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Sometimes I wonder what we would be if we were fully awake. It seems our senses and minds are half asleep, desensitived to everything except the most painful or novel things. At times there is a wakefulness around me and it seems my mind is opened for brief moments and I see it: the Glory. It happened a week ago. Our faith community has recently moved to meeting in homes for a while since the Serentiy Club closed. The family was gathered in a living room and shared a warm time together. As our firends trickled out, some going to afternoon engagments, others home, a few of us stayed behind for an impromptu lunch: vegitarian tacos and crispy fries. After dinner, Joe*, a man with long blondish hair and beard like a viking — our resident folk hero, classic car collector, mechanic, humorist, and political satirist — began talking about kids. He spoke frankly, with his down to business style: Kids are ungrateful. “You bring them into this world, give them everthing. Money. Love. You know how many birthday cards I got this year….None. Not One.” He told a story about flying six hours to see his grown daughters. After the flight and a long drive they shared an annual lunch together. Just a lunch. Once a year. And that’s it. But Joe’s no wimp, and he’s a realist. He goes every year just for that lunch because that’s what he has. And it made me think of God, longing for his people, his children. There is a sorrow there that can only come from a great loss. After everything, we move away, we forget. But still he takes what he can get. Meeting us when we’re willing. When we make just one moment to remember. A couple of days later it happened while I was driving. Where I don’t remember. But unexpectedly, Roberto* drifted into my mind. It was odd to think of him. I hadn’t seen him in more that two months — ever since he began his prison term. Before that, his life had been a dizzying spiral. He had met an old girl friend in his second stint at a local shelter. He had been separated from her the last time he did time — about three months. He had talked about her before, and how happy he would be to find her again. It seemed he often thought of her – where was she, how was she? Well, his girl is scitzophrenic. If she’s on her meds she’s ok — just a little dreamy and childlike. But off her meds, she’s violent, manipulative, and self-medicates with coke. It would be an understatement to say their relationship is complicated. All the same, now that he found her, Roberto wouldn’t let her go. The trouble was the shelter is in the projects, and like most shelters, drugs folow pretty freely. The girlfriend didn’t have money, but she had other means of paying the dealers, if you know what I mean. It was all Roberto could do to keep them away from her. In the months that I had known Roberto, I never saw him fight like that. He took her to work, which was a pain, but was the only way to keep her under supervision. He went to Community Action for help with getting a place together. He wept in ernest asking people for help. And he got so close to making it. He and his girl were not in a hotel because the shelter was too dangerous. They had to stay in that part of town so they qualified as residents and could get help with a deposit on an apartment. A few days wait, and they would be on their way. The problem was, Roberto’s girl snapped. The hotel was in a redlight district, and she kept saying she wanted to go out. Finally, she managed to convince Roberto to let her go to the lobby to get a snack. When she was gone for half-an-hour, Roberto went looking. She was headed down the street with a hoker who knew where she could get some coke. Roberto drug her back to the room, heartbroken but determined. She threw a fit. All of the sudden, she picked up the phone a clocked Roberto across the forehead with it. Blood everywhere, he called a cab to pick her up and take her to her mother’s house — where she stayed inbetween the street. As far as I know, that was the last Roberto ever saw of her. He still talks about wanting to go look for her. He says, “But it’s just such a waste. She’s a good girl. White. Pretty. Young. Smart. Raised in a good family. Just such a waste.” If he thinks about what she’s doing to get her high or the kinda abuse she gets on the street, he cries. Again, I saw God here. Here is Jesus and his church. He is forever looking for us, and yet we are only with him occasionally, and unless we are medicated, our thoughts begin to wander to kicks and tricks. But he searches for us and with tears, sweat, and blood makes a place for us, just so we can turn our backs on him again. But this has always been the story of God and his people. Amazing. *Better get used to me changing names.
Original content by: http://blog.thetruthtree.com/?p=15.
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Scott Bartchy is a radical. He believes in a subversive system that embraces those on the fringes of our society and seeks to establish a new way of life that goes against the status quo.