San Francisco Prose #1

It was a year ago today that I flew out to San Francisco for a two week vacation. I needed to complete a course for a class I mentored at my church here in DC. I extended my stay beyond the class to spend time with a dear friend there, and to visit museums and events around the annual Gay Pride celebrations. While visiting I used public transportation (BART) on most days to get around. And it was in this venue that I had a couple of really wonderful encounters with strangers. I wrote both up as little prose pieces, and want to share them with you now. The first occurred on the first Sunday morning that I was there. It was the last day of the course that I was taking at a seminary in Berkeley. (As an aside: I have been a Christian since 1979; I am constantly amazed by God and my relationship with God is THE constant in my life. But I ain't no fundievangelical type -- God is so much bigger than that!)

COMANCHE

"Never forget to be hospitable, for by hospitality some have entertained angels unawares."
~ the Catacism to the Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 2

I met a man, while waiting at the BART station at Mission & 16th to open one Sunday morning (or more accurately, he met me). At first, he was quite timid, his features and jet black hair announced Native American blood flowed in his veins. He asked me to help him navigate his way to Berkeley, which is were I was headed, too. It turned out that he was on his way to see his wife and daughter. He’d just spent 18 months in prison and was in a rehab/half-way house whose program uses the garden space of my friend’s church, St. John the Evangelist, for Native American drumming, chanting, and dancing ceremonies twice a week. The program focuses solely on Native Americans who have entered into the wrong sort of relationship with the criminal justice system. It helps them to discover their heritage and find strength in their identity (often, gives them an identity) and a community. He was carrying a drum stick that he had made for his daughter. He was glowing with the innocent joy of a nine-year-old on Christmas morning as he held it gingerly, like a precious artifact. With tender surprise at my interest, he eagerly shared his story with me. He told me that he had discovered in the process of rehab that his ethnic ancestry was Comanche. He told me all about how the program was giving him a new life, and a new way to see life -- to cope with life. How he now realized that his assumptions about the world were all wrong. That once he had thought everyone reacted to pain and disappointment by escaping into drugs and acting out violently, but thanks to the compassion of his parole officer he’d been given this second chance, found a place in this special program, and could see how wrong his thinking about the world had always been. He had an eight grade education but was hoping to work on his GED. I rejoiced in his epiphany and drew him out with questions about his family, about the symbolism of the colors on the drum stick, about his journey into this new found freedom. He filled my heart with light without fading in the slightest. AMEN