On the Inestimable Moral Authority
... of Jim Harmon's Mom
Back when I was a graduate student at Purdue University, I drove an old beater car that I called the Dodge Veg-O-Matic, after this song:
When I first bought my 1972 Dodge Coronet in the summer of 1980, I painted it a bright taxicab yellow.
This story involves that car, and probably happened in the fall of 1982. I remember the air as being cool and crisp that night (high barometric pressure, no doubt).
On the evening, I was attending a Bible Study at the home of my friend Jim Harmon. He lived in a farmhouse with is family, and I’m pretty sure his dad was a pastor, and that their church met in the Harmon house. Jim was a handsome young man with a mop of dark brown hair, probably 3 or 4 years my junior. He looked a bit like Mark Lindsay of “Paul Revere & the Raiders” fame, in case you’re old enough to remember that band.
On this particular evening, Bible Study had just concluded, and everyone was saying our good-byes out in the driveway. Then, an unfortunate thing happened. As I was backing the Veg-O-Matic out of the driveway, my rear bumper struck Jim’s vehicle. I forget what sort of thing he was driving, possibly a small pickup, but anyhow it was nicer than my car, and I dented his fender.
I got out of the car to assess the damage, and then all of a sudden, Jim’s mom appeared, like some sort of guardian (or avenging?) angel. She had been on the porch, I think; anyway, she had witnessed my clumsy collision. Jim came over to look at the damage also. He looked sad. But before either of us could really get a good look (it was past sundown), Jim’s mom (dark-haired, like Jim, if I recall, and of an age that I would now consider young) shouted to us:
“Jim - Paul is forgiven! You two boys shake on that right now!”
The lightning quickness of her intervention took me by surprise. I didn’t think it was necessary. Jim was not known to be quick to anger, and I think we could have settled things. But she was adamant, and we shook hands, a bit sheepishly, I think.
This kind of forgiveness, this kind of “Lord’s prayer” response, this Gospel of absolution could not have been something she thought about after the collision. It was far too quick for that! No, this was an instinct for forgiveness and peacemaking that she must have been cultivating for many years of her obedience to Jesus. It was in her very bones.
I’m trying to remember another time when I have heard a woman speak with such moral authority, confidence, serenity, strength, and good cheer. I suppose I can think of a few examples. But it the memory of her intervention came back to me tonight, as I was working on yet another oil painting which attempts to portray a strong woman. But when God brought this thought, unheralded, to my mind, I thought: That’s who I ought to paint: Jim Harmon’s Mom!
Beautiful story!