Blue, my friend and theological partner

Last Thursday at "the Corner," I noticed my dear friend, Blue seated on the steps that rise from the sidewalk onto the pathway leading to the old, abandoned house on whose porch I was sitting.

Blue was reading a book.

After a few minutes of conversation with several other people, I approached my friend to ask how he was doing.

He opened the book he had been reading and pointed me to a particular paragraph and told me to read it.  The content involved a moving analysis of faith and the mystical position of the believer in the life of Christ.

After reading the paragraph out loud, I turned to the cover to discover whose words I had read.

As seen in the photo here, Blue was reading the work of Thomas Merton.

Here's a portion of what Wikipedia has to say about Merton:

an Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis.

Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews, including his best-selling autobiography, The Seven Stormy Mountain (1948), which sent scores of World War II veterans, students, and even teenagers flocking to monasteries across the US, and was also featured in National Review's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama, the Japanese writer D.T. Suzuki, and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Merton has also been the subject of several biographies.

"Larry, if I'm sleeping on Billy's driveway," he said, pointing over toward the old service station next door where he beds down most nights, "I'm 'in Christ.'  And if I'm under a tree, I'm 'in Christ.' And if you put me in a house, I'm 'in Christ.'"

He concluded, "I'm just Blue, 'in Christ.'"

Blue, my good buddy, sitting on a South Dallas sidewalk, reading Merton, lecturing me about the mystery of solitude and solidarity.  

Reflecting on this amazing experience, it occurred to me that lots of people ask me if I share faith with the poor.  

Share faith with the likes of Blue?  Certainly, with most of the benefit coming back my way.

I live for the day that someone asks me if I ever share faith with bankers and venture capitalists.  

When it comes to faith, I'm enrolled in a class taught by my friend, Blue. 

Could hell be any hotter, good news any sweeter?

Thursday, August 29, 2013
4:09 p.m.

Just left the Corner where the temperature on my Jeep read 111.

If hell is hotter, I don't want to go!

The crowd of neighbors at the Corner was the largest to date.

Everyone was hot and thirsty.

Wendy, my friend, rushed me as I got out of my car wanting to know if I had the papers needed to get a copy of her birth certificate. We've been working on this project for a while.  If you've lost all of the documents proving you are who you say you are, how to you move forward?

Without the papers I can see how I might begin to think that in fact I'm nobody.

I worked down the list on the papers that I received from the state that instructed her as to what she would need since she had no documents proving who she was.  It is complicated.  No one could do this alone, including me.  Reality for the poorest of the poor.

Attitudes out on the Corner amaze me.

A smiling white dude in a cowboy hat walked up, shook my hand and replied to my inquiry as to how he was doing saying, "If I was any better, I couldn't stand it!"

He then begin to talk about his faith and his walk with God.

I thought of the church folk who are so quick to ask me if any "ministry" takes place in our work.

I'd say it does.

Except it's the homeless poor ministering to me, every single time.

At one point as I looked across the red hot pavement of Malcolm X Boulevard, I spotted a homeless black man assisting a blind, Latino man to the bus stop.  Community defined by compassion.

Preaching broke out when Robert, a regular at the Corner, told the story of Jesus and the woman caught in the act of adultery.

"'Who among you is without sin?' is what Jesus asked," the street preacher said.  "And everybody started mumbling and finally said, 'I'll catch y'all tomorrow.'"

"Yep," I replied, "they all started dropping rocks!"

"My favorite story, my very, most favorite!" Robert said.

Ministry, indeed.

Ice cold water,

Gatorade.

Snacks.

Someone to simply pat my back, tell me that I matter and urge me to be careful. Sincere thank yous tossed back into your heart.

Good news, in a very limited way, but good news just the same to the poverty in all of us.