Stinky

When I was a security guard the remembrance of one person stands out. He was known by others as "stinky". He worked as a management person on sporting events. Over time I would learned that he was the one guy mobile officers hated to pick up on escort assignments. I honestly was blind to how this could be till I was a mobile officer. I had called by security management to be a mobile as I came back home from Massachusetts after being at mom's funeral. There was lots of learning for me ahead.

Who knows why I was asked to be mobile? l only knew my body was suffering doing graveyard shift walking miles and miles on foot patrol. I was the only one in my high school class who did not graduate from driver ed. I had been in an accident with another security company a few years back. Even if it was not my fault, it was a bad memory. Yet, I being a godly man, an ordained opp pastor knew it was what God wanted me to do.
I felt very awkward at first. I enjoyed the perk of being the highest paid security officer and yet also the most likely to lose my job if I had an accident. I was very lucky to have a caring helper in the chief officer of the mobiles, who was a spiritual man. He had a lot of experience with the man called "stinky". He admitted to the stench and my gut told me he did it because it was his job.
I would get to meet this guy in a few months. He was on Bill's side of campus. When Bill went on a trip to Israel, I had my first meeting with the man others called stinky.

On the radio "25 we need you to go to building 6100 to take someone to garAge C. I arrived and I will confess I was overcome by the odor and many Times afterwards to the degree I could barely breathe and felt sick to my stomach. I felt truly awful about my growing prejudice that told me I would rather go anywhere than 6100. My mom taught me to have a good attitude. Love those that might not know otherwise what love was. I went to pick him up and learned over time his real name was Pat. I picked him up. After all it was my job.

After doing this over the course of a year, I made a decision to get to know Pat. We talked about his projects, his beat up car, his dog Sophie. We got to be friends. For whatever reason I forgot about the body odor that nearly suffocated me in the past. We kidded about skateboarders who tried to sneak up to the top and go down. We shared about how I was teaching him how to be an officer. I suppose I saw pat differently.

I survived my mobile days at Sprint. I had no accidents. As I left, because of needing to relocate, I have taken him with me. We can very easily get caught up in unsavory expectations. Maybe we need to learn more about the person others call stinky. If for no other reason than to rediscover for ourselves what it means to be human and not so stinky we refuse to know Gods love is there for people who believe that God loves us when we have trouble loving ourselves.