somebody to blame it on
When I was a teenager, growing up at Franconia Baptist Church, my pastor was Dr. C.L. Bishop. Dr. Bishop hired me part time to help run the offset printing press at the church. I was responsible for printing the worship bulletin, the weekly newsletter, and the Wednesday night prayer list.
I remember one day I made a mistake. I screwed up the weekly prayer list so badly that the church secretary had to retype the whole thing. I’ll never forget having to tell my pastor that I had messed up. And I’ll never forget his response. With a twinkle in his eye, and a smile on his face, he said, “That’s okay. We’ll find somebody else to blame it on.”
He was kidding, of course. The secretary retyped the list and I ran it off without incident. But my pastor taught me a valuable lesson. We all make mistakes. None of us is perfect. When you goof things up, admit it, fix it, and move on.
I was reminded of this yesterday. I had been asked to officiate a funeral service at Everly-Wheatley Funeral Home and put it on my calendar for 12:00 noon. The problem was the service was at 11:00. The funeral director called at 11:15 asking where I was. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe I was given the wrong time, maybe I put it in my calendar wrong. The point is, I was late.
When I arrived at the funeral home I apologized profusely to the funeral director and family. As we were walking into the chapel the funeral director, Andrea, said, “We all make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect.”
As it turned out, the service turned out to be a comedy of errors. The sound system wasn’t working, the wrong song was played in the middle of the service, and even though everyone was asked to turn off their cell phones, one went off in the middle of the eulogy. The family said the deceased would have laughed his bottom off.
As I was talking to Andrea after the service I said, “You seemed pretty unflappable in the midst of all that chaos. How do you maintain your composure when things go wrong?" She replied, “Well pastor, my philosophy of life is this. If I can do something about it, I’ll do it. If I can’t do anything, I let it go.”
I’m grateful that I live among forgiving people. My family, my congregation, and the local funeral directors cut me a lot of slack. And as you know, few people need more slack than me!
