On flannel pajamas, Number 7 cigarettes, Baby Duck and Hospitality....

Last night I had a dream about someone I hadn’t seen in 15 years. I don’t remember much of it except the fact that this old friend was wearing flannel pajamas in my dream and standing next to someone I know who also happens to have cancer. It was just an odd dream. I probably dream a lot, but I’m not a person who remembers dreams that well. I can’t tell good dream stories just like I can’t remember jokes and I can’t remember funny things that have happened to me in my life. I just don’t really remember those types of things.

So last night I had a dream about an old friend and she was wearing flannel pajamas and I woke up and I was worried that it meant she was sick. I really just have no idea why I would’ve dreamed that dream at this time. I still don’t.

So today I found myself wondering about this friend in flannel pajamas. I remember she was pious, but not pious in a bad way. Pious in way that just showed she was sure of her faith, sometimes suspiciously sure, but sure none-the-less. And she was so kind; she was always willing to leave what she was doing and make time. She was hospitable, that I am sure of. Me? Not so much.

I could make myself sound like I was sure of my faith, but I had plenty of doubts, and back in those days I would try to find the answers in a brown box of Coors Light that you could buy at Casey’s store in northwest Iowa for $11.99. Like a lot of reformed friends back then who grew up in the shadow of their immigrant parents, our supper table was always awash with discussion about theological issues, so I could argue a good theological game and be quite inhospitable about it all, but I had lots of questions—I just never really knew it was okay to ask questions that might cast some doubt--I just didn’t want people to doubt my own faith. And it took me some time in my life to figure out that faith and piety and holy living do not need to be disconnected. But this friend in flannel--we just went our separate ways and I have no idea what happened to this wonderful, pious friend. So I went searching for her on Facebook and I just don’t know where she went. Gone. Probably forerver. Although my life tells me that you cross paths with people you think you’ll never see again.

So what does this all mean for me tonight? I don’t know. But all this talk about piety does make me remember one story. Of course I don’t remember how old I was, but I was young and my dad owned a four door, white 1976 Cutlass. And it was a Sunday because we sat in our usual spot in the first row of the balcony at our church listening to the preacher preach from the Word. And everyone else sat in their place. The balance of seating was not to be disturbed. But then one man who I had never seen before came in late. I remember him because he had the look of one of those homeless guys we would see but never talk too, a group of anonymous people who often slept it off on Columbia Street in downtown New Westminster. And he smelled terrible. If I had to name it now, I‘d say it was cigarettes and baby duck. And more of the latter than the former. And he sat next to me. And this dutch immigrant kid who didn’t know what to do except move to the other side of his dad out of fear, stuck a King peppermint in his mouth, and paged through the blue hymn book to avoid staring, because I knew then it just wasn’t polite to stare.

So my dad, who was big on piety as well as kindness, grace, and compassion, did what he did when he found visitors at our church: he invited him home for supper. And I had to sit next to this guy who had dark parted hair and five o’clock shadow on the car on the way home. And I couldn’t believe we had this pagan in our car. This was new territory for me. And on the way home he asked my dad to stop for cigarettes and I almost burst out laughing—my dad would fill up the car at 11:30 on Saturday night as to not break Sunday observance—piety in full bloom, if you ask me. And then my dad does the one thing that makes this story a story—he pulls over at the little corner store—I remember it was on 12th Avenue and 2nd street in Burnaby, I swear that is the store—and my dad walks in with all the other dutch reformers driving by and seeing him do this, witnesses to the heresy taking place before me—he goes in and buys this guy a pack of cigarettes. And he gets him matches. And he lets him smoke in the car. Piety is blowing out the window with every puff of those filtered cigarettes. And tonight I’m thankful for that.

So on a night where I find myself discouraged that I can’t remember many stories, on a night that I want to wish an old faithful friend in flannel pajamas well and pray that the dream isn’t any indication of something that might be wrong, I remember a story this story because my dad was able to publicly sacrifice some personal piety in front of some of his wooden shoes friends for the sake of hospitality.