Yesterday I was daydreaming and I remembered a Sunday morning that was somewhat different than most Sunday mornings. It was about 5 years ago in a time where a group of us had to put together a church each weekend. Looking back it was a beautiful time, but in the moment there were longings of a different situation.
We were still a newly beginning church. Although we didn’t own a building to have our weekend service in…we still made due. We met in a living room – and then a coffee house – and then a high school cafeteria – and then eventually we were renting out a movie theater. Every Sunday morning we would show up around 5:30am to transform the theater into a place of worship. We unloaded trailers that held all of our portable church items; speakers, music stands, baby gates, coffee urns, etc..
It was something we had to do, but it was also something that drew us closer together as a team. Volunteers have to be pretty devoted to show up on a Sunday morning before sunrise. One volunteer showed up wearing a Porsche hat and shirt one morning. I asked him about it and he told me that he was a car salesman. He sold nice cars…fast cars…cars that elicit drooling. Being an Auto-Fan myself I asked him lots of questions and found lots of things to talk about. As we unloaded trailers and closets we discussed brake horsepower numbers and our likes and dislikes of the current supercars. Of course at this time every car was super compared to mine. I was driving a Plymouth Voyager Minivan – although it was spacious…super was not a word I’d grab to describe it.
Sundays passed by and we set up the church and we tore down the church. We took things out of trailers and put things back into trailers. One morning was a little different than the rest though. The man who sold fast cars for a living walked up to me…it was before 6am and he had a smile on his face. This was not common even for the nicest of chaps due to the extreme challenge of facial movement before 6am on a Sunday. But he was smiling this time as he tossed something through the air to me. I looked in my hands and there was a set of keys. Porsche keys.
The man who sold fast cars grinned and said, “I’ve got a Porche 911 Turbo outside that I took home for the weekend…I figured you’d probably want to drive it.” I looked at the man as if he had just discovered the cure for cancer and I asked, “Are you serious?” I assumed he would be my passenger but he turned and walked away saying, “Just be careful…that’s the anniversary edition and it’s got 40 more horsepower than the regular 911 Turbo.”
I walked outside into the still dark morning and I slipped into the Porsche, which of course just happened to be parked next to my not-so-supercar minivan. If I’d not been feeling so blessed by God Himself I would have probably flipped my white Plymouth Voyager the bird as I pulled out of the parking lot. The car felt as if it was made for me – at least on that Sunday morning it did. I’m not sure if you’ve ever driven the streets on a Sunday before sunlight, but it’s an absolute ghost town. No one is out anywhere…no one but me driving a completely ridiculous car.
Quickly finding a couple of backroads I admit that I drove that car illegally fast. Adrenaline surged through my body and my mind was filled with that feeling of completeness. It’s true that cars like that can make you feel invincible. And so I did what any invincible fellow in my situation would have done – I went to McDonald’s and I ordered a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit combo.
That was a good Sunday.
