Apartment #11

So the grilling bachelor in Apt. 11 is natures way of telling me true summer is almost over. You know how seeing a Robin in spring is the first sign of spring? Well, the grilling bachelor is telling me summer is almost over...how? He grills every day now and there was something smoldering under his grill the other day.

We did our laundry on Saturday and while walking back up to our third floor apartment, there he stood, outside the door, helpless against its force like a stranger trying to get in. He forgot his key up in the apartment. Happens to everyone...even me once and a while! So I let him in. His outdoor activities included grilling and while waiting for his meat to cook, he was working on his car. Interesting combination of time-occupying activities.

One day last week, my husband and I came home and there he was, grilling or working on his car, and we walked out of our garage and there he was, with a business card sized promo thing for his church...asking us to come and visit this Sunday (I have already mentioned we're members of the church I grew up in and felt it unnecessary to repeat this information). Then he commented on how handy those little cards were.

They are...and what would happen to the world if it were truly that easy to ask someone to go to church? It acutally is. This church that he attends not only has those handy little cards, they also have custom water bottles they hand out to people. Its very non-confrontational I think and sometimes people go just because they've been asked. To tell you the truth, I would have gone to his church just becuase he asked me the first time...that is, if I didn't already have a church that I had been attending.

My challenge to you is this: Go with the weird guy in Apartment 11. He's got it right in so many different ways: He realizes that the temperature of the grill kills bacteria from cleaning his car. He finds a way to recline and put his feet up while being productive (the cheap reclining lawn chair next to his grill). He is persistant in getting people to find TRUE joy. He's willing to step out of the norm in order to make others feel welcome, respected, and noticed. What's wrong with a world when all of this is out of the norm?