Joplin Revisited

I began writing what follows back in Joplin on 11-08-2007. Twelve pages into its penning, I left for Nashville and from there on turned my attentions instead to capturing my experiences hitchhiking. Until recently I had planned never to publish it.

It contains certain, more spiritually oriented, tales of my times spent in Joplin. And though these stories are more than worthy of being told, I feared some might read my tellings of them and find an unfamiliar emphasis on not just the word of the spirit, but the practice of the spirit's honing as well.

It is a shame that the term 'spirituality' now rings in many ears foul; that so oft, whether spoken or not, it receives the perhaps unintended, though often implied, modifier: "new age." For there is nothing new in the means of the spirit, nor anything added to it by this or any age. Meditation and the visions, sensations, and miracles associated with the act have stood hand in hand with prayer and worship since the beginnings of all faith.

Yet still I would have shelved the following text, thinking some to be dissuaded from the path by my recanting of these same meditative doings. Thanks be to the Lord for moving me to include these passages, that those called might know the ways of that great comforter, the Holy Spirit; that it might be revealed what many have hidden, the means of residing between the boundaries of the long sought narrow path.

-

On Friday, November the 2nd I went to visit at Tony’s house. In truth I really wanted to spend some time alone with Tony. Ever since Randy Riggs had been sleeping on his couch I felt as though my friendship with Tony had suffered.

Whenever I came over I would be quickly drawn into conversation with Randy. By speaking in a normal volume to Randy, I felt we were leaving Tony to sit in silence: watching our lips flap with little knowledge what we were discussing and little way to enter the conversation. Though I was seeing him regularly, I began to miss my buddy Tony.

When I walked in I found Randy on the couch, as usual, watching TV. Tony was asleep in the other room. I sat with Randy for about an hour, mostly killing brain cells watching the tube; neither of us saying much of anything. Eventually I heard Tony cough and roll over in bed. I gave a shout: “Tony!”

Randy immediately interjected, “No, no. Please don’t wake him up. He was screaming at the walls all night. This is the first peace I’ve had in a day.”

I was offended. I came here to see Tony. I wanted to spend some time with him, which I had sorely lacked since Randy started staying here. Now Randy was claiming the authority to tell me not to wake him, for his own sake.

After sitting for a minute and carefully choosing my words, I began to say to Randy, “Do you understand your place?”

‘You are a homeless, jobless, alcoholic, sleeping on another man’s sofa and under another man’s roof, by his grace alone. Yet since you’ve been here, you linger and loaf and often appear to do nothing toward changing your station in life. I have seen you commandeer control of the television, convince Tony to stop playing the music he likes because you hate it… I’ve even seen you throw something of a hissy fit when you didn’t get to watch the television program you wanted to see. How do you think you have any place to make demands of the people who have gone out of their way to take care of you?’

Randy spoke in a way that was more inward than to me, ‘I don’t need this right now… I just don’t need this right now. He was up all night screaming at the walls while I was trying to sleep; I haven’t had a beer in four hours; I’m trying to detox myself; and now you’re here telling me all these things that I already know.”

“Wait. You’re trying to detox yourself?” I said.

“That’s right.”

“Well shit. Tell a brother. You tell me you’re trying to get dry and I’ll give you a hundred times more patience and grace.”

It turns out Randy had been trying to detox himself all night. A few hours earlier he got the shakes so bad that he had to go buy some beer. But he was still clearly in pain. Insomuch I could tell that he hadn’t fallen from his intentions, but merely supplemented the minimum to keep him steady.

“I’m just trying to zone out on the TV so I don’t have to think about it,” Randy said.

“Well hell: That settles it. As long as you’re detoxing – I’m fasting.”

He begged me not to but I was determined. If he was going to suffer through the horrendous pains and trials of alcohol withdrawal then I would stand in solidarity with him by suffering the pains of self starvation.

I have a recent fascination with fasting. The bible tells us many stories wherein the main protagonist is found in fast and prayer. Jesus once chastised the apostles for their inability to cast a devil out of a boy saying, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” What is this hidden power, connection with the divine, or self discovered center that resides in fasting?

The concept of fasting has never been explained to me to my complete satisfaction. Many have bid to tell me that fasting is not necessarily deprivation of food, but that it can be self restraint expressed in any form. These same have most often suggested that the purpose of fasting is to increase mindfulness to the Lord; that when we feel the absence of what we have put aside in fasting we will remember why we have denied ourselves: that is, to be mindfully more like unto God.

I don’t buy it. In the verse above Jesus suggests that in fasting and prayer lie the power to cast out powerful demons and to perform miracles. Now, I’m not looking for some ‘Harry Potter’-esque, hidden mysticisms buried in the teaching’s of God, but this ‘mindfulness by way of extraneous self-deprivation’ thing just reads silly to me. Therefore I am hesitant to accept this “increased mindfulness” justification for fasting; and I am left to look for better explanations by interpretations of the spirit.

I’m still unconvinced of the true purpose to the type of religious and spiritual fasting we see all throughout the scriptures. Though my first thought would be this: that the deprivation of bodily need forces even the physical form to look elsewhere for daily sustenance. Perhaps the void of the stomach and deprivation of nutrients derived from food acts to draw in the spiritual. Essentially, we are made to either replace the fleshly nourishment with the spiritual, or suffer and die.

In any case fasting remains a mystery to me, but Randy’s situation doesn’t. He had chosen to get sober and if there is any power in fasting I would put it to his aid.

-

One night, as I walked back to the Refuge from Tony’s, I felt the presence of God lingering around me. So I slowed my walk and tried to become more aware, more cognizant of it.

As I walked passed the small city park where I sat that first day I arrived in Joplin, I felt as though I was being drawn down the alley behind it. Doing as the master would have me, I turned left down the alley – though my planned destination was to the right.

At the end of the alley I walked diagonally across a parking lot and found myself at another crossroads. I took a deep breath and felt the great magnet drawing me to the right. Again I followed. One block further I stood again, looking in all directions for guidance. Out of the corner of my eye I caught the sight of a beautifully dressed 3rd story window. The orange light beaming from behind the blanket-made-curtain had a special, almost sexual allure.

I walked in the direction of the window, and passed it. I was now heading back toward my original destination: The Refuge. Where would God lead me? What was I being drawn to?

Another poke from the Lord sent me down a darkened alley. At the end of the alley I found a familiar sight: The parking lot of a law firm I pass by frequently, lain in colored, patterned brick. I stood for a moment, waiting for inspiration. In the mean time I drew my little symbol in the sand of the alley with my foot: A triangle with three circles hovering outside of it, aligned to the midpoint of the triangles sides. When I finished I placed a stone in its center, as has become my habit, and began to cut through the parking lot back toward my originally planned route.

As I moved across the brick parking lot, I saw an illuminated door on the side of the law office. When I saw the yellow glow around its frame I was torn in two. I felt the urge to walk to that door, open it and go inside. But I was wary. I wasn’t certain that it was God pushing me to it. The movements of the magnet are still uneasy for me to read. Often I wonder whether it is the pull of God I’m following or merely my own intellectual weirdness. Abiding its lead through city streets is one thing. Entering the rear door of closed office buildings in the middle of the night is another.

Nonetheless the urge to enter that building through that door was the same which had pulled me back and forth through the night-draped downtown streets these past ten minutes; and the sensation was a multitude greater than those that had taken me up the alleys.

But where is my faith? If the Lord bids me to trespass: I should trespass. My faith in God is strong. My faith in self is not. But is this an honest doubt? Am I just using my humility to create a worthy justification for not challenging the boundaries of my world; those same that I am called of God to tear down?

I walked passed the door slowly, watching it out of the corner of my eye. I began to recite aloud a line from one my favorite Ani Difranco poem-songs: “Go ahead. Try the door. It doesn’t matter anymore. I know that the weak hearted are strong willed and that we are being kept alive until we are killed.”

When I had walked a ways passed the door I turned back once more sighing. I lowered my eyes to the ground and then lifted them to the sky saying, “I’m not there yet Lord.” And into the night I walked wondering whether God had run me in circles simply for the delay; whether he meant me to enter that building against my lesser judgment; or whether He was laughing his ass of at me for thinking I’d been following Him when all I’d really done was chase alleyways and seductive window dressings.

-

When I arrived back at the Refuge I found a rowdy scene. The bulk of the residents had gathered on the dock, smoking and pressing against the railing for a better view of the parking lot where one of our residents, Mike, was walking back and forth in a huff; shouting profanities and stamping his feet like a bull.

Apparently Mike had gotten a little drunk and failed the nightly blow test. When he was told he wouldn’t be able to sleep at the Refuge that night, he exploded into a rage.

I had already pegged Mike as a good man, but with a penchant for stirring up trouble. In fact, I first took a liking to Mike when I saw him mid-stir: pushing another one of the residents buttons intentionally.

I was sitting in the kitchen reading my Bible and Mike was playfully teasing one of the guys here. Now, at the Refuge we have a man named Charles who often occupies a seat at the corner of the kitchen. God bless Charles but he sits in silence so long that when he finds something to talk about he just will not quit until he’s beaten his chosen topic deep into the ground. He also has a tendency to be a bit of a busy-body: spreading the various rumors about who’s doing what at the Refuge. This I especially lament for Charles’ sake; for there is a passage in the bible which tells us not to be “murderers, thieves, evil-doers, or busy bodies.” I always smile when I think of that: The Bible has placed busy bodies in the same category as thieves and murderers. It’s a beautiful thing.

Anyway, as Mike is teasing this resident, Charles starts to go off on one of his endless babblings saying, “Now just so you know, you shouldn’t tease him. He’s a little different than the rest of us. He can be easily offended.”

Mike responds, “We’re just playing Charles, don’t worry about it.”

“Well I know but I’m just telling you sometimes he can…”

“Charles, I understand. Just don’t worry about it.”

“Well all I can tell you is…”

“Thank you Charles. It’s none of your business.”

“Well he can get offended even when you don’t…”

“SHUT UP, CHARLES!”

I swear that’s the only time I’ve seen Charles cut off a tirade and say nothing more about it. I had to hide my smile when I saw Mike do that. Nothing against Charles, but I don’t know how many times I’ve wanted to do just the same.

And now, here I stood before the dock, watching Mike stomp about the parking lot: cussing and breaking down before my eyes. As I walked into the crowd of rubber-necking residents I heard Mike’s rage turn to hopeless sorrow. The biting anger of his words broke in his throat and the sound of his tears overtook them. Here he was, Michael, this dominant forceful man, calling out chastisements through the veil of a child’s ache: That familiar sound of a tearful voice in pain, unable to understand the world it finds itself trapped within; how it got there; why it should be so.

I sat on the dock and started to roll a cigarette. Even as I sat I felt the presence of God come upon me with undeniable strength, and I knew what I must do. I finished rolling my cigarette and stood up. I lingered a moment as my innate humanism slowed my intent, trying to make me question the wisdom God had placed within me.

To my left I was being called by Missy, one of the head residents, to come blow my breath test for the night. To my right the foremost deaconess of the church, Dani, had come out to try to resolve the confrontation.

As I yet dawdled between the two, Mike had been overcome by his sorrow and taken up a seat beneath the Refuge’s portable basketball net. Trying to force myself forward I turned to Missy and asked, “Would you come with me and not say anything?” Without an answer I started walking toward Mike. Missy was quickly at my shoulder, walking beside me. But Dani called the two of us back. Where Missy stopped I continued. I was convicted now. Nothing would prevent the force of God moving within me. As they both whispered for me to wait, calling me to return, I motioned them not to worry and said in a partial statement, “…doing the will of God.”

As I came to the end of the dock and the ramp that led directly down to where Mike was sitting, I heard his voice rumble in a low and weary, cautionary tone, “Don’t come down here, man.”

His words stopped me in my tracks. And as they passed over my shoulders I felt my whole body light up with the energy of God: that same tingling sensation I experience in meditation or when something pure and true pierces my heart and soul.

I’ve experienced this a few times now since being in Joplin. Where I have encountered a threatening individual or situation, this sensation wraps around my whole body like a passing wind; over my head and shoulders; chest and legs; and then it’s gone. The last time I felt it, I had confronted a homeless woman on the streets who had been crying.

I was in a hurry to get where I was headed when I first saw her standing on the sidewalk with a thick stream of tears rolling down her face. I walked right passed her to reach my destination. The fact that I had passed a woman crying in the streets wore on me as I walked the rest of the way. ‘What kind of Christian am I,’ I thought, ‘to walk passed a woman so clearly in need of comfort.’ When I reached my destination I found that what I had come for wasn’t there anyway and realized the severity of my error. It is indeed possible that God had sent me down that path just to be there for that woman in that moment: and I had blown it.

So when I left my destination, I left in an even bigger hurry than that I came, going out of my way to retrace my route in hopes of finding her again and correcting my foolishness. I ran into her a few blocks from where I first saw her and came upon her asking, “Is anything wrong?”

She kept moving as though she hadn’t heard me so I approached her more closely and asked, “Is there anything I can do?”

She spun around in an instant snapping at me, “I don’t need any help from someone who has their own problems! I’ve got this and it’s all I need,” motioning to a Bible in her arms.

It was when she attacked me with these caustic words that the tingling energies washed over me. Unaffected by the verbal assault I said with a smile, “I saw you back there crying and couldn’t believe myself – that I had just walked passed a woman in tears. I thought it quite unchristian of me.”

She didn’t berate me further but she still had no want of my help. To this day I laugh thinking back on what she said. “I don’t need help from someone who has their own problems.” I feel obliged to say that anyone who won’t accept the help of those who bear their own problems won’t be finding much in the way of help on this planet any time soon; you may want to try Mars.

Nonetheless, I have come to think of this wave of spiritual energy, which seems to come over me in the heat of assault, as the armor of God. The Bible tells us to “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” (Eph. 6:11-13)

When this spiritual sensation comes over me it seems to cut the blow of whatever strikes it. When that woman spun around, flinging those words of hatred at me, the shock I would expect from myself was noticeably less than I would anticipate, and it gave no birth to any resentful feeling in me, as I might also expect of myself. Instead my response was just as pure and unstained as I would have it, and it came without pause or delay.

Much the same, when Mike sent those waves of cautionary darkness at me from beneath the basketball net, I felt them pass over my body but they did not enter. They did not cut nor leave wound. And I spoke the words that God had placed into this, His unlikely vessel.

“I just wanted to say that you’re my brother and I love you. And this… There is nothing that can ever change that.”

I heard Mike speaking softly, “Thank you, brother.”

Sadly, it was not long after that Mike was taken once more by the demons moving him that night. And he was back stamping through the parking lot shouting criticisms and curses at the group.

I went back to the sleeping area, putting my things away, and when I returned Dani had begun to assemble a prayer circle at the loading dock entrance.

I locked into that prayer circle, burning with the power of God. I stood there with my eyes closed and my mouth hanging open, oozing love and compassion into our midst. I haven’t burned that hot with meditative energies since I got to Joplin. My body was aflame with the spirit and I was taken with the Lord’s presence.

As we were gathered in prayer, I am told that Mike grabbed a metal chair and started motioning to throw it through the windshield of Dani’s pickup truck. But even as Dani led us in prayer, she bid us not to break the circle saying simply, “We rebuke that.”

By the end of the night Mike had not thrown the chair, nor done any other physical harm, no one called the police, and Mike even marched back into the building, passed our prayer circle – physically un-resisted – gathering up his blankets and willfully leaving to go sleep under the bridge.

I don’t know that I can convey what it really was to be there that night. The people at the Refuge had finally coalesced into a truly Christian body, dealing with a confrontation using hope, love, and compassion instead of force and authority. Mike was not run off from the property nor drug away by the police, as I would have expected just weeks before. But he was left to walk off of his own volition. His last sight of us that night was not of a hateful mob sending him away, but of a people who cared for and loved him too much to let one night’s weakness destroy that bond; A peoples gathered in prayer, seeking blessings in his name and release from whatever foulness plagued him. I tell you, God was there.

Mike returned to us the next day, apologetically, and was taken back into the Refuge. That afternoon I met him on the dock for a cigarette and he told me how much what I said that night had meant to him.

He said that in that moment he felt like there wasn’t a soul around him who was real; that everyone around him had gathered, merely to watch the entertainment of his suffering or to appear godly and feed their own egos. But when I said that he was my brother and I loved him, he felt it, and he knew it was true.

Still I tell you what I told him: Though I spoke the words, they were not mine. And though I felt those brotherly affections, such love has long been foreign to me. But these were, rather, placed within me and guided over my tongue. I am made the messenger, but the author of this message is the Lord and it is he who loves you so.

-

The very next night the Mike incident was relived when the aforementioned Paula returned from a three day vacation away from the Refuge, drunk. Her inebriation wasn’t discovered until the end of the night. By then the shelter administrators found it too cold to throw her out without warning. Beside that stood her long service to the Refuge as our cook and backup administrator. I’ve no doubt that the appreciation the other head-residents held for her friendship and good-work played a part in choosing to give her one more night’s stay.

But Paula, too, was rowdy that night. In her drunkenness she couldn’t understand how anyone could possibly kick her out after all she’d done and all she’d seen around here. And with a sloppy, alcohol soaked tongue she began shouting a laundry list of abuses that had been overlooked during her tenure.

It wasn’t long before Paula turned her slanders to Missy. As the two lead females at the Refuge they had developed a special kind of bond and understanding. Now Missy found herself forced into the uncomfortable position of sending a friend an ally to the streets. And the intoxicated Paula found herself being scolded by Missy, whom Paula retained an innumerable amount of unflattering stories concerning.

Cat Fight 2007 was on!

Without getting into trivial details, I’ll simply say that the fur flew and many a scene was made that night. By the end of the evening I was most disappointed, not with Paula, but with how Missy had behaved. She had allowed herself to be drawn into a fight with a drunk, meeting anger with anger and hate with hate.

As I had witnessed the fight, there was a distinct moment where all Missy had to do was walk up to Paula and hug her and the whole ordeal would have ended right there: Much as Mike had the night before, Paula eventually started to break down and her shouts became whimpers. Had Missy taken that moment to comfort Paula I have no doubt that Paula would have turned into a docile kitten; she would have become a little girl being put to bed by her mother after a long cry over something silly.

But Missy chose instead to see the tearful lull as an opportunity to strike. And once struck Paula’s defenses went right back up, continuing the confrontation another ten minutes.

After the fight ended both Paula and Missy were moving back and forth through the Refuge - trying to avoid each other - mostly to and from the dock area to smoke. When I came upon Paula in the hallway, between the kitchen and pantry, she asked me if I had a light for her cigarette. I took the opportunity to deliver Paula the hug that Missy had overlooked. And sure enough she cried on my shoulder for a few minutes, said some things she had been bottling up inside for a while, and went straight to sleep.

As soon as someone showed Paula that she was still loved and needed - as soon as someone issued her a bit of grace and compassion - her demons left her and she became the better version of herself again. Isn’t this what we all seek in our times of weakness? Isn’t this what we all crave when our own strength has failed us? Why is it so hard, then, to give it when another is found wanting? How is it that we can struggle so greatly with these simple teachings of the Lord: To love, comfort, rejoice, and sorrow with those who are found in need?

-

Having seen two good people brought to their knees by alcohol and personal demons - one right after the other - there was a part of me which had become righteously indignant. (aka: I was pissed.)

I was fed up with these evil spirits… the darkness lingering in the heart of man which never failed to beset the otherwise strong and good-intentioned people around me; That great deceiver we call Satan, swooping in to take advantage of humanities frailties.

As I bid Paula goodnight, I returned to my bed carrying a mixture of love for God’s graces and hatred for Satan’s deceptions. I knelt upon the mattress, turning my hatred into passion and my passion into spirit, drawing a great meditative energy into me.

And I called out into the unseen ethereal realm, a battle cry: ‘You want some?! Come get some!’

I’d had it! If these demons wanted a war they would have one this very night. I’d nolonger sit idly by watching them poke at the old wounds of my brothers; reopening long-healed injuries, only to offer them comfort from their pains in a bottle, or a needle, or a rock.

“I am for you!” I called out in my mind to the unseen forces surrounding me.

Great waves of spiritual energy were pouring out of me; beaming from my eyes and burning upon my shoulders. My body was engulfed in a blue flame of the battle-ready knighthood of God.

But nothing came upon me to declare a challenge. And so, finding no otherworldly opponent willing to stand against my declaration I turned my energies upon the Refuge House itself.

I tell you, if the Lord has yet granted me any authority to render blessings, I have blessed this building, and it is now held beneath the light and shield of God’s immunity. Nothing whatsoever evil may enter this place: Such was my prayer to God and my declaration before the forces of evil; so also, in faith, shall it be.

-

The Indian missionary finally came a-calling again. He has now stood twice as preacher for the Refuge’s mid-week “Refresher:” an afternoon sermon typically held on Thursdays. Before the last sermon he delivered, he finally approached me directly, asking whether I had registered his website with the search engines as he had asked me to those weeks before.

I told him no and I was forced to gently confront him on our differing opinions where it concerns the doctrine of Christ. He defended some of his positions and clarified others. Nonetheless when we had discussed our differences fully, I still found him lacking and wasn’t going to aid his goals and testimonies.

Just before we parted I finished smoking a cigarette and he asked me “Has God told you anything about those?” motioning to my tobacco.

I started to say no, but then I recalled a small personal moment a few weeks earlier. I had been sitting outside the Refuge chapel after service, smoking and watching some people do and say some things that I was disturbed by. I can’t recall what they were saying but I remember sitting there thinking to myself, ‘The church isn’t in this building behind us: Jesus tore that church down. But the church is now within each of us, and God stands between us wherever we gather. So why is it that you all act so reverently within that meaningless building, and so grossly in the true church which exists within and between you now.’

As I thought these things, an unwanted question rang out between my ears: ‘Would you smoke in a church?’ If the true church exists not of stone and mortar, but within our fleshly frames, than daily have I filled my church with first and second-hand carcinogens for over half a decade.

I told the Indian missionary that story and he followed it up with some reference to scripture. We looked up the passage he mentioned and he tried to tell me that the verse I was reading meant that I could only take things into my body which could receive blessings from God… or some such thing. Whatever he was talking about, it wasn’t what I read in the text before me and I considered it just one more instance where this man had twisted the text to his liking. Still, I humored him politely.

A bit later, we bumped faces again down in the chapel, at which point he asked me if I could help him set up an online Multi-Level Marketing program geared toward Christians, in support of his fundraising efforts.

Those who know me will understand when I say this: He might as well have asked me to perform felatio on Lucifer. I have a great distaste for all things money oriented. Even when I found myself playing capitalism’s meaningless, unending game I could never bring myself to pursue a paycheck with any real fervor. I justified my labor less by the monetary reward and more in knowing that I was of benefit to the people working around me; and an ease to their burden.

When this preacher asked me to help him start up the same kind of legalized money laundering scheme that put countless white-collar dollar jockeys into prison in the 80’s, and to do so in the name of God Almighty, I suppose I let my civility wane a moment saying simply, “I really don’t think I’m your guy… With all respect.”

After these multiple conversations, concerning the cigarettes, our interpretational differences, and everything else, I really felt off balance and I needed to get away. So instead of attending the preacher’s sermon I grabbed my Bible and began reading Matthew again. I had already been planning to read over the gospels again and these modest confrontations with the missionary gave me every reason to return to this: my first love.

After I completed that first great speech of Jesus’ to the people, between chapter five and eight of Matthew, I was so uplifted and charged with the spirit of the word that I needed a cigarette just to get me out of my chair and free some energy. I grabbed my tobacco and headed to the exit at the dock.

I found the garage door at the dock closed. I didn’t want to open it and allow the cold afternoon air to flood into the sleeping area. So I went down through the chapel instead. As I walked passed the preacher and toward the door, one of the younger residents, Chris, whispered, “I’ll join ya’,” and we exited to fulfill nicotine’s need.

As the story has been retold to me: When the door closed behind us, the Indian missionary stopped his sermon, mid-sentence; beginning again after an extended pause.

While Chris and I smoked we talked about what I’d just read in Matthew and about the missionary preacher. I told Chris that we should always keep our eyes on God. Nomatter where you are or what you’re doing, keep your neck metaphorically cocked back: Gazing up into the heavens at God. For so long as we are looking to God, though we see not what is before us as we walk, He will place in our path everything we need.

I told him that herein is where the missionary had failed. He had seen the awful sights of this world – children starving and huddled together for warmth – and his eyes had been drawn from God. He saw a problem on this Earth and he decided that he was going to fix it. And where his gaze now rested on the tragedies of humanity, he had lost his focus on the Almighty. If only he had kept his eyes with the Lord, he would have been given everything he needed to feed and shelter those children. Instead he now prowls the earth in search of money – that root of all evil – bidding to fix the problems of man with the very tools of man which created the problem in the first place; and leaving no room for God to intercede.

Chris and I were still smoking when the service let out. Shortly after the building emptied I saw the door crack open. The Indian missionary’s head popped out and floated between door and jam. When his eyes caught me, he spoke these words in an angry tone:

“I can’t believe you are out here smoking, and that you lured this boy out of my sermon for it, after what we talked about upstairs. You have evil spirits working inside you.”

His speech became flustered for a moment and I lost track of his words. Then he said in a clear, distinctive tone:

“I rebuke you, in the name of Jesus Christ!”

In an instant this floating head had disappeared back into the building. We stood there in shock for a moment, unsure what had just happened. In another minute the preacher burst out the door, walking through our midst and toward his car. As he got in he leaned back out, with one foot on the floor board, saying, “God is not working in you. God is not speaking to you!”

The door shut and the car pulled away. I had been rebuked!

When the shock of the incident passed, Chris and I began talking about it. Chris spoke something that rang painfully true. He said, ‘You know, if I weren’t already a Christian and I had just come to this church to see what it was all about… and I saw that: this preacher angrily rebuking someone in the name of Christ for having a cigarette… I’d never come back. And I probably wouldn’t have any more interest in Christianity for a long while either.’

True as this is, I took a somewhat more diplomatic stance toward it. In my weeks at the Refuge I had often been taught the lesson that there is no man amongst us who is infallible; and that we must remember: even the men we might look up to for guidance still struggle daily with their own pursuits of godliness and their own relationships with the Lord.

Knowing this, and seeking to be godly myself, I could not harbor any ill will toward the Indian missionary. Instead I blessed him and later prayed for his enlightenment, that he should know his folly and find the unflappable love shown to us by Christ.

As for my beloved – what some call vice – this cigarette: The telling of my encounter with the missionary contains within itself the purest truth and greater wisdom rendered first by Jesus:

“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” (Mark 7:15) “[…]whatsoever thing from without entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats[…]That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” (Mark 7:18-23)

Still, I think it unreasonable to presume the Indian preacher’s chastisements to have come merely on the cloud of my cigarette’s smoke. The better guess is that he felt the injury of insult when I refused to assist him in his fundraising pursuits, and that moreso had I offended him by passing through his sermon so cavalierly, without interest in his words.

I have no apologies for the man, as all was done without slight against him, and much to my spiritual needs. Nonetheless, I have understanding of, and all forgiveness for, his anger and subsequent action. And may God be with him.

Still, I would not have him preach at the Refuge any longer, were it within my power. Too often have I found him failed in the doctrine of Christ to grant him a position at the pulpit. His concerns are earthly, his doctrines are tainted, and his understandings of the word are greatly corrupt. He has a mind for many things, and few of these are truly of the Lord. Until he has revived his first love, put aside the finer works of Paul, and focused straightway once more upon the teachings of Jesus, his mere length of tooth is not enough to justify such standing in the church. I pray the City of Refuge puts him away in short manner.

-

The night that I first made my fasting commitment before Randy, he showed up at the Refuge. I would discover later that he had come to speak to the church leaders; letting them know of his intent to get dry and asking for their grace: that they should again give him residence when he achieved his goal. In true godly fashion, they agreed.

Before he left Randy blew a sort-of ceremonial breath test, revealing a 0.4 breath alcohol content. If any have question, a point-four is nearly five times the legal limit for driving in most states, and is more than enough to lay to rest any keg-standing college student at a frat party. Of course, for an alcoholic, a 0.4 is just ‘good times.’

Sometime after Randy left, returning to Tony’s to suffer through another night of alcohol’s withdrawals, I was set in line to blow my nightly breath test. When I pushed my lungs contents through the three-inch straw and into the inner workings of the cell-phone sized device, the red LED display lit up with my results: .02!

I had not consumed any alcohol. Hell, it wouldn’t be much of a fasting commitment if I swore off food to the benefit of my intoxicant starved compatriot, only to replace it with the very vice he now fought so valiantly to rid himself of! Maybe it was a fluke. “Blow again,” they said.

So again I blew. And again another point-o-two. For this I would have to reveal my fast to all; as it was the only unusual factor I could imagine capable of producing such results. When I told them of my nutritional lackings they pulled out the operators manual for the little breath-testing gadget. After a few minutes thumbing through, they discovered a page regarding “false positives.”

Among other things, including certain fruits and breads, low calorie diets and fasting were listed as possible reasons the device might throw false positives, up to a .04 reading. I thought it strange that the effects of my fast should show up so quickly, as it had been no more than ten hours since last I ate. In any case, we had an explanation. Knowing that I was neither a drunkard, nor a liar, the staff catalogued my .02 in the PBT log, placing a little parenthesized question mark off to its right and we all went to bed.

The next morning Randy showed up at the Refuge again. I had meant to come see him after I got my wits about me, but he beat me to the punch. We talked a while and he seemed in slightly better spirits than I had last seen him. When we finished chatting I left him with others at the Refuge so I might go see Tony, whom I could finally visit with alone.

I think Tony enjoyed having me to himself for a bit and I felt a little of our pre-Randy relationship budding again. However, in visiting Tony he would necessarily make me the harbinger of bad news. Tony’s landlady Phyllis had been by sometime earlier. Having seen Randy lounging around the house often, Phyllis had deduced that Tony was letting him stay there and she had come to the end of her tolerance of the situation.

She told Tony that she was not running a homeless shelter and that further, she recognized Randy; that he has been bumming around Joplin for “years;” and she wouldn’t have his sort living off the utility bills that she was paying. Either Randy hit the road, or the they both would.

All said and done, Tony had given Randy more than half a month of borrowed time on his sofa. He wouldn’t risk being put out of house and home for Randy’s sake. As of that moment, Randy was nolonger welcome at Tony’s.

Oh woe unto him who has to bring this news back to Randy… Wait: him is me. Shit.

Here’s a man in day two of a self-made detox program who just lost the only roof under which he was allowed to bed. What better reason might a recovering alcoholic need to return to the bottle in this most trying of times than to find himself on the cold night streets, shaking not only of withdrawal but hypothermia as well. The devil sure is keen.

Who else would manufacture such diabolically perfect timing as to throw a man from the hard pursuit of a good thing but that greatest tempter. Surely some fallen angel was long on bent knee, whispering in Phyllis’ ear, “You’re paying the taxes on that home, aren’t you? And the utilities? Why should you let that half-deaf drunk, Tony, turn your property into a flop-house. What are you a doormat? Or some bleeding heart? You’ve got mortgages to pay. You don’t owe that bum on the couch anything. Meanwhile he’s sucking up the heat, water, and electricity that your dollar provides. Are you just going to give this jobless parasite a free ride? Or don’t you have a backbone?”

No doubt the deceiver made short work of Phyllis, laying his trap quite expertly. Now if Randy really wanted to get sober, the already ninety degree incline to sobriety would be leveled against him that much more; inverting his desperate climb and leaving the path completely without foothold.

I did not tarry long with Tony after learning this, but made haste back to the Refuge that I might spend the remaining day with Randy. I don’t imagine he could’ve taken the news much better; which is to say that he immediately resigned to the Devil’s plans, chiming, ‘Well fuck. That’s it isn’t it. I can’t do this now.’

There was still much of the day ahead of us and so Randy and I abode together much of it, reasoning what could be done. After a long slew of dead-end plans, tears, and self defeating commentary, there were only two real possibilities left standing. Either Randy would have to resign to sleeping outside, and fight the desire to warm himself through the night with liqueur’s embrace, or the Refuge would have to let him sleep within tonight, despite his uncompleted sobriety.

Each of these plans had major stumbling blocks lain in their paths to completion. First, if Randy were to sleep outside there was no way he would do so without the company of a case of ‘Steel Reserve;’ He expressed as much and, honestly, I knew it without need of hearing the words spoken aloud. Second, if he were to be allowed to stay at the Refuge he would first have to ask the administrators for this grace; and as of that moment he was terrified to do so.

I imagine his cowardice was of dual psychological origin. He feared the possible rejection that would make moot all his efforts to date, negating the virtue of the pains he had thus far suffered in recovery. Beyond that, I think he was hoping that if he didn’t ask for their help, I might do so on his behalf; using my relationship with the Refuge peoples as a somewhat sturdier bridge to his relief.

But I was not going to make this petition for him. The scripture goes, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.” (Mat. 7:7-8)

If Randy would not ask, neither seek, nor knock, I would not be his emissary to opened doors. I thought it important for him to put his own reputation on the line; for his reputation is not much of one at all among these people. I wanted him to face those whom he had wronged and forsaken – those whom have every right to deny him – and beg, yet again, for their graces. And if they received him, as they are called of God to do, he might see the better teachings of our Lord at work.

Yet if they denied him, he could not be found wrong in the asking. And more would the Refuge bear the guilt for falling short the creed of their espoused belief. Were I to make the request for him, it would mean nothing if they said ‘Okay.’ For Randy would think it the Refuge’s love of me, rather than their love of him, that made it possible.

Unwilling to be his mouthpiece, I focused on the alternative plan: sleeping rough. I told Randy that if he had to sleep outside, and if he would not turn again to the bottle, I would leave my bed and join him; that we could keep each other company throughout the cold night and ease each others burdens through fellowship.

He flatly refused. ‘If I’m sleeping under a bridge, I’m getting drunk. Besides, I don’t want you suffering any more for me.’

I tried for a bit to turn him toward this idea, but he just wouldn’t have it. I was left with little else I could do for his benefit. He hadn’t yet mustered the courage to ask the staff for shelter, and he wouldn’t have me accompany him.

The final benefit I could offer him was my sleeping bag. It was back at Tony’s with some other things that I had no need of while staying at the Refuge. I let him know that I could run and get it, but if I was going to make the trip it had to be soon. I didn’t want to show up at Tony’s to the sight of a darkened house and have to wake him to get my stuff. Tony has the habit of napping unevenly throughout the day, such that bed-time can strike him at any hour.

I guess this was enough to push Randy from his fear. Before I made the walk to Tony’s he wanted to see if the Refuge would allow him to bed in the shelter. He disappeared for five minutes and when he returned, the grin on his face foretold my brothers’ godliness. The Refuge administrators, knowing what Randy was trying to accomplish, and considering the situation, would give him a space under roof this night.

Randy Riggs: How much does God love you. How many are his children who have forgotten, forgiven, and lent again what squandered times before. Rejoice and be grateful how much the Lord has apportioned you.

As a formality, the Refuge gave Randy another breath test that night. He blew a 0.2; half what he had blown the night before. Not bad. My own breath test would be an interesting diversion. The night before I had blown a .02, thanks be to fasting just some ten hours. Now I would blow again, this time thirty hours into the fast.

The little box lit up with a .04! Where Randy had cut his breath alcohol content in half I had doubled my own. I found it no more than a curious entertainment, but I think at least one of the head residents started to level a squinted eye in my direction. I was, after all, pushing the upper boundary of what we’d been told the device could throw in false-positives; and I think I had become slightly suspect.

In any case, another little question mark was placed in the log next to my name and we all retired for the evening. Randy took a space on a reclined La-Z-Boy and zoned out on TV the rest of the night.

I slept with the hope that Randy would get his breath-test numbers down to double zero by the end of the next day; If not for the sake of his health and jeopardized residence at the Refuge, then for the sake of my own, the same.

-

Early the next day I sat on the dock, smoking a cigarette. We were now into hour fourty-eight of the fast and the word of it had spread thoroughly throughout the Refuge House. Missy, especially, was concerned. As I puffed my cancer-stick she approached and asked me how long I was going to go without eating. I answered, ‘as long as it takes Randy to complete his detox.’

In a motherly fashion Missy started looking for ways to get me to eat; asking whether I’d be willing to put something in my belly if Randy blew a 0.1 or a 0.15. I didn’t give her a firm answer, but she did manage to plant the idea in my mind. And I began to consider breaking my fast if Randy got low enough to satisfy my own standards; low enough to all-but guarantee his continuance to zeros. For that, I reasoned within myself, a .05 would be satisfactory.

Still, Missy wanted me to eat. So, she told me she was going to go give Randy another test, hoping the results would be encouraging enough for me to sate my gullet with some breakfast cereal or something. Then she left me, retreating back into the Refuge to find Randy.

I have a feeling that Missy was part of the driving force behind the decision to allow Randy to stay overnight. From her general demeanor, it seemed that she had thrown her support behind Randy and his goal. I think she may have used some of her influence at the Refuge – whispering in the right ears – to aid Randy in getting this umpteenth chance.

When she returned, she had the early signs of tears forming in the corners of her eyes. She walked right up and hugged me.

I smiled and said, “Are we happy or sad?”

“He blew a 2.4”

Ah, then we’re sad.

Apparently Randy had left the building as soon as he woke up and gotten a beer or two. This wasn’t completely unexpected to me. Randy was trying to step himself down, after all, without the aid of the drugs that detox programs typically use to stabilize alcoholics during the transition period. I suppose he woke up with a bad case of the shakes and just couldn’t suffer it without a supplemental hit.

I wasn’t disappointed, but Missy was. To her credit she didn’t ask me to eat anything after that. I finished my cigarette and went about the rest of my day’s business until dinner time.

It was a Sunday, and on Sundays the Refuge dinner is open to all comers. Often, Sunday dinners will be prepared by volunteers or some local church that wishes to contribute to the homeless community. This Sunday the meal had been prepared by one of the local Baptist churches; Spaghetti, cream corn, green beans, buttered bread, and your choice of yellow or chocolate cake.

What a time to be fasting.

As the church prepared the meal, I sat outside on the porch again, avoiding the smell of warm food and taking in another of my only source of sustenance for the past fifty-four hours: un cigarrillo. As I sat I heard a woman’s scream echo from within the Refuge.

In a blur, Missy came bounding ‘round the corner, hooting in glee; again kneeling to hug me.

“I guess we’re happy this time?” I said.

Missy had been moving on my behalf. She had administered another blow test on Randy, hoping that by some miracle the numbers might have fallen low enough in these few hours to convince me to eat.

Exuberantly she exclaimed, “He blew a .07!”

When Missy’s jubilance subsided I walked back inside and found Randy. We hugged and I told him, “You did it, brother!”

“You promise me you’re going all the way to zero and I’ll eat.”

He assured me he would be to zero by nightfall and so together we filled our bellies with spaghetti, cream corn, and cake.

That night, at the breath test, Randy Riggs made good on his word, blowing two big O’s. Not only had he made it to sobriety, but he was now legitimately a resident of the City of Refuge Ministries once more.

Also that night, at the breath test, I made legal scholars across the globe cock their necks for a better view when I blew a .06! Despite, or perhaps because of, the half-digested Sunday dinner bubbling in my stomach, I blew an “alcohol” content just two-hundredths shy of most states’ drunk-driving statutes; and equally in excess of the supposedly maximum false-positive figures.

Having spent a fair amount of time perusing legal briefs and studying the law as hobby, I find it insanely interesting that a breath test can read so inaccurately, especially considering how heavily they’re relied upon by police in the field.

Anyway, the next day I was back to blowing zeros, as was Randy. He was sober and had a roof over his head. Within a few days he started working again. He had fought the good fight and won; earning back a life that didn’t necessarily include sucking down 24oz. cans of beer behind dumpsters in alleyways and sleeping eighteen hours a day on other peoples couches.

Surely he wasn’t yet fully free of the demon which tempts him. But he had swept the tempter from its comfortable seat atop his shoulders, and that fallen angel would now be forced to run alongside, panting and trying to keep pace with the strength and conviction of my brother Randy Riggs.

Joplin, Missouri - Written 11-8,*;12-4,5,6-2007