Crazy Socks and the Cross--Symbols of Love

I was just trying to make my bed and get ready for a walk; I'd just had a difficult conversation with my eldest son known far and wide as Boss and I needed to process and probably rewrite my Good Friday sermon...

I was deep in thought, quiet thought, and wanting to be alone, but into my bedroom he walked (notice there was no knocking), opened his father's sock drawer and took a pair of socks. (They were his--it's very hard to keep straight whose socks, boxers, t-shirts are whose in a house with 3 men). As he began to put the green socks with blue polka dots on, I momentarily forgot the previous difficult discussion and my promise to myself not to engage anymore today, and just had to ask, "Don't you have to wear black socks?"

"Yes, that's the uniform regulations, but I think it's stupid so I don't....." and he tried to continue but I cut him off. "I cannot listen to this. Why can't you just follow the rules? You're going to get fired. Have they written you up?" Boss, "They don't fire you until you've been written up 6 times." It did not slip past me that a) he didn't seem concerned about being written up and b) he didn't answer my question...."But have you been written up?" I pressed when honestly I really didn't want to know--or maybe I really didn't want to want to know. (This parenting and letting go of adult children is WAAAAAY harder than I ever thought it would be.) "No," he smugly said as he sprawled across my freshly made bed, "I have not been written up."

I decided I didn't want to, couldn't stand to hear anymore and I was also berating myself for ever introducing him to these crazy socks, for encouraging this. "I hate those stupid socks" I thought to myself as I walked out of the room trying to escape. He followed...

"Mama, just listen to me." "I can't." I said, "I just can't have this conversation." I kept walking; he kept following--just like he did when he was a toddler, and frankly, I was beginning to think he was still that obstinate hard-headed toddler!  I sat at the dining room table and I promise you I truly did lay my head in my hands shaking it back and forth and repeating like a crazed person, "Please just stop telling me. I can't take it. I love you, but I really can't listen anymore." Like a crazed or perhaps a deaf person who didn't hear the anguish in his mother's voice, he kept talking....

I'll admit now the less than compassionate thoughts that were going through my mind, "Why can't you ever just do things the easy way? Why can't you just submit to the rules, to authority, to anything? Why do you make life so hard? Why do you have to learn the hard way?" My head remained in my hands; he continued to talk.

Finally, I realized he wasn't going to stop until I listened, so I slowly and reluctantly lifted my head and looked across the table at my son, my little boy who has grown into a man far too quickly--a man who had his own path and wasn't asking for my advice. "I'm listening." "Mama," he calmly continued as though my face didn't have a look of total stress, resignation, and frustration, "It makes people happy to see the socks. Not a day goes by that 3 or 4 people don't comment on my socks or my needlepoint belt." (May I just take a moment to mention I am the one who made those needlepoint belts?) He continued, "I know at the hotel chains uniformity is important, but this is a hospital. Very few people come to the hospital for happy reasons, and if my socks or my belt gives them even a stupid reason to smile for just a minute, then it's worth it."

I did understand what he was saying, but deep in my core I am still that unquestioning rule-follower terrified of angering authority so I said, "But what if you get fired?" He took a big sigh and said, "Ka-ther-ine (which is what he calls me when he's frustrated or thinks I'm being ridiculous--it happens a lot) yesterday I had a conversation with both my boss and my boss's boss. In the morning a lady came peeling up and jumped out of the car screaming, "they've called about my son" I could tell she was distraught so I didn't even take her name I just handed her a claim ticket." (I have to interrupt here to confess the thought did go through my mind, "I think that's another rule you broke...) He continued oblivious to my panic, "When she came back out she found me. She said she knew who I was because of the socks and she smiled a little. Then she told me her son didn't make it and she didn't get here in time. We stood and talked for 15 minutes. It's not much but I think it helped a little. That's what I told my boss, and that's why I'm going to keep wearing crazy socks and keep smiling at people and keep standing around listening when people want to talk even if it slows down getting cars pulled around, and just keep trying to help make the time at the hospital go more smoothly for everyone." And with that, he quit talking and walked out the door in his black regulation shorts and green and blue polka dot socks.

I sit here on Good Friday and think about Mary who ended up following her son to the cross because he wouldn't just submit to the "rules" to the letter of and not the spirit of the law. Did Mary ever utter the words, "But what if you get killed?" Did she ever beg him, "Please Jesus just stop healing people on the Sabbath. Heal people yes but do it within the constraints of the law. And do you have to be so loud about parsing our forgiveness? Also, this eating with tax collectors, prostitutes, and criminals, could you use the back door so no one has to know? Please don't turn tables over in the temple--it's against the rules." Did she ever hold her head in her hands and wonder, "Why do you have to do things the hard way? Why do you have to challenge authority? Why can't you just submit?"  Did she ever wonder how many times Jesus would be able to tick off the Romans or the Jewish leaders before he was punished? And I wonder if as she followed Jesus to the cross on that Friday over 2000 years ago was she both incredibly proud of the loving compassionate man Jesus had become and filled with dread and sadness knowing the pain that would come because of it? I wonder if she thought about the people whose lives he had touched because he reached out regardless of the rules?

I wonder if in the days and months to come she looked at the cross differently, not as a symbol of torture but rather as a symbol of her son's unconditional love for all people? I bet she did--and I bet she'd have been proud for her son to have worn crazy non-regulation socks.