Dismissals

Politics … one wrong word and the conversation is over. He emailed, “If you haven’t the common sense to support [so-and-so] I have no more to say to you.” I’d known him for years and thought him a friend. My vexation overtook me. I was consumed in devising the perfect, devastating reply. Then I was given a prayer, entirely for my friend’s well-being, that peace and all good might be his to enjoy, now and always. I wrote those words to him, not sure if he would reply, yet certain these were the words I needed to send.

Long ago, I bought a bus ticket, New York City to Trenton. That Greyhound could fly down the highway but, about every ten minutes, a few men stood and moved to the front. The driver obligingly pulled over and opened the door. The men filed off. They walked toward waiting cars parked nearby and the Greyhound pulled back on the highway. The guy next to me explained, “Those men, they’re busboys, porters, dishwashers, bellhops and such. They stay over in the city, eleven days on, three days off. The drivers understand, drop them off close to home as they can.” 

Shelley Douglas, peace activist, writer, and mother, wrote this reflection in 1996 about the “unforced rhythms of grace” and the smallest favors given: “A cool washcloth over a dirty face, tears dried, a breath of air, relief. Forgiveness, pardon, healing. The easy yoke, the love that cherishes the broken vessel, and the picture where we [colored] outside the lines. Children can sense it: We are loved. We forget [we are loved] and we judge. When I want to do good, evil is near —- but love will have the last word.” … and there it is: “Love will have the last word.” Published in Living the Word, Reflections on the Revised Common Lectionary, Jim Wallis, Editor, Sojourner’s, 1996)

Last week, I learned that the men’s shelter was starting a regular art session for residents. I was skeptical. I doubted the men would be interested in art of any kind, but I showed up. A half-dozen residents, gathered around a folding table, were painting paper mache masks … some masks muted or monochromatic … others masks vivid and bright. I pulled up a chair only to watch. Somehow, I cannot quite recall how, I ended up with a brush, paint, and my very own mask. As we painted, we fell into conversation. This old world holds many surprises for me.

I have a lot of old stuff … other people’s old stuff … books, photo albums, paintings, bric-a-brac … and more yellowed wedding gowns, stored in old trunks, than I will ever have need of … all from family long gone … now my stuff to keep and care for. To lighten my load, I decided to keep only those things that had two-out-of-three of these characteristics: Value, Function, and Sentiment. An old stove-top coffee percolator? No value, but it makes good coffee and brings up good memories … a keeper. Regrettably, the old wedding gowns will fare less well.

Every week I set two chairs in the hallway at the men’s shelter. I take one for myself and wait for a man to sit and a conversation to begin. When I started, I waited six weeks before someone would sit and talk. I’m careful not to look at my watch or phone. I don’t read the newspaper and I do my best not to fidget. I nod to any passersby. It’s taken time but the wait’s been worth it. Now, the other chair is almost always occupied. I’m a happy listener, and the men are remarkably patient with me. 

Our church held a Guns to Gardens event … guns hammered into garden tools … generous gift cards in exchange for any firearm, any condition. People brought in firearms of every type and kind and they were heated and hammered into trowels. As the event wound down we watched cars drive by. Someone said it’s not only the number of guns we turn into garden tools, it’s the visibility of our work to get guns out of circulation. I imagined that in one passing car the driver said, “We should get Dad’s old pistol out of the closet and bring it here.”

I was thirteen when my father took the notion that I spend the summer working with Jim. Jim was the maintenance man where my father worked. My father wore a necktie. Jim did not. “You’ll learn things,” said my father … and I did. Jim taught me how to start a balky lawnmower, make a key for a lock, mop a floor, polish brass, clean a toilet. Jim taught me to help when someone had a flat tire … never to take wooden nickels … always to call home at noon … to be kind to strangers because, as Jim said, “You never know.”

I was asked … challenged is more like it … “Why do you spend your time and energy on those people, prisoners, homeless and such? Aren’t there good and decent people who need a deacon’s help?” I could not answer the question then, but only mumble something about how Jesus ate with sinners and outcasts. Still, it is an excellent question: Why do I do it? An answer came from the blue … perhaps words I’d heard before? Now, when I am among the least of us, and someone asks me, “Why?” … I tell them this: “It is my pathology. I love everyone.” 

I waited to board a bus. Ahead of me a woman, her salad days long past, trundled a wicker basket full of folded clothes. The bus came, the door opened, the driver shouted down to her, “Can’t bring that basket unless you pay an extra fare!” She was crestfallen and rooted about for the few extra coins she might have. The man behind me said, “I’ll pay the fare!” He came around me, took the basket, mounted the bus and paid the fare for himself, the woman, and the basket. I rode the bus in silence. I learn every day.

I saw her only once … on the day I was born … Pat, the nurse in the delivery room. For many years, on my birthday, a card came to me signed simply, “Nurse Pat.” I gave it little thought then. Still, there was something special about it. Over the years, I learned of others who were “Nurse Pat Babies” and heard she was a delivery nurse for forty years. In time, the cards quit coming. I’d seen her only that one time, but Nurse Pat comes to mind whenever I write a card or letter. Thanks, Nurse Pat. Rest in peace.

My friend told me that sometimes … not often, but sometimes … Jesus calls him into the sheepfold. There, with Jesus, he tries to make sense of this dispirited and untidy world … the wars … poverty … climate change … so many guns. In the sheepfold, my friend has time to pray and think deeply … time to be with Jesus and to find rest in him. Then, with a kind word and a prayer, Jesus opens the gate and sends my friend back into the world where, on his better days, he works, prays and lives not for himself, but for the good of others.