Obnoxious Manuel

The tinkling bell that announces visitors to such places was taking it easy on this particular day. On occasion it would admit a paying customer to the sunny diner, mainly locals with a slow morning to enjoy and a few thoughts to chew on. The dust motes and quiet clinking of the breakfast plates offers a soothing soundtrack to such times. Sitting at the left end of the bar already is a youngish man whose fame is unquestionable to his self and he is sure most other people. Obnoxious Manuel is a tall man with a strong face and slow eyes that burn with the deceptive and lackluster shine of the hottest coals at the bottom of a fire pit. This morning he is passionately and importantly explaining to his faithful waitress the importance of his initial cup of coffee.

“It must be right. Nothing less than the appropriate cup will do. Not for the first cup of the day.” Flippantly motioning toward his smoking cup of coffee he adopts a hopeless smirk and continues his instruction. “And this, my faithful barmaid, is inappropriate. You certainly, being a bar lass, understand that the first cup of coffee is really the only cup of coffee...”.

The waitress, familiar with his lectures, cautiously keeps her eyes from rolling, and nods along with Obnoxious Manuel’s now monotonously righteous lecturing. Interjecting at random, “is there anything else I can get you Mr. Manuel?”

Feigning emotional injury Obnoxious Manuel cringed and loudly whispered, “I did not interrupt you while you were taking my order did I?! I let you do your job yes?! I don’t cat call you while you peruse your paying gentlemen and ask them if they need their cups filled?! So please return the favor and let me do my job.”

Unable to help restrain her rolling eyes the waitress cut in, “Mr. Manuel Sonny’s diner is not a brothel and I am no winch. Do you want another cup of coffee or not? It’s going to be from the same pot as the first one.”

His emotional anguish now forgotten, Obnoxious Manuel looks for sympathy from his companion, Dancer Douglass, sitting on the stool to his right. Quietly enjoying the shining dust particles dancing on the hot air rising from his cup of coffee Dancer casually remarks “We all make choices”.

Receiving no help from his friend Obnoxious Manuel again turns toward the waitress ready to educate her on the delicacies of the morning’s first cup of coffee only to find a new cup of coffee between his elbows. His consternation is broken by the subtle introduction by the door bell of two gentlemen dressed to kill or baptize.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Stanley take the booth to the left end of the bar in plain view of Obnoxious Manuel. Once the waitress leaves they both take up their coffees and regard each other with reluctant malice. Both older gentlemen, but they could hardly be more different in mind, soul, or body.

Mr. Phillips is a short older man with an oversized lower body. His cheese log legs and round belly are topped off with polio arms, narrow shoulders and a thin pointy head. Mr. Phillips is an immensely popular preacher at an emergent church a few hours west of the little train-car diner. He was a walking testament to the power of love and the unwavering love of his God.

Across the table sat Mr. Stanley, a man forever and irreversibly changed by the power and faithfulness of his God. He is also a successful preacher, his congregation being a few hours east of the diner. He was a tall man with pole shaped limbs and a slender neck heroically supporting an enormous head which is tragically losing its cover.

Mr. Phillips swallows his coffee first and is first to speak. He spoke with a slow soft central Texas accent.

“I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. Let me first say that I recognize and appreciate your ministry. Certainly the Lord has used you and your heart his for the people of your congregation. I understand that the Lord has delivered you of some incredible trials. He has obviously healed you and brought you to a great understanding of His power in that regard. However I am very bothered with your heart towards some struggling christians. The people you’ve work with are obviously in need of the Lord, and they are certainly in need of His healing and power. More than that though, I believe they need His love. It’s His love which He came to show us. It’s His love which Christ preaches. It’s His love that forever changes us and drives us closer to Himself. The ever passionate and faithful love of the Father for His children, a love too powerful to be held back by the presence of homosexual tendencies or other sexual deviancies within any particular person. What your congregation needs to hear more than anything is about that love. And they absolutely need His healing, but they don’t need to hear another person telling them to change their ways. Certainly the Lord wants them to changes their ways but it has to be the Lord who changes them. You know that you yourself can’t change them, and that none of us really are able to change ourselves into anything truly good on our own. And you say yourself that only God had the power to bring you out of your sins and that you were helpless against them. Until the Father changes his children they are to love and be loved. I only say this because I think that your ministry, though obviously doing well, could really grow in a godly way by emphasizing more the love of the Father, as opposed to only preaching change.”

Mr. Stanley had patiently waited through Mr. Phillips comments, silently proud at having out waited the man and at now getting the chance to possibly get the last word. He took a minute to give the impression of really pondering what Mr. Phillips had just said to him. After a thoughtful nod he began in his strong south east Texas accent, “Well, I certainly appreciate your honesty Mr. Phillips, and I want you to know that I have the utmost respect for you and your ministry. I have heard great things from a number of people about you personally and have never heard a cross comment about you.” Mr. Stanley silently congratulated himself on having out complimented his adversary. He also found some comfort in giving himself the credit for having a better speaking voice and vocabulary.

“The love of Jesus is absolutely the greatest love the world has ever scene. And I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s what drives us to want to change. But wanting to change and actually pursuing that change are two different animals. The bleeding woman would have never been healed had she not braved the crowds how despised her and reached to grab Jesus’s robe. Zacheus was blessed because he called out above the crowd, and the boy lowered down on the mat through the roof was placed at the feet of Jesus because they climbed on top of a house and tore a whole in the roof for their friend. When these people reached out and called out Jesus loved them already, but it was their determination to be changed by Him that ultimately led to their deliverance or healing.” Feeling the power of the argument he was laying down Mr. Stanley pressed on to his own thoughts of Mr Phillips.

“And honestly I think that you are ultimately hindering your own congregation by not encouraging them and pressing them on to the changing power of the Lord. They absolutely need to be loved, but that’s not all the Lord promised us. He also promised us healing, the gifts of the Spirit, and crowns in heaven for our sacrifices.”

Becoming patiently pissed off Mr. Phillips jumped in at a pause by Mr Stanley, his hands held up innocently but his soft spoken accent taking on a crisp edge id lacked earlier.

“Mr. Stanley that sounds awful close to being performance oriented and furthermore it absolutely is the Love of Christ that should be...”

At Mr. Phillips interruption Mr. Stanley’s pride instantly bristled and brought his preaching finger to a point at Mr Phillips face and furrowed his brows. He started to speak, “Mr Phillips I can’t believe...”

“Oh, hush both of you!”

Simultaneously startled the well dressed preachers both turned from their coffee to face an agitated Obnoxious Manuel. Forgetting his all important first cup, Mr Manuel had swiveled his bar stool to his left ant was now perched comfortably for is own speech.

“Gentlemen, allow me the great pleasure to introduce you to one another.”

Both men began to defensively and confusingly explain that they new the other, but Mr Manuel was past the point of allowing either one of them a chance to say anything more. Gesturing for Mr Phillips to look at Mr. Stanely he began, “Screwdriver it is my unwanted duty to introduce you to Hammer.”

Making the same gestures to Mr Stanley he continued, “And Hammer this is Screwdriver.”

At this point both older gentlemen were quite confused and speechless.

“Both of you are absolute tools.”

This remark dropped both preachers’ jaws and they tensed with anger. Mr Manuel allowed them no time to impede his discourse.

“You see tools have no intrinsic value, which is quite obvious with the both of you. Without a hand to use the tool, and an objective to use them for, they are utterly useless. Both of you are such creatures. In fact we all are such creatures, as far as usefulness goes. It is true that we are loved and appreciated despite a lack of need for us. However, I’ve just labored through both of your opening speeches to what was bound to be an epic battle of sound theology and bullshit, and I can assure that both of you are tools arguing over who is better for the job. What nether one of you realizes is that you’re not the same tools.”

Mr. Manuel feigned shock and surprise at his own observation and paused a minute for the heavy truth to set in.

“You sir are not able or meant to do what he does and visa versa. How silly would a man be to use a hammer on screws or a screwdriver on nails? My goodness we got ahead of ourselves, didn’t we? Each of you thinking the other should work as you do. Now I don’t want to hear anymore of the hammer telling the screwdriver how he should work with nails, or the screwdriver telling the hammer to work with screws. Your tools after all and it’s high time you start behaving like it. You’re not builders, or architects. Neither one of you is a grand engineer high and mighty to speak of how others should operate. These are things that tools, like yourselves, should never attempt.”

Supremely satisfied with his lesson Obnoxious Manuel ordered his coffee to go and made his way to the car with Dancer Douglass smirking close behind him.