the air went out of my inside-self balloon. Luckily my daughter wasn’t there, because she would have been kicking my shins for what I did next. I just couldn’t let it go. The cross is the sign of what Jesus gave up for each of us, and here it was reduced to a lucky charm. Jesus sure wouldn’t be happy to hear He’s been reduced to rabbit foot status. So I took it upon myself to be Jesus’s wingman and share His displeasure about the demotion. At first, I didn’t think Josh heard me. There was a good minute of silence while he went from blank to confused.
Finally, he said, “I guess I never really asked why I was wearing it, or what it meant.” He explained that they weren’t a family where Jesus talk was part of the conversation, and he almost didn’t realize the cross was separate from him. “I’ve had it as long as I can remember, so I guess I thought of it like a birthmark.” I could see the wheels start turning. For the first time he was seeing that what he had always taken for granted, something he thought of as an extension of his physical self because he had never been without it, was a symbol of something much bigger and deeper. I’d like to think it was a gentle awakening.
I’ve thought about my conversation with Josh. He wore that cross for years without asking what it meant, and there I was ready to set him straight, when I have my own version of the same thing.
My son lives on the opposite coast, so I don’t see him as often as I’d like. Not long ago, when I was out visiting him, we were driving and he glanced back at me in his rearview mirror and asked if I was okay. I was fine, but when I looked in the mirror myself, I saw the corners of my mouth turned down slightly. “Oh, that’s just my resting face,” I told him, and I knew exactly what he meant. My resting face was not as friendly as what I felt inside. In my defense, I’ve always heard it takes more effort to smile than to keep those corners down.
My son’s observation got me wondering how many things we do without thinking, like our tone of voice, the look on our face, or what we wear around our necks, and how much of it other people pick up on, assuming we meant it. I hope Josh decides to find out what his cross means. And I’m still working on my resting face, because I’d like it to match the joy that is on my inside.