Luke 6:30: “Give to everyone who begs from you.” Mostly I do. A man stands by the trash receptacle in front of a big box pharmacy. He asks me for fifty cents to make bus fare. It’s hot. He’s sweating. I don’t have fifty cents. I hand him a dollar and he offers me two quarters in change. I thank him, decline the quarters and go on my way. Then I take a notion to buy him a cold ice tea. I look back and he’s making his way to the bus stop and the bus is almost there.
Dismissals
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The Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko tells of a day in Moscow toward the end of World War II. Led by a cohort of Russian generals, there was a parade of captured German soldiers. As the prisoners approached the city, Russian citizens jeered them. The line of prisoners, some wounded, some without coats, stretched into the distance, hundreds then thousands, trudging through the city. As the line continued the taunts diminished until the crowd was silent. An old woman went forward and held out a crust of bread. A German prisoner took it. Then another woman and another went forward to give food or their scarves and gloves. These were women who had lost sons, fathers, brothers and husbands in the…
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The man knelt in the cool dark of the church, head bowed, hands clasped, “Lord, please let me win the lottery!” For years he prayed, “Just this once! Let me win the lottery!” One night, deep in his prayer, he heard a stiffening wind. A beam high in the nave creaked then came a terrific rending sound as arches and rafters split, the roof of the church lifted and stillness came like none the man had ever known. From the night sky into the silence, it was the voice of God: “Give me a break! At least buy a ticket!”
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I attended church with my dad only one time. My dad had a strict upbringing, no Sunday funnies until Monday, that sort of thing. He never forgot it. He let me read the funnies on Sunday and, even so, I found the church. Eventually. My Dad believed in the Five Dollar Prayer. Once, when a family fell on hard times, the father had been laid off and the child was sick, everybody prayed. My dad gathered up five dollars in groceries and we took the groceries to the family. We didn’t stay but a minute, a Sunday I’ll never forget.
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A yellowed 1924 newspaper clipping told of a gala dinner. The wealthy citizens gathered to pledge money to build a city hospital. A few gave substantial sums but most gave modestly so the goal to build the hospital remained distant. Mr. McCabe, a dry goods proprietor, was known to be miserly and had made no pledge. Several benefactors, thinking they might encourage McCabe to let loose of a few dollars, offered to double anything he might give. McCabe stood and said quietly, “I shall give ten thousand dollars.” As of that moment, the city hospital was as good as built.
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The old man stood on a windy street corner. He set the black case on the pavement, blew a few times on his hands, took out the saxophone and started in. The saxophone was dented, a patina dulled the shine … but the sound! People slowed and many stopped to listen as the music echoed through the canyon of buildings. The old man played on and I stood, recollecting. Most days I want to be the musician and make the music. On that day, for once, I wanted only to be the saxophone and let the musician make music with me.
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A soup kitchen in a church basement, a dozen cooks, pots clashing, hungry people eating a little too fast. The man sat by himself in a corner on a folding chair reading the newspaper. He didn’t eat and he didn’t wash dishes, so I asked him and he said, “See all those old folks in the kitchen? If I didn’t bring them, they wouldn’t be here. Be a waste of good cooks! Lotsa good cooks can’t drive, you know. I bring the cooks. I take the cooks home. You could say driving the cooks is my ministry.” You could indeed.
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The old man brought his boy to Little League practice. The old man didn’t help out like the other dads, he just sat the bleachers and watched. One day the coach called over, “Hey, Gramps! How ‘bout you hit a few balls to the outfielders?” A little shaky coming off the bleacher, he took up a weathered bat, spit in his palm and called out, “Center-field! Look sharp!” Whack! That ball arced up and up and fell to earth right close to his boy. It was an error on the center-fielder but a happier center-fielder there never was.
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I knew Eddie was raised by his uncle but I didn’t know why. When his uncle died, I went to the funeral. Eddie gave the eulogy. He told of being arrested when he was thirteen for an adolescent prank. He was sent to the wayward boys’ home. When his time was done, his father would not let him come home. It was Eddie’s uncle who took him in. Eddie finished high school, served in the Navy and landed a good job. At the funeral, Eddie told us of his one, great regret: His father and his uncle never spoke again.
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At the homeless shelter, sitting on a folding chair in an out-of-the-way nook, he leaned in close to listen to a homeless man. He listened, then said a few words, then listened. I watched him from across the room. I would have asked him about the conversation, what was said? I never had the chance. Once the conversation ended, he made a beeline for the door. There could be no appearance of a broken confidentiality, no possibility that casual chatter might betray a trust. He just plain up and left and the men respected him for it.
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The automobiles of my father‘s day needed attention … oil was ‘topped up’ … tires went ‘porous’… radiators ‘boiled over.’ He told me, “When you change a tire, tap the dipstick on the lug nut. The oil will free it up.” His most cryptic automotive expression, about cars and about life, was to be at ‘top dead center’… a piston stopped at the top of its travel, the engine wouldn’t start until you rotated the crankshaft a few degrees with the hand crank. I’m sometimes at top dead center … at a standstill, a little lost and looking for the hand crank.
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Uncle Austin was Fred’s great uncle … his father’s mother’s brother. Fred could not recollect ever meeting Uncle Austin. He lived far away. From Fred’s earliest years, at every birthday, Christmas and on myriad saints’ days, Uncle Austin mailed Fred an envelope with a prayer card and other churchy bric-a-brac. Fred kept this stuff in a shoebox, mostly unopened. Uncle Austin died the same year Fred graduated high school. Fred learned then that, for every envelope Uncle Austin sent him, Uncle Austin put five dollars in a savings account in Fred’s name. All those prayer cards … and now college.
