An Uncommon Thing

I got to witness something pretty rare. Last night, Sunday night, I stood in the back of a room where a couple hundred people gathered to honor a man for being-himself.

Here's the curious thing, most of you wouldn't know him. He is not a famous person outside of his work or friends. He's not on the national news, hasn't been in the movies-divorcing his wife and running off with a co-star twenty years his junior. He is a teacher. He is a father of three grown kids, has a wife of decades, grand kids. He is a musician.

Just a guy.

He was leaving a job for another, a change in his season of life. I got to travel with him for a while on this life and hope to walk miles more. What was so so wonderful was one person after an another got up and commented on this man, his impact on their lives, some significant roasting his good spirit and fun. People cried not because he was leaving, but because they had an opportunity to tell this guy what he meant to them. Many times-most of the time, actually, we don't get that opportunity. Like I said, it was an uncommon thing.

People like this walk among us. They really do. We don't see them a lot because they aren't on the cover of People Magazine or their mug is not on the news as just getting arrested for drunk driving from their Malibu beach house. This guy can and does represent us in a way that is so good, so comforting, so right  that we think something is really wrong. It isn't.

Randy Thompson is just a guy-a father, a husband, a grandfather, a believer and mirror of Grace. He has literally saved lives by allowing people to just be themselves around him. He stumbles and falls and says wrong things and and and-

He is loved and in turn, gets to love.

Yep, it was a rare thing.