The Pneuma Project

Yesterday I worked up in the bar on my first Sunday morning bar tending shift. It ended up being a pretty good day, but it didn’t start off so hot. It fact in hindsight it was one of those morning where you wonder how many bad things can happen at once. My day began like this…

My bar tending shift started at 10:15. The only problem with is that the restaurant opened at 10:00, and no other servers were scheduled until 10:45. So all of a sudden I am responsible for not only setting up and opening the bar (something I’ve only done twice before) but also taking care of any customers who come in early for lunch. Immediately I have one table to take care of, which wasn’t a big deal except that the kitchen manager cooked breakfast for all the staff, and I’m hungry. So I greet that table, they order ice tea. We don’t have any iced tea ready. So I go in the back to start the iced tea, and to dish a plate of food up. Before eating any of it, I go out to take my tables order only to find that two other tables are sat. Now the stress starts building. I get the orders and drinks, start getting the bar open (to make their drinks) and look lustfully at my warm, uneaten, breakfast. Another set of guests with a large, loud, obnoxious, 4 or 5 year old come in. They look unhappy. I approach them to get their order. I’m right, they are unhappy, and their son seems to be deaf as he is completely unresponsive to their pleas and threats to be quiet, I assume that they don’t know he is deaf so they keep threatening him. I decide I would be unhappy about my day too if I was in their shoes. Actually, I’m not in their shoes, and I am slightly unhappy with my day. I’m finally able to take their order get everyones drinks out and orders into the kitchen. It’s now about 10:50. Ten minutes until people really start coming in, and the bar is nowhere near ready.

Quickly, I start preparing the most important things to start the day, fruit garnishes, juices, ice, and the glass rimmers. Orders start coming in over the printer. Apparently yesterday was national root beer day, as everyone was drinking it. Eight glasses are ordered right off the bat. I open the cooler. We have 15 glasses total. Not good. A friend comes in and says high. It was good to see a smiling face for a brief moment as right after that all hell breaks loose. No one is in the kitchen to take out food to my tables, so between pouring drinks, and getting the bar ready I am desperately trying to run out my tables food. A lone person sits at the bar. He orders a beer. The printer prints four drink orders. the day has officially started. I pour his beer, run some checks over to my tables (that kid still won’t sit down or be quiet), and go to make a margarita. The printer keeps printing. More root beer. As I go to pour the juice into the shaker for the margarita, the pour spout decides it’s existence has ended and breaks off from it’s screw top, spilling a whole quart of juice (which I just stocked) all over the bar, my ice (which was just stocked), and the bottles in the fast bar. The guy at the bar just looks at me. I really want to proclaim some rather choice words and concepts to all within hearing, but somehow hold back. Four more people sit at the bar. And that freaking printer just keeps drink orders. Somehow I am able to keep my head above water and get enough drinks out that people don’t riot until the next bartender comes in at 12. Complete insanity and frustration. And to top it all off, my breakfast gets thrown away.

When things finally settled down and we were able to get into a rhythm, it was easy to see how people stepped up and helped me out. Randomly one of the servers I had trained cruised by and asked if I needed anything (boy, did I!). One of our bussers came by and helped clean up my ice mess, and smiled at me. Ted the 2nd bartender stepped right in and started cleaning up my mess, helped finish opening the bar, and managed to greet the 3 new guests that had sat down that I totally missed. If it wasn’t for those people, and others, I think I would have written my day off, but instead God allowed me to see how much I need others. Those people have no clue how much they “ministered” to me in the midst of my anger and frustration. They have no idea how essential their help was to keep me from loosing it. And, they have no idea that they revealed God to me.

So, today, I’m thanking God for Jason, for Carolina, and for Ted. And I’m praying that I can be just as available to entering into situations and bring God’s presence, love, and grace to others who are frustrated and at the end of their rope. It’s in those unplanned, random, mundane aspects of our days that Jesus is truly incarnated to the people around us (or to us).