Count Your Blessings #116 – Strange Looks

This morning was a walking morning. It ought to have been a gym morning, but my back is rather sore at the moment –  that’s what you get for going to see a physiotherapist.

It all started as a very normal morning as I headed into the woods. This weekend has been a rather wet one in Lancashire so I was fully togged-up with my walking boots, walking trousers and breathable water-proof techno-coat. There were the usual collection of dog walkers looking like their dogs (I’ve often wondered whether dog walkers are afraid of their pooch finding a died body, because that seems to be the way that most of them are found). We exchanged the usual pleasantries as we passed, I was just another walker out for a stroll.

Half way around my walk just as I was trying to decide which way to walk next, all of the normalness changed. There in the middle of the path, in the middle of the woods was an object. In it’s place this would be a normal everyday object, but here it was out of place it was out of context.

As I approached my eyes took a little while to work out what it was that they were seeing in the pre-dawn light. Once I had worked out what it was though, a question came thundering into my head – “well it can’t stay there, someone will have to take it back”.

That is where my dilemma started – “someone will have to take it back” – but who? It’s a bit of a walk to take it back and the person taking it would look daft taking this object through the woods, they’d get all sorts of strange looks from passers by. My conscience was telling me in no uncertain terms that I should take it back. I had found it, so I should take the responsibility. If I didn’t take it back it could just stay there for weeks getting steadily more vandalised. On the other side of my head were all the arguments about how much effort it would take and how silly I would look. I was just out for a normal pleasant walk and hadn’t bargained on this distraction. I had a busy day ahead after all.

My conscience won.

This is how I found myself pushing an ASDA shopping trolley through the woods, through a housing estate, across an empty car park and back to it’s home in consumer land.

People have trolleys in supermarkets, not in woods. The impact of this object on the reactions of other people was remarkable. Without the trolley, everyone would give you a simple “hello” or “good morning”, their faces barely changing as you pass. With a trolley the response was entirely different. People no longer knew how to respond, was I a normal walker with a trolley, or was I something else? Some of them tried to ignore me and not say anything, those that did had a strange questioning look on their face.

Jesus behaved in all sorts of strange ways and many people didn’t know how to respond to him.

He spat on the ground to make mud and then put it in someone’s eyes to make them well.

He spoke to an outcast lady from another race.

He told them stories that they didn’t understand.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that they look at those of us who follow him with similarly strange looks.

In each of these situations Jesus blew apart their context, they had a certain perception of who he should be but he was something entirely other.

I delivered the trolley back to its home where I hope it will stay.