Seeds from the Sower

Every time I hear a siren, I pray.
It's a reflexive action now, one that began in high school - and no, it's not because I'm afraid someone is coming for me (although there is that).
It doesn't matter whether it's a fire truck, a police car, an ambulance; it doesn't matter whether I hear it while driving down the road, sitting in my office, at home or in church. The reaction has become instinctual - a quick prayer for whatever the emergency is; for the responders, for the victims (if there are any), for safety, and most importantly that in whatever the situation might be, God's presence will be felt.
And then, I think about Michael Guido .
See, it is because of Michael Guido that I do this.
While Michael Guido sounds like an Italian mobster from the Godfather movie, in fact he was - Michael Guido passed away in 2009, at the age of 94 - what is commonly referred to as an "evangelist." He was a regular at the church I grew up attending, and his multi-media ministry, based in a then-small but prosperous Southern town of Metter, Ga. (town motto: "Everythings better in Metter!"), was a regular trip for the kids in this church.
Michael Guido was not Southern, by any means. He was exactly what his name sounds like - a Yankee from up north somewhere. A former big band singer, he settled in Metter because that's where the lady he married was from (and Michael Guido loved to say he "met her in Metter" and laugh like that was a funniest joke he'd ever heard). Besides preaching, Michael Guido was a singer and he produced short radio, TV, and newspaper devotional-type messages from his studios in Metter.
The thing about Metter, Ga., was that it had this wonderful old Southern town square, which happened to be the first place I ever ran into a Klan recruiter.
Right there on the town square on this summer Saturday afternoon was a table, with pamphlets and posters and all the propaganda of the Ku Klux Klan. There were a couple of guys manning the table, very open about being member of the Klan, and more than happy to talk to this goofy, long-haired kid from Atlanta. I don't remember them as crazy skinhead types, but just ordinary guys spending an ordinary Saturday doing what, for them, was an ordinary activity. No big deal.
Still, we all know the prejudice that the Klan stands for. And then you go a little way down the road and you run into the ministry of Michael Guido, as I said a Yankee, who always had what in my mind was this big Ernest Borgnine-kind of smile and seemed so full of love and grace and acceptance. Michael Guido became perhaps the most famous citizen of Metter, and his influence soon eclipsed that of the Klan.
Anyway, one time when Michael Guido was preaching at the church I grew up in, some kind of emergency vehicle went by outside, siren blaring. And the way I remember it, Michael Guido stopped in mid-sermon, explaining that he made it a habit to always pray when he heard a siren, which he proceeded to do.
Needless to say, that made an impression on me. I began to follow Michael Guido's lead from then on, and even now, these many years later, I can't hear a siren without throwing up a quick, silent prayer - and thinking of Michael Guido.
Many, many years later I was driving down I-59 in Alabama and I came across a Christian talk radio show. The host said his guest was this evangelist from Georgia named Michael Guido, who would be speaking at some conference that night, and he opened up the phone lines for people to call in and talk to Michael Guido.
Nobody did. The host kept getting Michael Guido to talk, and Michael Guido told about why his ministry was based in Metter, Ga ("I met her in Metter,'' he said, with that same big hearty laugh, as if it were the first time he'd ever thought of that joke). But nobody ever called.
The host was clearly embarrassed. It wasn't that he didn't usually get calls - I'd heard his show from time to time while traveling, and he did have some measure of popularity (enough to later be elected to the Alabama legislature). And he kept apologizing to Michael Guido, saying it was unfortunate  that Michael Guido's radio broadcasts were not carried in this area so undoubtedly people were not familiar with him.
This was before cell phones, and I kept thinking I should pull off the interstate at the next gas station and call in, because I could ask Michael Guido about his radio ministry, about this big German Shepherd dog that he had that once rescued some wandering hobo out of the woods, about how I remembered him coming to preach at my church growing up and the impact he had on me - all these memories from my youth.
But I didn't.
And for days afterward, I felt bad about that.
Here's the thing, though - Michael Guido's ministry was called "Seeds from the Sower."
Funny how those seeds get planted, and what those seeds - all these years later - still produce.
You never know, do you?