"What are you wearing" my boss Russell Bennett asked me?
Shrugging my shoulders I replied, "I dunno."
"You are not going to embarrass us," he chided. "I've seen the way you dress. Blue jeans with a coat and tie in the pulpit. Tennis shoes! It's just not acceptable!"
"I'll find something," I said turning.
"Come with me now," he commanded and he drug me to some store in downtown Louisville where I was measured for my first three-piece suit. I had not worn a suite since I was eleven. Russell was pissing me off.
"You would have wandered down in the clothes closet where you give out stuff to homeless people and found one," he said as the man stuck one end of a tape measure against my crotch.
It was true that the clothes closets was jammed packed with suits for homeless people. As a matter of fact, more suits are donated to the homeless than any other article of clothing. They have really wide lapels and some are even crushed velvet. These are just the things that people need to get out of homelessness.
Several days later, he took me back to get the suit.
The reason is I'd been asked to be a key speaker at the Annual Meeting of the Women's Missionary Union of the Southern Baptist Convention ... at the Southern Baptist Convention. Russell was determined that I meet his expectations and look the part.
So I bought an ear ring.
When I showed up to give the speech, a diamond stud was in my earlobe. There's a picture of me somewhere waiting to on stage in front of several thousand people wearing the suit, the ear ring and a really big grin.
Then God said it was "Show Time" and we took the stage. The guy sitting next to me was speaking right before me. He was a foreign missionary or something. He kept staring at the ring in my ear. Then he got up and gave one of the most boring speeches ever given in the history of the world.
Have you ever watched hundreds of people fall asleep at the same time? It is something to see!
Then I got up, ear ring and all, and God liked me that day. I talked about the poor and how they are God's gift to us so that we may be kind to them. I told stories of my friends Chester who used to live in a garbage dump and of Pouche who lived in alley ways.
And applause came. At first it was a sprinkle. Then it was a roar. Finally it was thunderous. And the thunder continued. Seven times they stood and I stood there not quite knowing what to do. I'd go to say something but the noise was too much so I stood until they sat and then I said something else then it started all over again.
To this day I can see the face of one member of the Women's Missionary Union ... Pillbox Hat and fine blue dress suit, smiling from several rows out as she clapped. The lights were so bright it was hard to see much anything but I could see her with halos surrounding her head.
Afterwards, I remember my friend Bert Breland being pissed because he thought that he should have been the one giving the speech and not me. I also remember Guy Sayles running across the room to bear hug me and throw me around like a rag doll.
Later Russell came up to me shaking his head with a smirk on his face.
"You had to do it didn't you," he asked. "Look at your shoes for God's sake!"
I looked down. Beneath the three piece suit was a pair of black patient leather shoes with massive gold leafs on them and argyle socks. I'd gotten them out of the clothes closet.
He grabbed the ear ring from my ear.
As this was happening, lots of people were coming up and patting me on the back, giving me hugs and asking for my card which of course I had none.
As Russell turned to walk away, I asked, "What? I didn't live up to expectations?"
He shook his head and disappeared into the crowd.
