He turned around and tried again.
Click. Click. Click.
The bright orange glow that finally appeared at the end of the cigarette commanded silence. Three times before, he pulled from his dirty green jacket pocket half-used cigarettes picked up off of the ground, a common practice among the homeless who are desperate for something to indulge themselves in. Three times before, he lit cigarettes and took a single puff before the tiny flame burnt the leftover tobacco into ashes while dispassionately answering all of my shallow inquiries into his life.
This time, it seemed wrong to talk in the moment, to take away from what pleasure Don had left to hold onto in this world. Pleased with his victory against Mother Nature, he sucked in that potent smoke and breathed out noxious fumes that induced him to cough a smoker’s cough. Though I was concerned before, this time I felt right about asking him if he was ok. Then I told him that he should probably stop smoking. He agreed.
My time with Don was short. We didn’t talk too much. He confessed to me that he didn’t always have any words to say anyway. I didn’t either. Regardless, we spent about an hour together that day, exchanging what words we did find within ourselves in a weak attempt to establish friendship through such means. Nevertheless, I found two moments beyond words – in particular because of the very absence of my own words – that paint my memory of Don that day.
Between that third and fourth cigarette, we had made our way to the south-west corner of Clinton Dewitt Park. Pleasantly warmed by the descending sun, we found solace on the cold, bare cement with our backs up against the metal gate. We came this way to “fellowship”, as he called it, by talking, eating, and being together. Unraveling his blanket revealed a plastic Duane Reade bag containing a box of cookies, two small pies, and a plastic bottle of milk. Much like I offered him half my sandwich earlier, he offered me his cookies, though I felt too guilty taking any. Now I feel guilty about not taking any. It is a strange human emotion, that which finds more joy in sharing pleasures with another than to keep it for oneself. I wish I didn’t deny him that.
Our conversation about his hometown Dallas and his sister stopped quickly, especially since his cookie-crumb filled beard kept pointing away while his voice rambled on beneath the roaring of the cars in front of us. The sun set equally as fast, taking with it the comfort we had in its light. I started to think of what else I could do. As a result, we sat there in silence, watching cars pass by with a brilliant orange-yellow beginning to fill the western sky. After a few minutes, I stopped thinking of what to do and just sat next to him.
Don started to laugh. For the first time, I saw him smile. I asked him why he was laughing. He said, “Just because.”
After that, Don and I headed back into the park. To the naked eye, we looked very much the same as when we walked out – but to the eye that looks deeper past apparent looks, a pair of friends walked with cheerful hearts and a new bond that spoke of God’s incomparable and indescribable work within the human soul.
God did work that day.
Earlier when we first met, we talked sporadically about whatever question I could conjure up. The conversation never lasted too long because I couldn’t make out his mumbled response. After the first three or four times, I became a tad too embarrassed to keep asking him to repeat himself and nodded my head in feigned agreement instead. He eventually shared about his loneliness and how he felt that he didn’t belong to any group or community in the city. Before he was about to leave, I told him that he was always welcome in God’s family.
For the next ten minutes, Don spoke and I remained silent. He spoke of the gospel and of Jesus Christ and of the promises of God. Verses from the Bible that had been committed to memory earlier in his life accompanied his words. At first it seemed like he was talking to me but later I realized he was really talking to himself. Perhaps he had forgotten the uncompromising and unwavering love of Christ. As Don remembered, tears started to well up in his eyes. He spoke with confidence that God does not fail, even amidst his sorry state of homelessness and loneliness.
I sat there, stunned by Don’s words. I complain about not having a comfortable chair at work or only having to choose from fried chicken, pizza, and Mexican food for dinner. My struggles are far less than what Don experiences every day, yet his hope remained strong.
About a year ago, I came across a quote by Francis Schaeffer. He said, “Man is magnificent, even in ruin.” I’ve spent about a year trying to experience this idea and I’m just starting to see its truth. Being with Don didn’t give me any startling revelations. It just helped me to see a little bit better what Schaeffer was talking about – the beauty of humanity, the wide expanse of emotions of the soul, and the invisible touch of God that creates hope in even the most hopeless of people.
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations--these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit--immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously--no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners--no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor, he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat, the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”
C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
