I gave Max Lucado a Cold

I gave Max Lucado a cold. Who? Max Lucado /loo-KAY-doe/. As comfy as a fireside chat, as pastoral as your favorite Uncle, as best-seller as an Oprah book club discount card. That’s the Max Lucado I’m talking about. I met him my first day on the job. Who? Max Lucado. White like sunlight glancing from whitened sandstone. Tall like the A in Antonio. Downy and pastoral, a tenor with a sweater-vest, a heath-hearted fire. That’s the Max Lucado I’m talking about, and I gave him a cold on my very first day.

Unlike my last foxhole, my new cubicle is open and spacious. Wide writing surfaces, with a slide-away file cabinet and drawers are topped by under lit, lockable shelving. The first day, this space was still full of K’s stuff: the accumulated junk of years of shuffling and re-shuffling. Wires, plugs and bags of materials, dusty and unkempt gave the whole a transitory feeling. There were secrets, too.

It is a premium in my new position to keep an eye on the details, details intricately bound up with judgments and manipulations of time. Underneath the dusty leftovers and boxes were a few archaeological bones of K’s own astrology: a file with a color-coded dot; the way she organized the folders in her C:\ drive; different-colored pens. I was left alone for an hour that first day like an acolyte in the temple, looking past the standing stones at the moon and the setting sun and wondering at the question of time. I squared off the site and began sifting and diagramming each of its treasures.

“Excuse me, Thom,” said Mr. Darcy, just as I was about to empty a stack of antiquated emails into a bin, “Max is in the office today, and we’re going to have a meeting with him. We’re going to pray for his upcoming book.” “Pray! How does that work?” I wondered. Not that I don’t mind prayer, but in a corporate setting. Since coming to Nashville, the borderline between religious expression and, to speak existentially, the street, are always crashing into each other in unpredictable ways. And, here on the Outlook tasks: prayer.

Fumbling with names, and coated with new-guy inapproachability, I followed the rest along toward a good sized meeting room. Suits were already there, sitting in a closed square around the center. We pulled chairs from stacks and assembled respectfully along the wall. I bumped along to the right, and found myself sitting alone beside two late-middle-aged women who took no notice of me. I barely noticed myself. And then everyone stood up, and next thing you know up comes Lucado. He takes my hand, looks me right in the eye and says, “Good morning, I’m glad you are here.” Normally I never shake hands with anyone when I’m ill, but Lucado just sort of took it. Surprised, I still managed a smile, “Thanks, I’m glad to be here.” After that he milled through the rest of the crowd, finally ending up at the head of things. Then there was a half hour or so of prayer. I wondered whether only the important people could pray. I wondered whether anyone in the outer ring would pray. What sort of “prayer dynamic” was at work? Who felt as if they had to pray? Then it was over. Time for the Christmas party.

“I hope you like the party we threw for you!” I heard this about half a dozen times as I bummed a ride from some co-workers, still strangers but probably friends. We climbed into an SUV, and climbed out into the grand ballroom of the Sheraton Inn. Our group had a table reserved, right up front. I was seated beside Mr. Darcy, who gave me a “whose who” of the room and fired off well-meaning insults, giving as good as he got, from the rest of the table. I still felt cold and new, like brittle glass.

Around me, the room, opulent and red velvet, was loud. People were having a good time, shouting and jostling each other in friendly greeting. Patsy Clairmont was the speaker. A little, graying woman with a booming voice (or were we sitting in front of the speakers?) she spoke about Jonah, and I was glad to note that she’d obviously read a commentary or two before she wrote her standup. Lucado took the stand to talk about his book.

I was taking in everything. One thing I wanted to know about this group all seated at the same table was whether they liked each other or not. In my last employ, a few hellos would go around, and small talk would be attempted, but there would be little in the way of non-office friendliness. I was pleased to discover that this was largely not the case. This group was more like a cluster of teens at a youth convention than a bevy of suits who came for the food. It is normally very difficult to get any sense of personality at functions like these, but in this case, each person seemed to own themselves. Each person shone in their own color, more along the lines of a church assembly than a collection of co-workers. I marveled at this while wondering with the rest of the table what we were to do now that the wait staff had taken our forks, when the music started.

One golden-voiced executive, with two others drawn from other departments in the company, had taken the microphone and the three men began to sing Christmas carols. The second man played a giant, black Gibson Epiphone hooked to a jazz amplifier. They sang two songs, and then asked the audience to sing one together. They chose “Silent Night” and began straightaway:

Silent Night, Holy Night
All is calm, all is bright

I joined in, lifted up by the room. Missing worship with my church, and the move having taken advent out of the December weeks, I was hungry for carols, hungry to sing, and here was a company singing together, singing in all sincerity about Jesus. And lest you think only the first verse was sung, no, they launched out into the remainder, and by the time we got to

Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace

I knew that I wasn’t the new guy any longer. I felt it all the way through. It has been a long time coming, but on this day, I said, here is exactly where I belong.