So true – when I wore my “dog collar” on public transport, nobody would sit beside me!

The Boy on the Bus

A young boy was once travelling on a bus.

He sat so close to a woman dressed in a grey suit that everybody assumed he was her son and she his mother, until finally another woman sat down on the same seat with them.

 When the boy put his feet up on the seat and got the other woman’s dress dirty, she turned to the lady in the grey suit and said, “Would you please tell your son to put his feet down because he is getting my dress dirty?”

 The lady in the grey suit pushed the boy away and said, “He’s not my son. I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

 The second woman looked at the young boy sadly for a moment and then started talking with him. She asked him if he were travelling alone.

 “Yes,” he said, “I always travel alone. My mum and dad are both dead and I live with my Auntie Jane. But Auntie Jane thinks that Auntie Mary ought to take her turn in taking care of me too. So whenever she gets tired of me, she sends me to Auntie Mary. I’m going to Auntie Mary’s now.”

 The woman said, “It must be hard travelling alone.”

“Yes,” said the little boy, “it is. But I never get lost.

 Then he said, “sometimes I do get very lonely. So whenever I see someone with a kind face I sit close to them, and pretend that I belong to them and that they belong to me.”

He continued, “I sure hope that Auntie Mary is home when I get there, because it looks like it is going to rain and I don’t like to be outside when it rains.”

 The woman reached over and grabbed the boy, hugged him so tight that it almost hurt and wished for a moment that this little boy who wanted so much to belong could belong to her.

 ^“So whenever I see someone with a kind face I sit close to them, and pretend that I belong to them and that they belong to me.”

 The woman reached over and grabbed the boy, hugged him so tight that it almost hurt

Literally or metaphorically, should we not all try to embrace someone today with the loving kindness and compassion of Jesus Christ?

The Amazing Mr Bain

The Meenister’s Log

Jimmy Bain was an Elder at St.John’s Whitecraig Church, just outside Musselburgh.

He was one of the kindliest, most decent, caring men you could care to meet.  The owner of a local Quarry business, he once sent his staff on a free holiday to Majorca – as a thank you for their hard work.

On a Sunday morning, when I got into the pulpit there would sometimes be Jimmy’s Hibs Season-Ticket book to allow me to go to Easter Road to watch a Hobbos’ game.  There was, every week, a “sweetie”  lying there for me

Now, talking of sweets, there was a story some years ago about Jimmy and the strange case of the man who flagged down a coach load of school kids.

From memory, it goes something like this: a coach with Primary School children from Kelso was on its way to Edinburgh Zoo.

Suddenly, a car overtook them at great speed and the driver leaped out into the middle of the road, frantically flagging down the bus.

Who was this stranger?  What did he want?

It was, of course, none other than James Bain.

Here’s what had happened: sometime before Jimmy had been driving behind the coach with the youngers who were waving enthusuastically at him from their rear window.

On the spur of the moment, he decided to overtake and find the nearest sweet shop – which he did & bought up what seemed to be half the stock.  By this time, the bus had gone past, so Jimmy got in his car, laden with boxes, and chased after it.

When he caught up, he explained the situation and sweeties were passed around to thrilled youngsters and delighted teachers (and the bus driver!).

In fact, there were so many left over, that virtually the whole school got a treat the next day.

What a wonderful person we had in James Bain

(Jimmy once joked that Nelson Mandela’s first words on being released from prison were “Is Jimmy Bain still giving away sweeties?!)