My time behind locked doors

It was one of those days, the kind no one else has, apparently.

First, we were at a ball park, which is where we spend our nights recently. Gabe, our 11-year-old grand son, was playing a game. He was at bat when we heard this loud thump. We turned around to where our 8-year-old grand son had been playing with a tennis ball and a couple of kids, throwing the tennis ball against the wall.

The loud thump we heard was Gavin, the 8-year-old, slamming his head into the concrete wall. He went down like a sack of potatoes and lay there. His momma, Shanna, was the first to reach him, but after a couple of minutes it was clear that he won, the wall lost, and everything was okay.

Gave struck out, by the way, continuing a tough summer at the plate.

An hour later, the game ended and I went to the park rest room. I completed the task at hand and went to leave the little stall. The door wouldn't open. I tried and tried, banged and banged. Nothing. I called my wife, Mary, telling me the door wouldn't open. I expected her to find help. She brought a crowd, all of who stayed at the doorway but did nothing but call out, and I think there was a chuckle or two.

A man showed up and banged and banged and said, "I think it's stuck." I agreed.

I began to remember a similar story. When I was 13, my mom and I took a train to New York City from Meridian, Mississippi. It was a 25-hour train ride. At some point, as nature would have it, I went to the bathroom. As I finished the task at hand, I went to leave and the door wouldn't open. I tried and tried, banged and banged. Nothing.

We pulled into station, Philadelphia as it turned out, and that city looked an awful lot like New York to me, or what I imagined New York would be, and my imagination led me to think I would be stuck on this train as it entered Canada or whatever lay beyond New York City (I wasn't a geography nut).

Finally, a man came, heard the ruckus I was creating, and got help. I got back to my seat, exasperated, embarrassed, and flopped down. "Didn't you notice I was gone a long time?" I asked my mother. "I heard a lot of noise, but I never dreamed it was you."

Back to the future, there was an opening at the bottom of the door that I was pondering my stomach against its depth of opening.

Another man came and handed me a screwdriver over the top opening of the door. Let me pause in the action to say that me and screwdrivers are not good companions. I don't do crafts. I don't do repairs. I don't do handyman jobs. I don't do screwdrivers. But usually I'm pretty good at tearing things up.

I was not. I couldn't make it open.

Out of the blue, or the gray floor actually, came a much thinner man than myself (I want to point out) who slid and slipped under that opening in the door and came into my private stall quite surprisingly.

He then proceeded to bang and band and push the screwdriver and such, and after long, long minutes that had me pondering the two of us sliding out under that opening one after another like puppies out of a dog, the door lock popped open and the door swung clear.

There was a gaggle of folks awaiting the rescuee when I came out, all smiling largely. Something about being freed from a bathroom makes folks laugh for some reason.

I'm not sure there is a real point here but I thought it might be a good way to look at this scripture:

"Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing." 1 Thessalonians 5: 11

I wonder if you get the idea that there might be someone out there who needs encouraging, who is having one of those days. You might be the only one who can do this. Take the time and, uh, open a door to those whose lives seem so closed off and dark. Flush the bad out of their lives with encouragement.

Make them laugh, if you can.