Weird Days

Today was a weird day.  It was fairly normal to start out- I went to Indianapolis to have an early lunch with a dear friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a long time, and then I came right back to Terre Haute and needed to go to the post office to send out an ebay item.

About a year ago, you might remember this incident that I experienced at the post office.  Well, this time, another strange thing happened.  There was a younger man and an older woman talking (obviously didn't know each other) when I walked in, just having a normal friendly conversation around one of the counters where people can stop and fill in envelopes for mailing, etc.  I started to stand in line.  Well, before I knew it, he was telling her to mind her ***damn business and to "get the hell out" of his face, cursing at her, basically going nuts!  Anyone else might have walked away, but this poor woman stuck around and tried to make peace, which was obviously not working on this nutjob.  At one point, he even took out a camera and took her picture, threatening that he was going to press charges for her for harassment!  Seriously, where do these people come from?!  This outburst came out of nowhere, and his guy was obviously unbalanced.  One of the post office workers threatened to call the police if he didn't calm down and leave.  I'll admit that my heart started to pound and I was getting a little freaked out.  For a second I had this thought that this guy could pull out a gun or something- that's how out of control he was getting, and it escalated quickly.  A part of me wanted to step in and literally take the little old lady out of the situation because she just didn't want to walk away.  But where do you draw the line for your own safety?

Luckily, he finally walked out, and I was standing right at the counter to get my stuff shipped out, and I was going to stop her from walking out as well, because who knows what he might do in the parking lot, but before anyone could say anything, she walked out after him.

There were about 7 people in line at this point, just observing.  What could people have done?  Anything?  I never know what to do.

Then I finally made my way to the church office where a church member had called, sounding frantic because the family did not have a minister for her brother's funeral on Saturday, so I told her I could do it.  She came to meet with me, and an hour later I had put together almost his entire service- then I got a phone call that the other side of the family had found someone else to do it.  I felt really bad for her because I think that she felt that with me, there was a better chance for her brother to have a nice, meaningful service, but now she didn't know how it would turn out.  Again, there's nothing I can do about it, but at least I can know that by just being willing and available to do it, I was a help to her.  I just hope they have a meaningful service for him.

There have been at least 3 deaths this past week that have had some association or relation to the church, 4 if you include the funeral I did on Monday, and we had a staff member resign.

The bottom line- it's tough being the only pastor at a large church.  I will breathe a sigh of relief when the senior pastor comes back from 3 week vacation next week!

Til then, let's hope all hell doesn't break loose!