a surrender - 29

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter four, "the anawim")

The weeks that followed were physically challenging. As I moved further west, the towns were more spread out, with long stretches where there was nothing but grass and wind. I thought I must make a curious sight out there, a lone pilgrim with nothing around for miles. I never tried to get a ride. But twice during that time I was offered a ride by Spanish-speaking immigrants. They both said they knew what it was like to walk in the heat and the dust for days and days.

Then one Monday morning I found myself waiting outside a church with no food and just fourteen cents in my pocket. It was raining. And ahead of me lay many, many miles with no shelter and no towns. I was reluctant to take another step. I felt so helpless. Where was God?

Then a car arrived at the church. And another soon after. I was surprised, because it was very early, six in the morning. Another car pulled up and swung over near me, to ask why I was there. I said I was on my way to Denver, just waiting for the rain to stop, and briefly described my walk. That seemed to satisfy them, and they joined the others. It seemed like it was a gathering for some kind of youth outing. Then a few minutes later, two men walked over to me.

“Going to Denver, huh? Well, we’re going to Denver.” Then they offered to take me with them.

I couldn’t believe it. They were taking the young people from the church to a big amusement park, just a half mile from where I was headed. I had planned to visit the novitiate where I had started with the Dominicans. My novice master had invited me. And suddenly I was there, carried over two hundred miles before lunch time. So it didn’t matter that I had no food and only fourteen cents.

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a surrender - 28

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter four, "the anawim")

On rare occasions, however, when someone responded especially badly, I did say something. One night I arrived at a church after dark. There were lights on and cars in the parking lot; some kind of meeting was going on. So I waited. When two men came out, I introduced myself and asked if I could sleep in the covered area beside the church. They sounded doubtful. One of them went to ask the pastor. When he returned, he was shaking his head.

“I know this doesn’t sound very Christian,” he said. “I know it sounds like we’re sending you away….”

“It doesn’t just sound unchristian,” I replied. I couldn’t believe they wouldn’t even let me sleep outside on their sidewalk. “It doesn’t just sound like you're sending me away. You are sending me away.”

He started talking about insurance and the sheriff, and said something vague about vagrancy laws.  

I said I would leave. But I reminded him that Jesus had said, “When you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me.”

That seemed to bother him. “The bible says we should obey the authorities, who were instituted by God,” he shot back. 

“It seems God has put you in quite a quandary, hasn’t he?” was all I said. 

“Yes… he has…” the man replied quietly, as he walked away with his head down.

As I was gathering my few things, a group of people came out of the church, including an older man in a wheelchair, the pastor. “You understand the situation…” he began, when he saw me. He also mentioned insurance, and said he was concerned about what the sheriff would do if he found me sleeping there.

“What the sheriff does is up to the sheriff,” I replied softly. “I’m more interested in what you will do.”

Then another man stepped up boldly. He said he was in charge of church security and was quite willing to take responsibility for sending me away. There are laws against vagrancy, he said. Then added, “I don’t mean to insult you.”

“Jesus was not ashamed to be homeless,” I said, looking right at him, “and neither am I.”

Right then, an older woman stepped up behind the pastor and asked me, “Do you need a place to stay? We can take you to the place down the road….” Apparently she was the pastor’s wife, and she had just figured out what all this was about. She looked at him. “You know, the motel down there….”

The pastor immediately agreed. The man in charge of security went silent, and seemed to fade from the scene. The pastor and his wife drove me to the motel. When she took me inside to pay for the room, I thanked her.

“He really is a good man,” she told me.

“Sometimes our advisors lead us astray,” I replied, with a smile. “I’m just glad for him and for the church that he has you for an advisor.”

Continued...

a surrender - 27

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter four, "the anawim")

I remembered that those were the kinds of people Jesus had been drawn to. The ones on the edges of society. The weak ones. They were the ones that seemed most eager to hear and believe what Jesus was saying. Maybe because he was saying things like, “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” And, “Blessed are the lowly ones, for they will inherit the earth.” Jesus said he had come “to proclaim good news to the poor.” Later, I learned he was referring to the anawim. It’s a Hebrew word meaning the poor, the weak, the oppressed, who looked to God for help. And those were the ones who heard Jesus’ words gladly. Jesus urged people to depend on God instead of depending on their own strength, and promised that God would help them. That was good news to the anawim. Because they didn’t have any strength, they didn’t have any power in society. To people who had wealth and power, Jesus’ words didn’t sound so good. But for many people who were weak and helpless, letting themselves be lifted and carried by God’s strength, the surrender of faith, was much easier.

Jesus didn’t just help and encourage the anawim, though. He was one of them. He also was poor and weak. Intentionally so, it seemed, since Jesus did not accept the power that could have been his. And in the end, he was left alone, rejected and humiliated. Executed with criminals. The life of the anawim, depending on the power of God, the life of faith, was the life that Jesus chose.  

And so that was the life I wanted to live. I didn’t know exactly how I could do that, but I wanted to try, and I was young and had little to lose. So I was trying this life on the road. I didn’t know how long I could continue, but it seemed like a good start, learning the life of the anawim, the life of faith.

Most of the time, when I was walking, people saw me simply as a homeless person. They would often look at me funny in a library or a store, or shy away, or call the police if they saw me sitting outside. Sometimes the police took me to a homeless shelter. Those were not very pleasant places to stay. If I happened to be approaching a car stopped on the road, I sometimes heard the door being locked. I tried to keep myself as clean as possible and be as polite as possible and ask for little or nothing, but people still made assumptions. It didn’t feel very good to see how I looked in most people’s eyes. But I tried not to say anything critical to people who treated me poorly. I thought it was good for me to feel what it means to be an outsider, a lowly one in society.

Continued...

a surrender - 26

(Continuing "a surrender," chapter four, "the anawim")

I remember a couple days that stood out for me on that journey. I came to a small church in the evening, thinking I might stop there for the night. Then I noticed someone was there. So, as I usually did, I introduced myself and asked if I could sleep outside the church that night. The man I asked turned out to be the janitor. He called the pastor, but it sounded like the pastor wouldn’t allow me to stay on the church property. So the man made another call. Then he turned to me and told me that his wife said I could come to their house. 

Their house was not very big. It was just one large room, with a small kitchen built onto the back. The bathroom was basically a large outhouse beside the house. When we arrived, I thanked his wife, who was preparing supper, and met his adult son, who was visiting them, with a friend. Because of the extra visitors, there were mattresses laid all over the floor of the one room. So we sat on the front porch while we all ate together. I remember them telling me about their many encounters with scorpions, and telling me to watch out for them. Then they invited me to stay for the night. There was no room to sleep inside, however, so I slept on the covered porch, and their dog slept beside me. It rained hard that night. When I woke up the next morning, their little cat was curled up next to my head.

That morning I rode with the man on his way to work, and we talked. I found out he had recently pawned an old air compressor to get money for food. The whole experience stunned me. They were so poor, yet had gladly shared with me the little they had. And there would be more surprises for me that day. In the late afternoon, I was walking through a town and a woman ran out from a bar, waving at me. I stopped and she smiled. “I saw you walking by,” she said, “and I wanted to give you this.” She had a five-dollar bill in her hand. “I’m just an alcoholic,” she continued with a laugh, “but I thought maybe this would help you.” I smiled and thanked her. It seemed like a big help to me, since I had nothing for my supper. But before I found a place to buy food, I came to a church and an evening service was just starting. So I went in. And after the service, there was a potluck supper. There I met many people, but most of them seemed to shy away from me except for two young girls, about six or seven. They asked me many questions about my journeys, where I had been, where I slept, why I was walking. Then they asked if I would come to their house. When they brought their mother into the conversation, though, she didn’t like that idea. So they went to the pastor. The pastor didn’t like their ideas either. But then she did agree when I asked her if I could sleep on a porch outside the church. Laying on that porch in the dark, I thought back over the last two days. I had been helped by a poor family, an alcoholic, and two young children.

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