Common Ground

It is possible to make friends with anyone. The key is to find common ground. As a police officer, that common ground might be the fact that I catch someone breaking the law and arrest them. After 21 years in law enforcement I know that connecting with another person at any level can have a significant impact on their life.

Things don’t get much worse when the police show up. We are the last hope for some. We are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Call 911 and we will show up. Yet it is in these moments of pain and fear where forgiveness, redemption and new beginnings can happen. A common phrase in our culture today is that everyone gets their five minutes of fame. As a police officer, I believe that I have five minutes of opportunity in the lives of everyone I encounter.

I was promoted to police sergeant in 1996. Promotion in my profession means shift work, nights and weekends. One of my early assignments was to work 6:30AM to 4:30PM with Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off. I was the only sergeant assigned the day watch shift and I was expected to be at work, especially during my probationary year.

There was a Promise Keepers conference that year at the Los Angeles Coliseum and it was free to everyone. My work schedule allowed me to attend only the Friday night part of the event. This was my third Promise Keepers conference and I looked forward to going alone. My plan was to sit in the front row, be surrounded by music and singing and let God meet me that evening. God had other plans.

I got to the stadium when the gates opened hours before the event began. I walked out onto the field and felt very small looking up at the stadium seats where I sat for sports events in the past. I had the pick of places to sit and settled into the third row from the front on the aisle. God was good!

The stadium filled over the next few hours and taped music played over the loud speakers. It sounded great. I was excited to hear the worship band live from the front. People were moving about getting things ready for the event. Ushers gave directions, prayer partners took seats designated for them in anticipation of an alter call, lights, microphones and sound equipment were checked and readied. I even had the seat next to me open with 10 minutes to the start of the evening service. God was great!

And then it happened.

Out of the corner of my right eye, I caught a glimpse of orange and black. Years of being a cop meant that I was always aware of out of the ordinary movement and my attention went toward a guy walking along the front row of chairs in a bouncy, trouncy, pouncy sort of way.

Curious.

He made the turn down the aisle I was sitting on and I remembered the empty seat next to me.

Concern.

This brother in Christ is wearing a Tigger t-shirt of the Disney variety. He has a day pack slung over his shoulder with 25 Tigger key rings hanging off of it and he was moving steadily toward the empty seat next to me.

Panic.

He moves in and proclaimed with energy and enthusiasm, “Is anyone sitting there?”

My brain was screaming, “Yes, this seat it taken.” My mouth said, “No one is sitting there.”

He moved past me, plopped into the seat, turned, extended his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Tigger!”

I expected him to break out in a theme song.

Tigger then starts jumping up and down, high fiving and hugging everyone within reach and yells continually how excited he is about the Lord.

I scream inside to God, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!”

The worship band begins as a guy walks up to Tigger and I and says he is a pastor and is supposed to sit on the end of the row for prayer requests. I am a nice guy and give up my seat.

Now what do I do?

All the field seats are gone.

Any hope of a “good” seat has evaporated.

Worship is in progress.

I am alone.

I climb the stadium stairs leaving behind my plan of communing with God in the front row at Promise Keepers resigned to sitting on the stands looking sideways at the stage for the evening. I actually find a seat ten rows off the field and try to refocus on worship and the message offered by the first speaker. Toward the end of worship, I look down on the field to see how Tigger is doing. I can see that he still has bounce and it looks like the guy I gave my seat up to is standing in the aisle to put some distance between himself and the visitor from the Hundred Acre Woods.

Then God met me.

I happen to glance five rows behind the seat I fled from and I see a guy that looks familiar to me. This man stands at six foot, nine inches tall, he is African American and has jeri curls past his shoulders. He is in desperate need of dental work as his teeth stick out in ten different directions. You can’t possibly miss this guy in a crowd. The man’s nickname is Foots. I know Foots because I have arrested him in Santa Barbara for a variety of drug and alcohol crimes over the nine years I was a police officer before my promotion to sergeant.

Foots hung with a crowd of transient men that did nothing more than panhandle, drink and smoke marijuana whenever they could get it. I ran across them almost every day I worked and kept them in line by telling them to move on, writing them tickets or putting them in jail. There was really no other way to manage them and the problems they caused for business owners, residents and visitors to the beach areas of Santa Barbara. I did get to know these guys pretty well over the years. They were generally harmless and I tried to treat them with dignity no matter how drunk or belligerent they were.

I was surprised to see Foots in the crowd. As soon as the alter call ended, I made the decision to go down to where Foots sat and say hello. How he got there, I had no idea but I was encouraged to see a guy I had arrested hanging out at a PK conference. Expecting to say hi and return to the stands, I left my bible and jacket at my seat and made my way back onto the field. As I walked along the front row of the section Foots was in I saw that he was also in the company of another man that I had arrested many times. Johnny was a handsome man that choose drinking and pot smoking as his life’s ambition. He was also street wise and like a cop, was aware of his surroundings.

Johnny saw me before Foots. He clearly does not immediately recognized me because the last thing he expected was to see Sergeant Mike Aspland walking towards him out of uniform. His expressions reveal a thought process that followed the pattern of: “That guy is looking at me.” “Why is that guy staring at me?!” “That guy better stop mad dogging me!” “That guy look’s familiar.” “Hey! That’s Sergeant Aspland!”

A moment later, Johnny elbows Foots and they both watch me turn the corner and approach. It was like I was a long, lost cousin. Handshakes and greetings were exchanged and I asked how they got here from Santa Barbara.

“We came down with the guys from the recovery house we live at in Santa Barbara.” Foots says proudly with a very toothy grin.

I look down the row of ten seats and every one of the chairs is occupied by a man that I know. The common ground was that I had arrested all of them at one time another. Some of the guys I had to wrestle or pepper spray in the course of doing my job. This was becoming a very dysfunctional family reunion. I explain that I am there by myself for the evening event because I have to go to work the next day.

“Mike, would you sit with us?” Foots asked.

What do I do? I begin to piece together the events of the last few hours and can’t help but conclude that this is where God wants to meet me.

“Ok,” I agree, “Let me go get my stuff and I will be right back.”

As I made my way back to my stadium seat to collect my things, I figured that I would still get an aisle seat on the field. Ok, I would have to sit next to guys I work with in one respect or another but hey, it will only be for an hour and a half.

I arrive to take my third seat of the night expecting an aisle seat only to find that Foots and Johnny made a guy move out from the center of the row and expect me to sit in the middle! So there I am. I have Foots to my right, Johnny to my left and the rest of the seats are filled with law breakers!
I tell Johnny and Foots, “Look here, if you start beating me with fists and tell everyone you are laying hands on me, I will be very upset!”

Laughter.

“Where are you staying?” I ask Foots.

“Oh Mike, we are staying at the Radisson. I aint never stayed at a place like that before.”

“Well if we get home and I find you brought any towels back with you,” I responded with my best authoritarian tone, “I will arrest you for possession of stolen property!”

More laughter.

Consider for a moment the experience of those sitting around us. The men in Johnny and Foots’ row were clearly from the wrong side of the tracks. They were substance abusers, gang members, probationers, parolees and homeless. If you ran into any of these guys outside of the Coliseum that night, you would avoid them at all costs. Imagine watching a young, clean cut guy of the wonder bread mentality settle in with these guys and survive the experience!

The evening turned out well. We worshipped the Lord, listened to a message and then held hands and prayed together. In the end, Foots turned to me and said, “No wonder you were always so nice to us.”

I left for the night and considered what Foots told me. I was not vocal with these guys about my faith but I did try to meet them where they were at with every encounter. It was in those moments a foundation was put in place for us to find common ground and worship the Lord together.