He’s the guy who among other things, taught me that on a cold night, two shots of tequila will keep you warmer than a cold beer and leave you free to shake hands with everyone all night long.

Though my drinking days are long over, if I did, it would still be two shots of tequila because of what I learned from him that cold winter night.

At some point, we’ve all been enamored with meeting someone like Stu.

For me it was in a crowded bar mid-December drinking and playing darts into the wee hours.

Someone in our group knew him and called his name to join us as he entered the darkened bar with frosty breath from the cold night.

He gestured a wave our way and headed to the bar.

Even from a distance, it was obvious he was everything we were not.

A beautiful specimen of a man both socially skilled and a truly magnetic attraction. Everything all guys secretly wished to be.

Approaching our wayward group with stacked handfuls of half-filled bronze liquor glasses, my second impression was he was either very thirsty or slightly OCD about glassware.

I’d never done shots before that night.

He was introduced to us by name and that was when I first noticed his uncanny knack of noticing the unnoticeable.

“Hey, Don, nice to meet you” was his greeting with a hug as he handed me two stubby shot glasses while regarding the form of my dart arm mid-throw as particularly good.

His greeting, hug and comment were all one incredibly smooth motion. He knew how to meet someone anywhere and make them feel they were a newly welcomed guest in his own home.

He spoke his words in an intentional, soul-piercing eye to eye vernacular and a shake with his free hand—the right one, of course–which was a remarkable act of balance in itself considering his left was still stacked with greeting shots for other new guests of our dart team he had yet to meet.

Either Stu was the most astutely engaging person I had ever met to date or he was born with the last of a long discontinued gene for it, or both.

He seamlessly joined our motley crew as if he’d already been there with us most of the night. He played darts like a pro, did his two shots like they were milk, spoke with ease and generally made everyone around him want to be him.

If memory serves me, he was also wearing a kilt. Why? For some reason it didn’t seem to matter at the time but further underscored the engaging social confidence that seemed to drive his very existence.

We were all enamored with him, and all the more as we watched him repeatedly whip ass at Cricket, 301 and 501 for the next several hours with the style of a true gentleman.

He cast an engaging spell that made each of us feel we were the winners. He was unstoppable in every way.

To this day, Stu and I remain friends. I threw him his 40th birthday party when he still lived in Vegas and he has since moved 3000 miles away. On Facebook we still follow and like each other as he now lives a charmed life as a consultant and TV show host and travels the world posting pictures of exotic locations and experiences through which I still live vicariously.

Stu taught me something that late night/early morning that forever changed the way I view others.

Somehow, he knew what it felt like to be an other.

In the middle of one game, he left our group for a vacant corner of the bar to start a conversation with a stranger. I didn’t know he was a stranger, only that I’d seen him over there sipping on a beer by himself all night.

Stu returned with him as a new addition to our team.

“Guys, this is Michael.”
Nobody questioned the add.

At this point, let me share that one of the things that makes us all most warmed in the heart are those rare stories of someone stepping out of their element, off their podium and out of their comfortable stature to notice one lesser.

Jesus speaking to the Samaritan, the celebrity fixating on the most unlikely of fans in the crowd, the captain of the football team eating lunch with the nerd, the beautiful seeking company of the ugly.

What it feels like to be embraced by the smile of one you least expect.

What it feels like to be welcomed in smallness at a table of greatness.

What it feels like to be considered equal among those clearly superior in so many unimaginable ways.

It was in that bar that very evening when I saw love and humility at work in tandem.

And it was that unlikely night when I absorbed the virtues of a stranger which to this day, helps to define who I am.

Though I haven’t seen Stu for many years, the guy in the kilt taught me more than how to be socially savvy. He taught me that inviting people into one’s life requires a warmth of spirit, remarkable humility and maybe a couple shots of tequila.

So this holiday season, come in from the cold and warm up to people. ‘Tis the season to be jolly, to make new friends, and to be the inspiring example you were born to be.

“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 

But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭11‬, ‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

To really clean house, you need to move the furniture. 

Painful as it is for your hidden dirt to be fully exposed, you also know it’s necessary, otherwise you wouldn’t have tried so hard to conceal it. 

Adam and Eve, knowing their original dirt, hid from God. 

It’s the oldest sin in the book. 

These are the last days. The last chances. The last opportunities to look inward and come clean before your dirt is discovered representing you as someone you are not. 

Nothing can be hidden from the flashlight of God. 

Don’t make him search when you already know what he will find. 

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.”

— *Psalm 139:23–24

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5‬:‭15‬-‭16‬ ‭NIV‬‬

With time and patience, even the darkest room reveals a small sliver or glow of light illuminating an exit. 

The man living wise, like a shepherd following a star, makes the most of this opportunity for freedom. 

Even in the darkest and most evil of times, God provides a pathway of escape. 

Whether in flight from temptation or trapped by grief, loss, or sorrow, the wise man follows the distant light to freedom, never losing sight or the hope for an escape through the illuminated opportunity placed before him. 

He is the light of the world inviting each of us to follow with the promise we will emerge from our own darkness into the rays of a glorious heavenly life eternal. 

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high.
‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭26‬:‭13‬ ‭NIV‬‬

The significance of the Israelites’ exodus from Egyptian slavery is one referenced over and over in the Old Testament.

Preceded by God’s many miracles, signs and wonders, the event marked a new covenant of faith and the elevation of Gods chosen people.

Today, those called by God who respond in faith to that call, are also to walk with heads held high for both who we have chosen to follow and whose we now are.

It’s a pride to possess without shame on a road less traveled without indetermination.

Heads held high are bought for a price by a God whose army is being assembled for the coming victory.

Stand up in the presence of the aged, show respect for the elderly and revere your God. I am the Lord.
‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭19‬:‭32‬ ‭NIV‬‬

A rare ‘do’ among the notorious ‘do nots’ chapter in the Old Testament commands us to care for and respect the elderly among us.

Since I was a young man I have held highest regard for the aged.

Literally hundreds of posts and stories about their care and welfare have made it on my pages.

Now as I pull into that same station in my own life, I watch for others who also carry their banners. They are my people.

If you want to know the civility and humanity of a people, you’ll find it in how they regard their elders.

They are our almost buried stories, historians of our culture, and bearers of moral codes that move us forward.

Pray particularly for the gifts of patience and empathy that recognize and acknowledge their contributions and worth.

Soon, you will also arrive at that depot and need to be met by a tribe that knows the value of your journey.

No matter how far you’ve traveled,

The distance you’ve placed between you and your past,

The amends and the erasures you’ve made

The changes you’ve practiced which have now become habits,

And the magical difference you’ve since become in this world…

You will again inevitably stumble around another
unsuspecting corner in which you’re again forced to see the depravity of those places you once called home.

Where you once believed you were living, but indeed, were dying in a coffin of your own making, silently begging for another nail.

At that moment,

While yearning for the next corner, you’ll approach it better armed.

With greater humility
and the irrefutable dignity
you forgot you had since back when it was earned on that same, shameful street where you once lived…

because recovery works.

Addicts survive by the painful remembrances from where they came and from marvelous paths on which they are now walking.

When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

Don’t go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner.
I am the Lord your God.
‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭19‬:‭9‬-‭10‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God provides for those who cannot provide for themselves until they can.

It doesn’t take much to meet the needs of others but those of us with much bear the responsibility to help make it happen.

The essential part of being thankful for what we’ve been given is to give back to those without.

Especially at this time of year, a hand up beats a hand out.

A hand up is the choice to lift another from unfortunate circumstances by acknowledging the abilities they still possess to help themselves along the journey.

This is the very heart of charity.

Bear one another’s burdens but let each carry his own loads.—Galatians 6:2-5

If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible.
‭‭Leviticus‬ ‭5‬:‭1‬ ‭NIV‬‬

See something, say something.

In an increasingly detached world, speaking up and speaking out is a risky option.

If it’s not about you, don’t get involved.

Truth is, all that’s needed for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing.

That’s not verbatim but close enough to get the message.

We are not called to the fear and timidity that renders us silent. We can all recount countless times in history that false doctrine advanced the cause of evil another small and insidious step.

With knowledge comes responsibility.

Jesus turned this world on its ear by speaking up and speaking out. Following him requires our loudest voice.

See something, say something.

It’s a new slogan for an ancient lesson lest we become accomplice to evil.

10 years ago today, it was the call of the most valuable Christmas gift I’ve ever received.

“Are you sitting down?” Asked my tax specialist Brenda J. Stout.

During my decade long dance with crystal m*th, I’d paid little attention to normal, everyday responsibilities, including my mail.

I was off the rails.

Turns out I’d received 17 different letters over the years from a very patient IRS agent about previous tax year filings and they were now demanding a reply or jail time.

I’d been clean and sober for a few years by then during which time I’d amassed a small fortune in accrued taxes, fees and fines totaling over $100,000.

Time to face the music as part of my recovery program, I met with Brenda Stout at the recommendation of a friend.

She successfully negotiated a $22,000 settlement on my behalf toward which I’d been paying half my meager income each month.

But behind the scenes and entirely unbeknownst to me, Brenda had continued her negotiations on my behalf until I got the call 10 years ago today.

“Are you sitting down?”

She’d been having heart to heart conversations with the agent about my addiction, repentance and determination to pay for my costly life mistakes on my path to recovery.

With $16,000 still due, she called to inform me that the IRS had forgiven and written of the remaining debt, apparently in an effort to expedite my life change.

To conclude, Brenda had orchestrated the most expensive Christmas gift I ever received.

The annual tree lighting service at The Crossing Church always brings back this holiday memory. I went again last evening…

I hadn’t considered myself among “the least of these,” but starting over a dozen years ago at 51 as an ex-felon working a $9/hour church janitor job apparently exceeded the qualifications.

The surprise of a fifty dollar bill tucked in my back pocket by a passing stranger at Christmastime was eclipsed only by the words accompanying the gesture. “You’re making more of a difference than you know, young man.”

I’m not sure if I was more shocked being addressed as a young man or by the unexpected generosity of his acknowledgement of a complete stranger working a lowly, invisible job during the busiest time of the church calendar. I’d just returned from plunging a TeenTime toilet full of poop and was enroute across the courtyard to a hazardous cleanup in KidKare made by two siblings who’d had bad blueberries and Alpha Bits for breakfast.

I’d like to report the encounter was an interaction but his swift disappearance into the festive crowd of evening Christmas servicers was as angelic as his act of kindness. By the time I put my mop and pail to the ground and wiped my hand on my shirt to shake his hand, he was gone. I reached into my back pocket to find the gift he’d bestowed and while a crisp $50 was a helpful blessing this time of year, his words had been of much greater value.

Invisible people are all around us. Janitors, cashiers, clerks and other such name tags we rarely if ever read or better yet, take notice. Doing so need not cost 50 dollars or 50 cents, but only to know the words to their song on a not so silent night that hoped someone might care enough to notice and at the very least, tell them that in this world, they’re making more of a difference than they know.