Monday evening just before 5 (why do these things always happen just before 5??) a guy walked into the church looking for an AA meeting.
"There's one at 7," I said.
"Can I stay here until then?"
After a discussion, I decided to let him stay in the building with the understanding that he was to behave himself and that NOTHING would go wrong.
We seemed clear on that point.
I got a call just after 7 from my Senior Warden, who had received a call from a parishioner, who had received a call from someone connected with the AA meeting about the gentleman. The two of us headed down to the church to be met by members of the AA group, the police, and the guy.
Turns out that while he was waiting for the meeting to start, he decided to start cooking -- Raisin Bran and chocolate sauce being the meal of choice; as well as deciding to . . . redecorate. He had pulled pictures down, pulled things out of the library, and looked for a variety of things to gather together that might fit into his backpack.
He was sitting on the steps to the office while members of the group kept an eye on him. They filled me in on what was going on and how they tried to handle it as best they could. I had another chat with him where it became apparent that he had no idea what he was doing. And the police informed me that they have a long history with him.
"Do you want to charge him with trespassing?" one officer asked me.
"Well, since I invited him to stay, I can't exactly do that."
The police escorted him away, I thanked the AA group for getting in touch with us, my Senior Warden and I cleaned up a bit, and we went home for the night.
As those old PSA's used to say, "The more you know . . ."
I know more today than I did yesterday. I guess that's a good thing.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
No Good Deed . . .
Posted by
Reverend Ref +
at
1:52 PM
Labels: church
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1) If you comment, leave a name. If you can't figure out how to log in or register or whatever the system is making you do (which, believe me, I fully understand how frustrating that can be) and you must comment anonymously . . . leave a name in the comment section. Purely anonymous comments will be deleted.
2) Comments I deem to be offensive, irrelevant, or generally trollish will be deleted. I'm mainly talking to the Akurians here. Don't make me get out my flag!
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Enjoy the game.
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3 comments:
My dad used to say, "It isn't that it takes all kinds, the problem is that we *have* all kinds". And it seems you had one of a kind! (Think what he could have done if he were twins!)
It all could have gone down much, much worse. I'm thankful that didn't happen.
*sigh* Bad enough; glad it wasn't worse. We never see it coming, do we?
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