Coming Around In Full Circle
Yesterday was one of those odd days where running errands meant ging from store to store to purchase the items that I needed to fill my list, and I still forgot one item, but that’s just an aside. My first stop was at Busy Beaver hardware to buy some replacement tiles for my drop ceiling that recently developed some mose nibbles. While I was there annd I was paying for my purchases, the young lady cashier asked me if I knew Alan Bottomly. I said I did and was the best man at his wedding, the very same wedding where I met my future wife Cindy Morrison Beck.
The cashier said, “I thought that I recognized you. I’m Alan’s daughter.”
I was so surprised that I forgot to ask her name, to look for her name on her manetag, or to even see if she was wearing a name tag.
While we were talking a man walked up to the couunter and I said, “How are you sir”
His gruff reply was, “Not so well.”
I turned to go to my car. I thought I’d fetch a Gospel tract that I’d left in my car and perhaps might help him.
He said, “Just like everyone else, when you don’t get the answer you want, you walk away.”
I told him I wanted to share a Gospel tract with hime and was going to my car to fetch one.”
He began to speak to me in a foreign language. He eventualy said it was Koine Greek and I was able to share with him that I’d taken two years of Koine Greek, but that was many years ago. I learned to parse and to read Greek, but not to speak it. He shared that he still taught Greek and was teaching teo students. He also warned to be sure of what was in the tracts and how it compared what was being said in the translations.
It was odd meeting a young lady that I’d possibly met only once as a child and she recognized me and to bump into another elderly person who knew Koine Greek. I’m not sure how much Greek I’ve retained and how much I’ve lost after nearly fifteen years.
After I finished my errands, I made my way to the bank for cash, to the gas station to pump fuel for my car and my mower, and finally to “the place of extreme confusion” called Wal-Mart before I headed for home.