Dispatches from the Trails End

This is a reflection I wrote  after listening to a podcast episode for Dr. Johnson’s Contexts of Ministry class. The podcast (from a series called “Dispatches from the Trails End”) focused on Don, a man whom the Buffalo Gap church has been able to reach out to and minister to (as well as being ministered to by him). Though I have not changed anything, the original post can be found here: http://blogs.acu.edu/1020_BIBM64001/2010/02/04/beall-dispatches-from-the-trails-end/

I’m not sure exactly of all the reasons I wanted to include this reflection in my portfolio. In many ways, it doesn’t do much to exhibit specific outcomes which are expected in the GST. I could make an argument that it fits outcome 7 (especially 7ad), as it might be considered an indication of my intuitive ability to see into people and read them, therefore allowing me to exercise compassionate soul care. And I’m tagging it as an indicator of outcome 11d because I feel that it does demonstrate my facility with words, even though I’m sure outcome 11 is generally meant to apply to critical, formal arguments rather than this more subjective, artistic creation.

As a bit of an aside, I think it would be amazing to emphasize the beauty and necessity of creative and artistic expression in some of these expected outcomes. Music, drawing, creative writing, acting, photography and so many other creative acts are poignant expressions of who our God—THE CREATOR—is. I believe that we shortchange not only ourselves but also our God when we emphasize our strictly “intellectual” and “ministerial” abilities while neglecting our creative ones as an indicator of God at work in and through us. But back to the point…

Like I said, I’m not sure of any official reasons I should include this in my portfolio. I can’t (or don’t want to!) analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and make application from this piece of my artistic expression, yet I think it says important things about me and my identity as a minister of the gospel of Christ. So I leave it to those of you who read it to infer what you will…

———————-

I know it’s a small thing in the scope of the entire set of podcasts. Just a few words, painting a mental picture. But those few words and that mental image are what really remain with me, even days after listening to the stories of the Buffalo Gap Church of Christ and their friend Don.

I can just see him. Don, leaning against his gate, feet planted firmly in place, willing to chat for a few minutes with these strangers who have come to see him, but unwilling to open the entirety of his life to them. Suspicious of their motives and aims, Don keeps his distance, clearly marking with his gate the boundary between their world and his. This far you may come, and no further, he says with his stance. Visit after visit, week after week, month after month. This far and no further.

Several months pass. The small talk over the top of the gate continues. But one day things are different. Things change. One day, Don, seeing his now-familiar visitors approaching, reaches down, unlatches the gate, and swings it wide open. This far you may come, and further. I am overcome by the magnitude of this particular moment, this simple yet immensely significant invitation. It is an invitation to a chair, to coffee, to conversation, to companionship. This far, and further.

Why does this unpretentious sequence of events catch my eye, catch my heart? Why are Don’s actions, seemingly self-explanatory, so important to me? It’s just a gate, right? No big deal, right? Somehow I don’t think so.

“I know a man who lives in a bus.” A man who lives in a bus? A bus? He lives in a bus?

I can only imagine this as the beginning of the series of questions that follow when someone learns of this “man who lives in a bus.” I can also imagine that Don can imagine this series of questions. To the general world around him, Don must know, he is “the man who lives in a bus.” He is an oddity at best, a cause for bewilderment or even scorn at worst. For what kind of person lives in a bus, anyway?!

Somehow along the way, in the telling of the story, in the relating of the facts of Don’s anomalous existence, the identity of this man, this person who is the created image of the living God, has been reduced to that of the man who lives in a bus. And the emphasis is not even so much on the fact that he’s a man or that he lives. It’s the bus we’re concerned about.

It’s no wonder that Don eyed his visitors with suspicion. Why were they there? Who was he to them? Was he merely the freak show of the quiet little town of Buffalo Gap, his life a spectacle to be gawked at? I wouldn’t have opened my gate either. No one needs that kind of attention. There’s a line that’s got to be drawn somewhere. This far and no further.

But something was different about these guests. They came back. And not only that. They came back and even seemed to enjoy the conversation, seemed to want to get to know him. They came back, and instead of staring at the novelty of his makeshift home, they looked at him, into his eyes, into his soul. Again and again. Visit after visit, week after week, month after month. Don’s wall of “this far and no further” began to crumble, until one day it was no longer insurmountable. The gate swung open wide. This far, and further.

This far, and further. I truly believe that that is the heart’s cry of humanity. We long to be seen, to be known, to be loved. But caught in the midst of a world of pain, derision, selfishness, hatred, and apathy, we feel we are forced to keep the gate closed, leaning against it firmly to protect ourselves from the unwelcome outsiders who come to gape at our failures, our idiosyncrasies, our vulnerability.

But what happens when someone actually sees me? When it’s not the outward appearances and circumstances which are the focus, but rather it’s the reality of who I am as a human being, as a reflection and representation of God?

What happens when I actually see him, see her? When the real stories are told, the real identities found? When each person is viewed not with the eyes of the world, but with the eyes of the Creator? When he’s not just a good-for-nothing beggar on the street but a man who has no alternatives if his wife and three kids are to eat that night? When she’s not the haughty high school slut but a lonely and scared teenage girl whose only experience of acceptance comes at a great price? When he’s not my enemy but my brother? When she’s not a “ministry opportunity” but my sister?

What happens when someone looks not at the bus in the background but at the pain and longing for companionship that are present deep within his eyes, no matter practiced he might be at concealing them in order to safeguard himself, and no matter how heavily he might lean against that gate?

When this kind of vision is practiced—visit after visit, week after week, month after month—one tiny bit at a time, the defenses are let down. The gate of the heart opens, and the invitation is extended. This far, and further.

May we go, and may we see.