That night, we laughed so hard we cried.
We'd only just met a few hours previously, but by the end of the night I felt as if I'd gained a new, true, authentic friend.
***
Hour one.
His words were hard and deep, and they hit me at my core, spoke something to my soul.
"I've been on heroin for eight years now. I stopped once, for a little bit, but then I fell back into it. People tell you meth is the bad one, but really none of 'em are good".
Bad teeth. Constant itching. Poor memory. The signs were all there, and the needle track marks were more than visible on his arms. This man danced with drugs; he didn't need to tell me.
Or maybe he did. He absolutely did, because no one had sat and simply listened to this man tell about his drug addiction or any other part of his life in who knows how long. He needed to speak it out. He needed someone to just listen.
So that's what I did. I sat beside him on the grass and listened to him share his story, because stories are how we grow, and each of us has a story to tell.
I think a lot of times we think that we need to speak, that we need to go out and tell people about Jesus or how wrong they are or what they can do to get saved and stop sinning. Maybe there are times and places for these conversations, I'm not really sure, but I think maybe more than anything what God wants is for us to stop speaking and to start listening.
To simple sit and listen to the stories of other people, to hear each other out, to nod in agreement and clasp hands and look each other in the eye as if to say, "I hear you. I hear you out, and I'm standing with you".
To validate the lives and experiences of other people.
We often want to change the world, but maybe we really just need to practice being present. Maybe we just need to love people where they're at and let people love us where we're at.
In this, we begin to share stories. We begin to experience life and love and all things God, together.
***
Hour two.
So much wisdom had come from that story right there, the one in which the man before me shared how he had delivered his own little girl at birth, and how in that moment he experienced God like he never had before in his life. It was one of my favorite stories I had ever heard, because it was full of laughter and beauty and things not of this world.
I doubt God a lot, but babies always convince me otherwise. It's something about when their tiny fingers wrap around yours, how their bowed mouths only speak life of coos and gargles, how their chubby feet are fat and cute and one hundred percent precious.
Babies symbolize life. They represent birth and hope and resurrection and kingdom potential. There is so much potential wrapped up in one chubby, cute, precious, innocent baby. Babies convince me of the realness of God, and my dear friend Chuck's story, about how he had delivered his very own daughter, reminded me of that.
As he spoke of holding her and being terrified and awestruck all at once, memories washed over me. I have felt that way too before, the first time I held my oldest nephew. After my sister delivered baby Nathan, I just held him in my arms and cried. He was so perfect, and after her second child, Ryan, was born I had the exact same reaction.
Babies make me a weepy mess. They remind me of God in every single way. They convince me of His presence and miracles and overwhelming life.
***
"Thank you for sitting with me darlin'. I've been by myself all day; it's nice to have someone to talk to".
At the end of our time we found God together. Sitting in the grass, God found us in the place we were in. We prayed together, just me and this sixty-year old man from Tacoma, Washington now bumming the streets of Portland with the sky as his roof and the ground as his bed. He gave me a hug and I hugged him right back, hard. We were friends, this homeless man and myself.
He's not a project.
He's just a person.
He's my friend.
As I pulled away from the embrace I saw tears in his eyes, and then I started crying because I'm a feeler through and through.
Suddenly I hated everything that had hurt this man, every drug and addiction and oppressive system that had left him on the streets.
Every dark force.
Every us vs them mindset.
Every real pain.
Every stolen joy.
I hated it.
But I was glad for hope, and I was glad that in that moment we could find it. We found hope, because hope is found in the sharing of stories. Hope is found in the living of life together. Hope is found in the carrying of each others' burdens. Hope is found in the hard spaces and the sacred places. Hope is found when we look into the face of another person and speak it out: you are loved.
I see you.
And you are loved.
***
I've never done heroin. I've never delivered a baby or played five instruments or been homeless or traveled far by foot. That night though I had all of those experiences and more, because all of those were and are Chuck's experiences.
That night, his experiences became mine.
Mine became his.
And God found us there, in those moments.
In the moments of love and laughter and tears and silence.
In the midst of stories.
