Good Samaritan Redux

He was late. Many people are late but he was later than most. He’d promised his wife fifteen times today that he wouldn’t work late. He’d promised…and then the project came up. Not just any project but the project that he thought was going to make his career. Except it didn’t. And it wouldn’t. And now he was late and he had to take a shortcut.

He normally wouldn’t take this shortcut. It was a bad area and had been since the mid-eighties. The city kept saying that it would revitalize this district. That it would send more patrols down there but then the police commissioner had been caught in a scandal and the budget for the whole justice department had been slashed so this area just got worse. But it was the only way he was going to get home on time. The only way. He kept saying it to himself over and over and over again. She would leave him. The only way. I can make it. I will make it.

He was so focused on getting home on time that he didn’t notice the black shape behind him. He was so focused he didn’t see the one in front of him either, at least, not until it’s fist rearranged his nose. Then he couldn’t focus on anything. Not when they beat him. Not when they stripped him. Not when they stole everything he had. Not when they ran away. Nothing. He was lost in a half lucid broken oblivion, and it wasn’t getting better.

When he woke up he felt he’d been there for hours. He looked up and saw the side of the building, tried to roll over and passed out. He woke up two times more, once thinking he should call his wife and tell her about the project, why he was going to be late, how sorry he was, the other time about the grinding pain permeating almost every bone in his body.

It wasn’t long after that the street evangelist found him. It’d been a good day at work for him. He’d left tracts under mousepads, inside cups at the water cooler, and, what he was most proud of, in the back pocket of one of the software designers. Tonight on the street hadn’t been too bad either. He had a crowd around him at one point when the atheist started arguing about the historical inaccuracies of the Bible. If anyone was sure to go to hell it was that man. And then someone threw half of a chocolate milkshake at him. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.” Blessed. He was blessed indeed. And then he had happened upon the broken, bleeding bird form of the man. He would have tripped over him if he hadn’t been taking off his boards. But there he was, a fragile, naked, bleeding body on the sidewalk. The evangelist puzzled over the man, knowing that he was almost over his minutes on his cell. He couldn’t really afford to go over them, and this man was almost dead anyway, right? He couldn’t be helped and God helped those who helped themselves. With a sniff he looked around. No one had seen him near this guy, half buried in the trash. No one could fault him for ignoring him. He was covered in milkshake for heaven’s sake, and it was starting to get uncomfortably itchy. He didn’t know this man. He didn’t care to. He tucked his boards under his arm again, careful not to notice the street sign, hoping for plausible deniability.

The man’s eyes saw a shape. A blurry shape walking away. The shape of salvation receding. Of hope diminishing. He tried to cry out. Tried to reach out. Tried anything. And couldn’t. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t hang on to consciousness.

It was about midnight before anyone else walked past. He normally wouldn’t come down this alley. Normally wouldn’t come to this part of town for that matter, but it’d been a long year. His wife had left him, his kids had turned their entitled backs on him, and he had watched his considerable real estate fortune cut into a fourth of what it was. Sure, a small nation would be able to subsist itself on that much, but when your life’s work collapses that fast…well, it changes you. That was his family, or his former family’s complaint. He’d grown mean. He’d grown abusive. He picked up vices like a toddler picks up words and that’s why he was here. Here was the vice that he loathed. The vice that he loved. He had been a philanthropist in the past. Still was if you looked at the numbers. His funds still built orphanages, built hospitals, built wells in every part of the world but he stopped caring about that when his kingdom shrank. It was a way to keep the taxes down now. He didn’t cut ribbons. He didn’t hold little children and get his picture taken. He cursed every good thing he did. It didn’t matter. They didn’t save his company. It was wasted time. Wasted money. What he was here for was for an immediate return on investment. Her name was Lisa but she hid that behind caked makeup and the made up name of Candy. That’s where he was going. That’s who he was going to see, that is, until he saw the hand.

At first he thought it was a Halloween prop thrown out too late, but then it moved. Not a big movement but a definite twitch. He went over to look a little closer and saw the purple and black body that belonged to the shattered starfish of a hand. If he had been down this alley a year ago, he would have called 9-1-1. He would have thrown this man in the back of his car and driven him to the nearest hospital all expenses paid. He would have done something for this man. But that was a year ago. That was before he was sorry for himself. That was before he’d lost everything. Now it no longer mattered. Human pain and suffering had no place left in this man’s heart. It was too full of self pity and self loathing. Far too full of self to even reach in his pocket and dial the three numbers that would save this man’s life. Far too full of self to even wait here with this man while his lungs shuddered out a few final breaths. He had an appointment to make. An appointment with Candy. His curiosity satisfied, and other desires longing to be he turned on his Italian made heel and stepped if not more quickly then more purposefully down the alley to the third door on the left. To Candy. To forgetfulness.

He woke up to a smell. Not entirely unpleasant, but definitely there. Definitely strong. It was sweet, but too sweet. The kind of smell invented to cover up smells. To cover up sins. To hide them beneath the waves of lavender, rose and lilac with a hint of cinnamon. He woke up to a face. Smudged paint around calculating eyes. Eyes that had probably seen death this close before. That weren’t shocked by anything. Eyes that hid behind walls built up out of habit, out of fear, out of desperation. Eyes that had seen the worst in every man she’d ever met. She saw him breathe. One lonely heave of the chest. He was alive. His left eye was closed by cuts and swelling, his right eye almost there but it was following her. She moved her finger in front of it. First left then right. It tracked. He was alive. Alive and awake. She looked in her purse. She had to give her cell phone away. She couldn’t afford it anymore. Besides, he would just take it away again. He would beat her and take it away. She kept leafing through the contents of her purse. Her pills, her other pills. Her makeup. There. The roll of cash she’d been working towards rent with. The roll of cash that was her lifeboat away from him, from everything this life wanted. The roll of cash that this man needed to stay alive. She couldn’t take him to the hospital. If anyone saw her there with a naked broken man, they’d tell him. He didn’t like attention. He’d probably end up killing her. She knew a doctor. He’d helped her out before when she’d had to pinch out a couple of lights growing in her belly. He had been nice. He had been discreet, but he hadn’t been cheap. She left for five minutes and pulled her car up alongside the man. She tugged him into the backseat as gently as possible and covered him with a blanket stolen from the motel room.

It was only a fifteen minute drive to the doctor’s house. He lived in the suburbs closest to the city. He lived alone. His wife was dead and he didn’t have any kids. When he opened the door he was in his bathrobe, his skinny, veined ankles leading to worn slippers that could’ve been pink once. She explained that she’d found the man. That she didn’t know who he was. That he was broken. That he’d been broken for a long time. That if he needed more money to take care of him she could get it to him in a week. Then she drove away. She drove away crying. Crying because the world was broken. Crying because she couldn’t fix it. Because she couldn’t fix herself.

It Is What It Isn't

Christianity obviously suffers from a lot of things. I know. I'm in it. I've even contributed to it, but I think that one of the most frustrating things about Christianity is that each generation expects they've reached the end of what faith and Christiainity is. Faith can't change beyond what we know. So if I think church is broken, obviously it's a spiritual issue of obedience that I'm dealing with.

But really?

Is it?

Or is it that people continuously change the way they interact with the world? Is the model of the fifties and sixties church just not effective anymore? Was church broken before that, and we just found out now? Maybe we've been trained to think that today's idea of a formalized church is something to be pursued. It kind of reminds me a little of the beginning of the Reformation.

Martin Luther decided that the Roman Catholic Church was wrong when they said you could pay to get your sins taken away, so he nails these 95 theses to a church's door essentially saying, your model of doing things is corrupt and broken.

People like Tyndale and Wycliffe changed the way everybody interacted with the Bible after centuries of only a select few with the proper education being able to read it...because the system was broken. And still we think that if we shake the worm eaten pillars of the modern church, we're heretics...but weren't the founders of the Reformation? Wasn't Paul a heretic? And Peter? And James? The problem is that we hold tight to opinions while the rafters fall all about us. Church should be in a building, there needs to be a sermon and singing. What about the community? Well, obviously we need to tack on small groups to our programming. That way people experience true community.

But what if it's wrong? What if it's wrong to spend more money on matching our carpets to our pews than to help the needy? What if it's wrong to pay the church's heating bill when we have twelve people in our "congregation" without the means to pay their own heating bills? What if the argument isn't should we sing hymns or the newest praise choruses, but how can we actually love our neighbors? How can we move from the idea of traditional church to the idea of effective Christian community?

I think the heart of the problem is that the majority of us have stopped inventing. We've grown comfortable with the way church is and so church has stagnated. The status quo is sufficient. Punching our spiritual time cards on Sunday is a no effort exercise. And if that's enough, why explore what church should become. It is what it is, right?

But what if it isn't?

Skim milk, with it's condensation beaded around the edge of the glass, nothing like it my friends. Nothing like the ice cold wash of ice cold milk poured rushing down the gullet and swishing and swirling in the stomach. It's almost like heaven on a hot hot day...except, today is overcast and 54.

I'm dying. Slowly but surely, I'll be dead. As far as I know, I'm not dying any faster than anyone else. I don't have any terminal diseases that I know of. I've been told that genetically, my heart may not be the best, but beyond that, I'm the spitting image of health's younger brother. And yet, the fact remains...that I'm dying. Slowly by slowly. Inch by cautious inch my skin is folding, collapsing in on itself. Soon enough my muscles will sag and turn flabby, my jowls will dip, my hair will turn on it's neon vacancy sign and I'll be dead. And we all will.

This isn't news. You wont see "We Are All Dying" as a New York Times headline. We know it. But we ignore it. Because it's easier to live when you aren't going to die. It's easier to believe the string of life will last forever. But life is never real until that string is cut, until it ends. When we realize how short life is, it becomes important. It matters. There's meaning to it.

Fully sated and obese, I sit.

We just had a staff lunch which was full of enchiladas and other myriad Mexican delights...like miniature Snickers.  Who was the wise guy who came up for the title of that candy bar anyway?  Were they throwing out some absurd suggestions like "Nougarama" at the end of a long day of brainstorming when everyone was giving half humored chuckles when someone grabbed the incandescent bulb above their head and with full forced shouted "Snickers!  We should call them Snickers!"  Or maybe it was the privately held nickname of their CEO who never even came close to cracking a smile.  It'd be fittingly ironic.  Candy normally doesn't encourage a somber demeanor.

Regardless, I find myself with a pound or so of the finest American Mexican cuisine that you could find at Eastern Hills Bible Church around one in the afternoon, and find myself with nothing really to ponder.  I mean, I imagine I could force a ponder or two, but that'd be disingenuous and I am anything but.  Your sweater is ugly, by the way.  I know you were wondering.  I guess I just miss updating.  I miss having something to update about.  And I don't like feeling like I have to become a superficial spiritual guru to add something.  

Also, I don't like long haired cats.