The kindergartners, this time of year, wander around dazed, not knowing where they are going or what they are doing, just following directions with uncomprehending blank stares. As a bus driver, I have my hands full with making sure they get off at the right stop, released to parents or siblings or whoever is responsible for safely getting the rest of the way home.
School just started this week, and it has been a steep learning curve. For them. For me. Explaining safety rules, street crossing rules, and keep-your-hands-to-yourself rules; just setting the framework for understanding and following directions is what makes primary school teachers twitchy this time of year. Bus drivers get a wee bit nervous, too, I can attest.
This time of year, the kindergartners wear name/address badges so we can make sure they get off at the right place if they forget their stops. Surprisingly, most of them got off at the proper stop without my help. Most of them, that is. Not all.
At my second stop, after I unloaded, a father stepped up to the door and announced he was looking for Anna. "Anna", he called out "time to get off the bus."
I looked back at her, sitting stonily in the second seat staring straight ahead. "Anna, it's time to get off" I repeated to her, but she just looked at me blankly.
"I heard someone call me, but I don't know who it was" she finally said in a small voice, at which he called out "It's your dad, Anna!"
Her lip trembled as if about to cry, and she pleaded with me "I don't remember what my Daddy sounds like."
"I don't remember what my Daddy sounds like." Have you heard anything else that heartbreaking?
Well, the story has a happy ending, of course-upon my reassurances that it was, indeed, her father at the door of the bus, she launched herself down the center aisle, down the steps in a bound, and into his arms, but the depth of apprehension and tumult in her confusion stayed with me the rest of the day. How overwhelmed by a long stressful day would a child have to be to mistake the voice of her father, to wonder if it is really him calling her name?
Upon the same principle, how many times in life have all of us mistaken a trusted and loving and concerned voice, have questioned motives and purposes and methods of those who love us simply because we are overwhelmed and dazed? How many times have mothers and fathers and spouses and lovers and friends called and assisted and advised and offered their love to us, and we have been frozen in a moment in time and unable to respond? Glued to the sticky seat of a 97-degree bus baking in the Texas heat?
I think that just like the little 5-year-olds I have been shepherding onto and off of my bus, we are so apprehensive about the chaos of the moments we live in that sometimes we can't even recognize a simple calm voice when it calls our names. Whether this voice is parents or friends or God calling out to me that it is time to take the next step, to get off of the bus and start the next phase of my journey, I hope I can open my ears and my heart to the call rather than staring stonily ahead, rigid in fear and self-conscious embarrassment.
One of my favorite "camp songs" from my St. Francis days, Here I Am Lord, is about the call to mission of Isaiah, who was able to listen to his Father calling him to service of his people:
"Here I am, Lord
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go, Lord
if You lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart."
Oh, that I may be able to hear my Father's voice calling me and not be fearful or distrustful...
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