Hello, Friends!

I just watched "It's A Wonderful Life" for the first time in a few years. It still gets me. There I was snorkling (this absurd sound I make when I'm deeply moved), with tears running down my cheeks.

Clarence the angel leaves George a note in the copy of Tom Sawyer there at the end: "Remember, George. No man is a failure who has friends". (Snorkle, snorkle)

I've been thinking a lot about friends. I had my last day working in Lillington today. I work as a speech therapist in nursing homes (with stroke victims and such). I took the Lillington job so we could move back to our hometown of Sanford. But it was a 45-minute drive to work every morning (on $3.00 a gallon gas in an old Ford truck). I was doing part-time work in Sanford for the last five months, hoping for a full-time position to open up. It did and now I'm pretty much done with Lillington. Leaving was bittersweet, though, as I had to say goodbye to a bunch of new good friends.

I've been amazed at how emotional my leaving turned out to be. I was only there for six months, but I was choked up. A few co-workers were weepy. There was genuine emotion there. Wow...

That's happened at a few places I've worked over the past several years. And I have to give credit to a guy I worked with back in 1997 or so. His name was Jason and he was a tremendous inspiration.

At the time I was totally consumed with church and I looked at work as a sort of necessary evil. I worked to pay the bills, but I lived to be in church. As a result, when I was at work I was just getting the job done and thinking about the next church service - what songs would I lead? How could I be more effective as a worship leader? I hardly talked to anyone. My co-workers didn't really know anything about me except I was a nice guy and I didn't cuss.

Jason, on the other hand, was a friend to nearly everyone in the nursing home workplace. He seemed to know everyone's name in every department. He was always smiling and as soon as he came around everyone else was smiling, too. He had a positive energy about him that was amazing. He was so much fun to be around. I remember he was always singing Blue's Travelers songs.

He wasn't a Christian, but he often was much more Christ-like than I was.

For instance, one week a bad snow storm hit Boone. I was out of work for nearly a week because the roads were so bad. I was pretty proud of the fact, though, that I made it to church and led a half dozen songs for the few hearty souls who made it to the Sunday service.

But what was Jason doing during the storm? He spent most of the week at the nursing home doing whatever he could to help. He was a therapist, but that week he was the taxi service - taking workers home at night, picking them up for work in his jeep in the morning. He worked in the laundry room (cleaning the clothes of incontinent patients). He worked in the kitchen making sure everyone got food (and then he fed a lot of people, too).

Man, he was a hero to me.

So several years ago I decided to try my best to be more like my friend Jason. Now I'm the one who knows everyone's name. I'm the one walking around singing (it was Christmas carols and Journey songs today). I try to make work a fun place to be for everyone, with lots of laughter.

The surprising result has been that I get to talk about my faith and my love for God frequently. I'm certainly doing more good for the kingdom of God at work than I am at church - where I'm now pretty quiet and nobody really knows me :)

Something else I've done in this last six months that I've never done before: I now have a signature greeting. I got it from the TV cartoon "Little Bill" which is produced by Bill Cosby. I greet lots of people every day with the words "Hello, Friend". It sounds a little goofy and at first people look at you like you're crazy. But before long people respond to that "Hello, Friend". One of the deepest longings people have is for true friendship. I know having true friends is the great longing of my heart. So try it, if you dare. Greet people as friends. Very often it opens the door to something precious.

Finally, I want to acknowledge my dad. Years ago he gave me great advice on making friends. He told me to learn people's names and call them by their name every chance I get. He said that there's nothing about you so very personal as your name. It's cruel to make fun of someone's name, then, isn't it? And so for the last several years I've really made an effort to learn peoples names and greet them by name - especially in the workplace. It really makes a difference.

I begin my new full-time job Monday. I'm looking forward to being a friend and to finding many new friends there. And, hopefully, I'll be doing some eternal good.

Snorkle.