Fairfield Inn and Repartee

Who is this young man, you ask? This is Amon and he was the first person I met a year or more ago when I started staying at the Fairfield Inn when I am in Columbia. I like this place for lots of reasons. It is only about two years old and the interior design is what I would call Neo-Modern. I always stay in the same room. And everybody knows my name---actually they call me Ms. Cox-Johnson, I'll have to tell them soon that I am just Cox. Amon, Cassie and Chuck, the manager are very nice to me---Amon always gives me my evening carton of 2% milk as does anyone else working. here.

Amon is from a family with many children, all of whom are named after Old Testament names. When I went to the concordance and looked up Amon I found out that he was one of the bad boy kings in Judah, continuing the idolatry of his father, Wikipedia says, and his two years reign was marked by moral depravity. He was assassinated by his conspiring servants. His eight year old son Josiah succeeded to the throne---Josiah being the good guy king after a long line of the other kind.

Amon has told me some about his family. Apparently when his father was in his twenties, he had a born again experience that birthed him into a radically conservative type of Christianity. Thus the OT names. Amon told me this evening that his father kind of "came out of it" later in life. And Amon said that this was a good thing because his father had taken it all to such an extreme that it has caused family discord.

Amon represents the Fairfield Inn well. We have a repartee that I don't think I have had with any other hotel employee. I love that. And I love the fact that I have an ongoing conversation with this young man. I told him several months ago about the meaning of his name--he apparently had no idea what kind of a guy he was named after. I am not sure why parents would name their kid this. Who wants to go around all your life with a bad boy king's name? Especially if you're a very pleasant young man?

I am glad for this hotel as a sort of odd home away from home. It's really an okay place. But I especially glad for Amon, for the growth of relationship and for an opportunity to gradually, and as God leads, to engage in a deepening conversation about the important things of life.