Why did the turtle cross the road?

As many of you know, I was in the Catholic church when I was a kid. I took quite a few of my catechism classes at Immaculate Conception, right here in Kenmore. Honestly, I can't remember much about it but one story that we learned that I remember very well was the parable of the Good Samaritan. (read it here for a refresher). 

Our teacher had us act out the story. Someone would play the Samaritan, the victim, the priest, the Levite and of course, the robbers. Our class was mostly boys and who did we want to be? The robbers of course! We went through the story at least a few times, taking turns being the robbers and beating up our "victim" each time. I'm not sure if the robbers in the real story dropped elbows on the victim, but they sure did in our story. 

Hulk Hogan would have been envious of our mock beat down. 

Well today I finally got to put that lesson into action (no, I didn't elbow someone). Today was my retreat day at work and as I was going to the park for a long walk, I saw a lady stopped in the middle of the road blocking traffic. As I drove past, I noticed that she was trying to block people from running over a turtle that was in the middle of the road. 

I turned around and came back to see if I could help, as I'm not sure the lady wanted to actually get out into traffic herself (we were on Ghent Rd, kind of a busy street). The little guy scrambled under her car as I went to grab him, and I had to have her slowly pull forward so I could pick him up. Once I got him, a passing stranger asked if he could have him, as he has pond in his backyard. I handed over the weary turtle and I'm sure right now, he's in his own little turtle paradise, swimming in a nice clean pond, away from menacing traffic. 

Good deed for the day is done. 

As I drove away, feeling pretty good of myself, I started to think of the Good Samaritan story and how it applied to this situation. Seeing a poor stranger (turtle) in need and going out of my to help. Well, not really out of my way. Again, I was on my retreat day and didn't have anywhere to be at a particular time. I was making my own schedule. Also, I knew that once I got the turtle, all I had to do was toss him in the grass and he would be fine. 

How would I have handled this if it was a person involved? Maybe an old man. And what would I have done if I was on my to a meeting? If had to be somewhere or had an actual task I had to complete? I'd like to think that I would have done the same thing but . . . maybe not. 

As I get going at First Glance and get more settled into my job, it's going to be easier to get wrapped up into the business of doing ministry instead of the actual ministry itself. Meetings to go to. Programs to run. Events to plan. And so on and so forth. All of things start taking up more time and I have less and less time to invest in actual people. 

People are messy. People are complicated. People make dumb decisions and they make them over and over. They can't just be picked up from off the road and tossed into the grass (or given to a stranger, in my case) and everything be okay. They'll need me to be there for them for a few days, weeks, or even years. It'd be easy for me to pack my schedule full of tasks and not make time for such things. 

As I start defining my role at First Glance and getting into the groove of things, my prayer and my desire is that I will keep people at the center of my life. Finding them, helping them, and sharing the good news of Christ with them. 

At the end of eternity when I'm before God in judgment, I'm not sure that he will care if I missed a few meetings. But I'm positive that he will be upset if I missed an opportunity to share the message of the Gospel with someone in need of it. 

Thank you.