Dear Friends:

I've gone back to bring up the "Benediction on Bus #16" article, May 16, 2003, with the hope it will be both inspiring and comforting to you during these complicated days.

Sometimes, when a person crosses our paths, spreading peace and a quiet joy in the midst of turmoil, he or she reminds us that this is what Christ did for most of his thirty-three years, and it was enough for the Father. Too often, our paltry efforts may appear to be of no account, but they matter to Christ and to the Father, as well.

Christ’s pain was not only physical, but psychological:  He felt abandoned and a loneliness beyond telling.

When we become discouraged, we want to remind ourselves that we can shepherd sheep wherever we are: at home, office, school, on a tractor, or through a phone call or letter.

Lenten blessings on you and yours.

Peace. Christ is with us.

Benediction on Bus #16

— Originally posted here on May 16, 2003

As I stepped into the bus, the figure, scrunched up against the steel bar of the first seat facing the center, caught my attention, and held it steadily for approximately fifteen minutes before he disembarked into the hot, humid St. Paul, Minnesota afternoon. Every now and then, he returns.

Not only my attention did he capture; only God knows for sure, but I’m willing to hazard a guess that he spread a blessing on every patron on the bus, filled almost to capacity.

The pilgrim’s dark hair, shoulder length, looked damp and in need of the red sweat ban circling his head. Not until a few stops later, when he looked up from his paperback book, did I notice the deep blue eyes, the peace and joy in his smile.

“Nice in here, isn’t it?” he commented to the woman sitting next to him. Strangers were they, yet, there was no fear separating them in this age when fear has halted millions of civilized exchanges among strangers.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Air conditioning is a blessing on a day like this.”

He smiled, nodded, and returned to his book. I couldn’t get a glance at what he was reading. A light novel, perhaps. Or was he into science fiction? Or murder mysteries?

My schedule was a tight one, but I would have gladly put everything aside for a half-hour’s visit with him over a cup of coffee, or a beer, or a glass of wine, to investigate the source of that smile and spirit of joy..

My un-named friend was dressed in a green polo shirt and sweat pants, as though he had been jogging. Of course, he hadn’t, not with that empty pant leg and crutches. Jogging was beyond him, but preaching – ah! – preaching he could do. And preach he did.

He preached to the black teenagers across the aisle in a voice so low I couldn’t catch the words, as though he understood something about their lives he felt the others couldn’t. Although he was white, the cripple’s handicap made him one with those whose color of skin sets them on their journey with two strikes against them, no matter how many Civil Rights meetings are called, or how well the schools are integrated. Perhaps, he told them not to give up, to stay in school, to believe in themselves.

Again, he returned to his book, turning page after page, oblivious of the jerking, the stopping and starting up again, possibly escaping from his world, or learning how to cope with it from the writer’s wisdom.

Had time been on his side, he might have reminded his black friends across the aisle that it’s all right to escape the pain. It’s no sign of cowardice to seek comfort and hope from the prose and poetry of their great writers, such as: Langston Hughes, W. E. B.Du BOIS, James Weldon Johnson and Claude McKay.

McKay may not be considered the best of them, but I took a course in Black Poets from him once, and shall never forget the power of his words, the melody of his voice, nor the humility of his presence. That’s for another time, perhaps next week.

A glance around the bus told me it apparently held only one crippled among us. Yet, there wasn’t a pilgrim who wasn’t, in one way or another, in need of healing, and, unconsciously everyone extended a healing hand to everyone else on the bus.

How so? Because no one broke the peace. Sounds like a small contribution. Not so small on a bus, a self-contained world. Not so small over a desert floor, either.

Those who do not break the peace are quiet heroes and heroines. With a quiet eye, they assess a situation and choose in conflicts large or small, negotiation, friendly talk, over fists or bombs. Of course, in such peace-keeping, there is no profit to be made in reconstruction.

Often, we are so overwhelmed by those who spread confusion, we do not stop to think of those who do not, nor to thank them, nor to send up balloons in their honor. Day by day, they go on because in their hearts they know there is no other way for us to live together on Planet Earth. But I digress.

As the crippled preacher’s stop came up, he tucked his book under his arm, his two crutches under the other, spoke a few words to the driver, and hopped down into the afternoon’s heat, leaving his parishioners an unspoken homily for the taking.

Originally posted here on May 16, 2003

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