On an ordinary Saturday morning a few weeks ago, I decided Waffle House could make our breakfast. My kids love the crispy bacon and any adventure on a weekend. I love not having to wash dishes. We went out the door in our pajamas, tromping into the restaurant and wrestling ourselves into the booth, enjoying the morning. They had brought picture books for me to read while we waited for the food. My tenderhearted first grader wanted to talk through an argument with a friend, and my high-decibel toddler wanted to holler about everything and everyone he sees: the holiday decorations, that person’s hash browns, the server’s earrings, and a man at the counter who looks like Santa. I snuck a glance where he was pointing and saw it was a fair assessment. He was wearing a red flannel shirt and red and white hat, long white beard, and the man was smiling to himself—I’m sure he overheard the little observer. I tried not to be too embarrassed, and we went on with our breakfast and conversations.
As we finished up our waffles and bacon, the server came back by and grabbed the ticket she’d left on our table earlier. “Oh, I’m sorry! Do I pay you here or at the register?” I asked. “You don’t,” she smiled back. “That man over there got your meal!” I looked, and sure enough, it was the man at the counter. I made sure the kids were still occupied and stepped over to thank him. He smiled and shrugged. “No need to say thank you. Jesus told me to do that.” A little teary-eyed, I loaded my kids back into the car and told them what had happened. “Maybe it really was Santa,” they speculated. Later, I shared this experience with a member of our parish, and she immediately said, “I think he was an angel! They walk among us, you know!”
Maybe! Perhaps he was Santa, perhaps he was an angel. But I wonder if making this kind stranger into a supernatural being might take away from the gift. After all, are the ordinary mystics so rare, so unthinkable, that we must attribute this moment to an otherworldly being? Is it so strange to do a little good in the world and attribute the impulse to something holy?
A mystic is any person who is connected to divine communication, so focused on contemplating God that they are able to hear or notice the Holy Spirit in a particular way. Many of us might read the books of the prophets in scripture or the ancient writings of the church’s desert mothers and fathers with distant curiosity. Their visions and writings were filled with bizarre images and a particular spiritual intimacy with God’s voice and calling that can seem impossible. We read their words and think, “That’s great, but God doesn’t talk to me that way,” or “That’s weird stuff and can’t be real.” But God does not always speak through wild visions or a loud, audible voice.
The Waffle House mystic, right here in Athens, saw an invitation to bring a little bit of love and care to strangers. For him, that opportunity was an invitation from God to share the love that he has understood in Jesus. And anyway, in a world of self-preservation and division, the prophetic, mystical act of care without expecting anything in return might be just as odd as the proclamations of Jeremiah or as radical as St. Macrina. But the oddness and holiness is not a separate project for the angels and the named prophets. We are all able to be a part of this work of love in the world. Any time we offer graciousness and forgiveness, a gentle word and the benefit of the doubt; any time we shelter the unhoused and feed the hungry, we have become practical, ordinary mystics, communicating a divine message of love.