The Time Jesus Came to Rugby, North Dakota

He wasn't exactly the walks on water, savior of mankind version from the bible but I had to do a double take at the man in shepherd's clothing walking down Main Street. As a kid growing up in Rugby, this was exactly why I spent hours of my week dragging main: the hope of seeing something different.  On this particular summer evening the man we kids would take to calling "Jesus" would be that something different. Very different.

I miss the summer nights in Rugby, because the sun is up until bedtime. I loved those summer nights in the sunlight. On this night we gathered under the sun at the Merchant's Bank parking lot to talk to this mysterious stranger. Of course since we were teenagers, we were there to make fun of him for being "strange". We made fun of his clothes and his shepherd's staff. We ridiculed him for his preaching. He told us he wasn't Jesus and wasn't trying to be, only trying to spread his message. We ridiculed him more. Looking back, I don't feel bad about this even though I joined in. We were kids. Kids are jerks.

I wish I could remember his name but I don't. I can't say that I took to his message about the gospel and the word of the Lord, but I did take something away. It was one of the deadly sins he might have told us about, given the time. I envied him. He told about quitting his job to walk the U.S. and spread his message. The job and life he had left behind were hundreds of miles away in Missouri. He had been walking for years leading this new life. He had visited small towns like ours and big cities I had only dreamed of seeing.

I knew the path that was laid out before me. I was intelligent, so there was no way I wasn't going to college. I knew I'd likely go into a business program because that's what people who still aren't sure what they want to do choose in college. Admit it, my fellow business majors, unless you picked one of the numbers based skills like finance or accounting, you basically just picked business because it was a step above liberal arts. I think every marketing, management, international business, retail management, hospitality management, organizational behavior, human resource management, and small business management major out there has a little wanderer in them. Why else would we pick a program we know does not have a definitive career waiting at the end? This was the route I was headed.

I revolted a little against the plan. I decided at the last minute I wanted to go to North Dakota State (Go Bison!) instead of the private Catholic school I had received a scholarship to attend. I did this without ever having toured the campus. Years later, when I wrapped up my degree for wanderers, I took my brother up on his offer to rent a room from him in Phoenix. As I made both these decisions, I thought about the man who gave up everything to walk the countryside. I have strayed from the planned path just enough to indulge my wandering spirit while still being a functioning and contributing member of society.

Fifteen years or so later, I'm sure that man (if he is still out there) would be a little disappointed that his message of salvation was not the one that resonated with me. A few days after the initial meeting, I was headed to the nearby big "city", Minot, to go shopping at the mall. We passed the man about 30 miles down the road dripping with sweat on a muggy North Dakota afternoon. As we passed him walking alongside the highway, part of me thought "that poor man", but mostly I just thought "that lucky son of a...."

I was going to wrap things up there (and it would have been a good Hollywood style finish) but I decided to do a little research. In the era of the Internet, I figured I might be able to come up with something if I dug for a while. It literally took me until the second item on Google to come across this



I have no clue if it's the same guy, but the story sounds familiar...