Michael Kane took his time with the paperwork. I don’t know if I was daydreaming or just too overwhelmed, but if you looked at me you’d probably think I was a crash test dummy waiting for the car to hit the wall. It’s like those moments when you don’t want to get up in the morning. You keep hitting the snooze button. A late eight o’clock came way too quick. Each five minute interval between the hospitalizing beeps you lay there, tossing and turning, struggling with the bed sheets and the sun and finding the right sleep position again – that perfect mold of you in your bed – just so you don’t have to wake up on Friday. It doesn’t matter what day it is. This is one of those re-occurring, almost ritualistic things you do every morning.
I was stuck in that state between sleep and awake. That state where you’re conscious of everything, but you don’t comprehend it.
In a way, that’s almost how we walk around from day to day. Yeah, we are conscious of the day and we go through all the motions, but I can’t say for sure that we’re actually living the day. Okay, okay, we’re living; I don’t doubt that, but I think there’s a difference between merely going through the motions – having your heart beat millions of times – and living each second of the day like it’s a new time.
To the pure in heart, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (Titus 1:15&16)
I found Old Man John sitting on his bench. He always sits right at the top of
He usually sits to the left side of the bench. It’s very inviting, but only if you knew him. If not, he just seems like yet another homeless man. Just another homeless man with his hair disheveled and falling out from under his baseball cap. I think he’s had the same baseball cap his whole life. It resembles more of an American turban caving in at the seams and flopping over like a rag doll in a little girl’s arms. He sits there with his stomach bloated. I only thought John put on some weight while he was away on the
I don’t know how John came to be a statue on that bench – the lonely man with a tank of air always as a companion. The tubes are merely another part of his body at this point. And to think, he still smokes a butt every now and then. He’s still addicted to the one thing that I know helped him come to live on that bench.
You see. I used to know John as a customer of mine. I used to serve him his small coffee with plenty of room for cream and milk. Maybe that was the only way for him to sweeten life a little bit. Maybe life had become too bitter and the black coffee reminded him of that. It was always House Blend. No sleeve; he says there isn’t any feeling left in his hands so it doesn’t matter anyways. And he’d join the Mensa group like a normal person. At least, what we think of as normal. You know, a person who brings home a paycheck, has a place to live and goes about life like the rest of us. That’s what normal is, right?
You and me, we’re normal. But what about that man begging for change? What about that drunk stumbling out of a bar right before noontime? What about that obnoxious kid in school always having to stay after for detention? Or that kid who buys the porn mags? Or that girl everyone calls a whore because we all believe what others say and they say she gets around? You know, that slut, that prostitute, the killer, murderer, kidnapper, thief, business man, athlete, lawyer, doctor, that person with AIDS, HIV positive, that churchgoer, Jesus lover, that woman sitting across from you on the Tube all dressed in her black hijab, cripple war vet, mentally retarded person, preacher, or that nigger, chink, cracker, red neck, that Bible-basher, gospel singer, Jehovah’s witness walking to your doorstep, or your neighbor; what about anyone you see on any given day, are they normal in your eyes?
To the pure in heart, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (Titus 1:15&16)
I almost passed by John that day and proved the point that he truly was just another person in my eyes. Someone who I don’t have to say “hello” to even though we both noticed each other. I couldn’t walk away because I knew he saw me. I’m not sure if I could even walk away if he didn’t see me. There would still be something in me saying, “Turn around. Go back to him. Say hi. At least say hi.”
I sat with the man. I took that inviting seat to watch the world with him. And he told me about everyone he saw.
“I saw that guy grow up.” John was talking about this man who came back from getting his coffee. A young business-looking man driving a nice Porsche. “He’s going to own all of Plymouth one day, just like his father.”
“John, seems like you know most people in town,” I said to him.
“Well, that’s what happens when you help to build the place. You know, I wasn’t always like this. I was like you before – a young 26-year old building these buildings. I had it all. The others f***ed around.” John was never the best with his words. He always had the tongue of someone who’d seen too many winters out in the cold. He knew life for what it was, but somehow he still managed to smile. “But I had it all,” he kept saying.
And I dare not ask his definition of life. I didn’t have to; I saw the effects of such a cruel world on him. How they sent him to the streets. How he went from living above the old court house one day, to collapsing before my eyes.
His hands were shaking that day. He couldn’t even hold his cup of coffee. And his cough was something I’d never heard before. Like he was coughing up his insides. His whole heart trying to escape, gasp for air. He went to sit. Coffee spilled. The metal table screeched like it was dragged across the entire floor as it rocked back and forth finding balance. Next thing you know we were calling for an ambulance. I never saw what happened. It was more like a reel of film caught on the slowest setting. The point in a movie when everything goes black and white because there’s too much reality to take in. The point when the music builds and builds to a deafening silence.
I saw a movie play in front of me. Reality was too much to handle. And that’s how it hit me – only as a film.
You see. My heart breaks for Old Man John. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that he is less fortunate than me. I asked him where he’s sleeping now. He pointed over to the Church of the Pilgrimage and told me it was on that porch. Said he was waiting for his social security check to come so he could find a place. He didn’t want to stay in Plymouth anymore.
But it was nearing 7:00 and I had to get onto work. He was telling me of this little bird who’d been making its home in a nest above us. Talked of this bird like it was his best friend. “Couldn’t believe that the other day it had sat there next to me,” he said. And now I found the real reason why he always stayed to one side of the bench.
You know, with this story I’m not saying you should go up to every homeless person in your area and sit a while with him. Talk with him. It’s more that we should still approach any person as a person, as human. Okay, so he’s homeless. He’s a little different from me. Oh well. He’s still someone who purposefully leaves that extra part of a bench open for someone else to sit.
I mean, how pathetic is it that a homeless man is more open to relationship than me, a Christian, a person who’s supposed to be showing the world this great and magnificent life that God provides? I can’t get over this fact. I can’t get over the idea that I’m meant to show the light of the world to people, that I’m meant to be that light for them. I’m meant to be their neighbor. I’m meant to love them like I love myself. And what do I do, I have the gall and selfishness to pass by someone who’s probably looking for nothing more than a simple “hello.”
We all want to be acknowledged. We don’t want to be passed by. We don’t want to be left out. That feeling of being ditched is horrible. Yet I have the choice to make someone else feel that way. I have a choice to either sit next to Old Man John or just go on my way. And I have the choice to either live for God or not.
So what am I telling people I choose when I pass by someone in need? Whether their need is for something huge that I could never possibly provide or whether it’s for a simple “hi” or searching around in my pockets for whatever change I have to give.
We have a choice today to give everything over to God. To live for God. To bring glory and honor to the One who’s somehow created the clouds suspended in the skies, who’s somehow created us in his likeness. We have a choice today to accept those who are different, and to be ourselves, different. We have a choice to say, “You know, I only have eight dollars, I can still give that to someone who needs it more than me.” Or to say, “This eight dollars will get me a coffee and a scone from Starbucks.”
It’s not a choice that’s meant to guilt us, but it’s one that’s meant to show us the reality of the world we live in and the God we pursue.
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