I’ve decided I need to write these stories down that I am accumulating. They are gems of humanity that paint the picture of a call to ministry that is mine at the moment. I hope by sharing these stories of people who cross my path, I’ll remember them. I’ll remember how we shaped each other and I honestly pray that I’ll see them whole and joyful in the next life. For now, I hold them in my mind and heart and pray for them several times throughout the week.
As I was driving to the town where my mother lives, about an hour away from Houston, I got a call from Darren*. I don’t alway stake Darren’s call because he often calls during meetings or quite frankly just too frequently, but I wasn’t tied up today. The friends I’ve met on the margins mostly call because they need help, but today Darren called from the courthouse. He’s been a witness at a trial that’s lasted all week. I have not wanted to know all the details, but Darren had apparently been a victim of a violent attack and was a witness in this trial. I helped him get a hair cut and pair of pants to wear to the courthouse. I was relieved to hear he was a witness for someone elses trial because it hasn’t been very many years that Darren himself was released from prison. He did some hard time, but learned law during the 20+ years he was behind bars.
What did Darren want? Nothing. Just to say the trial was going well and in his favor and the “other guy” was going to get 80 years it looked like. At least that’s what I thought he said becuase the car noise was loud and it’s hard to understand Darren sometimes. He’s lost his teeth now and he doesn’t speak loudly. Plus I think he was eating a sandwich. I just think he needs to know from time to time that someone will talk to him.
Darren shows up regularly at our weekly food distribution at the church to help out and volunteer. He tries his best to do good now. It’s hard. He’s an ex-con so the only housing he can get is from a slum lord and he can really only drink Ensure because his stomach has been shot up and he makes just enough money to get the meds he needs.
He’s in his fifties now and I baptized him a couple of months ago. He took the Book of Common Prayer home because he wanted to read it and understand what he was getting baptized into. He asked me a lot of questions. He likes to read and study. When he’s not getting mugged. We filled in his baptism certificate as best we could because he never knew his parents–he was abandoned as a baby and the multitude of foster homes he was in were houses of abuse for he and his sister. A volunteer from the Food Bank was his sponsor. But I believe in the dignity of every human being and Darren is a human being worthy of his dignity being seen.
I’m not sure I’ll ever really know Darren well or fully understand how he finds the will to stay alive. But I believe there is a reason I am to offer this man to God in prayer–to be remembered to the One who loves him.
*Names are changed for privacy and respect
Magdalena's Musings 