I saw Darren smoking a cigarette in front of his RV late Friday night. I greeted him by name, "Hey, Darren!" and he greeted me by name, “Hello, Tim!”.
“I just wanted to
show off that I remembered your name, Darren,” I said, remembering his name
after meeting him early that morning. He smiled and followed me barefoot to my
trailer. Within seconds, he told me what I would have soon surmised.
He was drunk.
He also soon
surmised that I was a minister and began to tell me another thing I already
knew: the importance of remembering people’s names, one of my many Achilles'
heels!
“People use
different parts of their brains,” he said, “to remember their own names and to
say the names of other people. You have to not say your own name when you meet
people and are trying to remember theirs. That should be very important to you
in your ‘business’.”
I winced.
My uncle Don one
time said he liked getting old because he could finally use his age for all of
his shortcomings and I am definitely using my geriatric years to excuse what
I’ve suffered all my life: a poor memory.
We stood in the
cool September air, even after I had been gone from my own RV for 14 hours,
yes, on my “day off". I was tired and knew from experience that our
discussion would soon get around to “religion”, a familiar topic especially for
non-church-goers and especially when they’ve imbibed.
I listened.
He was my age and
a Marine. You never say “former Marine”, something I learned the following day
at a funeral of another Marine. If he hadn’t been leaving on Sunday, I know we
would have become friends, even though he was big, brawly, and brash. He
bemoaned religion, the military, the government, and finally, my favorite
subject, God.
“If there is a
God, why is there so much of … this?” he waved his huge hands to the dark sky,
obviously referring to the places of uttermost tragic circumstances to where
he’s traveled. We had been standing and talking for what seemed like an hour,
but it was undoubtedly due to my readiness to go to bed.
But you know me.
I asked him to
come sit down at my picnic bench in front of my RV, but his bare feet couldn’t bear
the rocks, something only now as I write this do I find amusing that this tough Marine also apparently has an Achilles’ heel … or maybe like me a touch of plantar fasciitis.
I even offered to go get him my Adidas flip flops, but no. So, we stood. He
talked. He asked. I listened.
He’s been to
Somalia. He’d been to (you name it, he'd been there). He’d seen suffering.
Sometimes I wonder if people look at ministers and think of them as hothouse
flowers, living in Ivory Towers. And perhaps we are; but even ministers, and especially
ministers, see a lot of evil, hear a lot of things. You don’t have to be a
Marine or a paramedic to know the evils and tragedies of the world. And yet we
still believe in God.
When Yancey was an
infant, church members suggested that his father, who was stricken with polio,
to go off life support, praying in faith that God would heal him. God did not,
and his father died. Yancey at one time lost his faith in God and at times in
his writing, he seemingly has not regained it all back.
We all experience
tragedies, and so has Darren, at least from afar. The Marine told me of his
life, how he retired at 52 and has been travelling the country in his RV with his wife. He
wouldn’t trade his life for anyone.
He stood looking
at me. He had just asked me how I could explain the answer to the question that
never goes away while he’s standing there drunk with no shoes on in the middle
of the evening after my 14-hour long day.
I said, “You know
that’s why I’ve been listening to you all this time. You know I’d love to tell
you…”
He smiles broadly,
interrupting me, not even knowing possibly what I said, leans over and gives me
a big hug, “I know you would. Good night, Tim,” and walks back to his RV.
I smiled too as he
walked away. Witnessing with a person who is intoxicated has not been my forte,
no matter how kind of a drunk they are. I felt a little like Jesus and the man
whom we call the rich, young ruler: “Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine
love for him…”
I have no idea
about the Marine’s soul, but the following day I read the eulogy of a Marine,
who died at age 86 after a life well lived, whose faith was strong to the very
end. I wished that kind of testimony for my almost-friend Darren who taught me
the value of remembering names.
After the funeral,
I went and got a copy of my book, The Gospel of John, One Day at a
Time and put a copy of the 23rd psalm from the funeral on page 58, a
devotional entitled, “Why Is There Evil in the World?”
I’m no Philip
Yancey, but there’s a link at the bottom of this post to see what I wrote
several years ago.
On Sunday morning,
I was as sick as a dog, so much so that I missed church, but between kneeling
at the porcelain altar, I trotted a copy of the book to Darren. Who knows, I
may be the only Philip Yancey that Darren will ever read.
I told him I had
just did a funeral of a Marine the day before (the words sounded a little more
ominous than I intended as they came out of my mouth), and wanted to thank him
for his service. Darren left that morning to resume his wonderful life of
retirement, disbelieving in God who allows suffering in the world, rather than
believing in a God who allows him to live his wonderful life of retirement.
His empty lot at
the RV park will soon be replaced by another traveler. It reminds me of the
plot of ground or water where Darren’s body or ashes will some day be
deposited.
I pray for the Darrens
who need to believe because of God’s goodness, rather than disbelieve because
of the world’s tragedies.
The Gospel of John, One
Day at a Time: John 9. Days 20-21 (johnoneday.blogspot.com)
