They drug her from her lovers bed and through the streets of the city. By the time they got her to Him she was scraped, dirty, and completely humiliated. They threw the adultress to the ground at His feet, picked up rocks with which to kill her, then asked Him what He thought. He did not condemn her. He wrote a love note in the sand with His finger, challenged her accusers, sent them away. Treated her with compassion and gave her dignity.
I wonder what she wanted to say or did say to Him as He walked away.

He had been laying beside the pool of Shalome for 38 years. He was laying there when Jesus was borne in a manger. He was crippled, unable to help himself. He begged for a subsistence. One day He walks by and asks if the crippled man wanted to be made whole. A lifetime of impotent helplessness. The man responded as many wounded people do, with bitterness and a touch of self pity. Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him into a brand new life of full health.
I wonder what he said to Jesus as He walked away.

He lived among tombs. He was out of his head, crazy. He was naked. villagers had tried to chain him and he snapped the chains like a wild beast. He spent all his time among the tombs, crying and beating himself. He lived as so many do, among the ghost of what could have been, crying in pain, and beating himself up for a life wasted and lost. The Jesus crossed the sea and came to Gadera, just for this demon possessed man. He delivered him in a moment and restored his sanity. I wonder what the formerly demon possessed tomb dweller said to Jesus as He got back on his ship to sail away.

The stories are endless. One of the benefits of insomnia is how much time I can spend reading. I read through the Gospels again this weekend and this is what I saw over and over. Jesus walking into lives at the lowest point of that life and transforming them. These are not the only stories like this in the Gospels. It happens over and over. This is what He does...

I came away with two predominant thoughts.

1. I wonder what they said to Him. That is what my worship to Jesus needs to be because He has done no less for me. Not once, but over and over again. When I was rightfully accused and fully guilty. When all I had was shame. When I was helpless and hopeless. When all I could do was cry and beat myself up rattling around among the ghost of what was and what could have been. Every time He came into my life and picked me up. Showing nothing but compassion and love. It is one thing to give someone another chance. It is another thing altogether to restore dignity. Whatever they said to Him, what the naked adultress in the dust whispered, what the former cripple stammered out, what the previously raving madman said as he gripped the sides of a wooden boat...that is worship indeed. And Jesus deserves to hear it from me.

2. I want Him to be so much in me that when I come into peoples lives He can still do that through me. As one New Testament writer put it...I must decrease so that He can increase. Kevin needs to fade so that Jesus can shine.

Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away?

That line from Neruda has hung with me for a few days.  Bringing up all kinds of questions.

How can a soul connection, that once it is made seems so easy and right, have been missed so badly?

How can people with so much capacity for love be so lonely?

How can people that want to make each other happy find themselves unable to do so?

How come we never know what we have until is gone?

How come we never know what we truly desire until our choices have already been made?

Is knowing what is possible worth feeling this way?

I am really tempted to answer that last one....

It is growing late and I cannot sleep. I have wrestled with insomnia for years. Some nights nothing works.

I spent a while in meditation and prayer tonight. I am not particularly troubled by anything. I am at peace with God.

I played with my boys and put them to bed.

I rode my bike, for miles and miles. Through the now empty city streets. No sound but the hiss of the tires and my heart. I rode this morning as well. Pedaling and praying bracketed both ends of my day. Came home to a steaming hot shower. No sleep.

I read for a long time. I am reading a bit of Polanyi. That should put a bull elephant in full musk to sleep. Didn’t even phase me. I then switched to poetry. My old friend Pablo Neruda. I read…

We have lost even this twilight. No one saw us this evening hand in hand while the blue night dropped on the world. I have seen from my window the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops. Sometimes a piece of sun burned like a coin in my hand. I remembered you with my soul clenched in that sadness of mine that you know. Where were you then? Who else was there? Saying what? Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly when I am sad and feel you are far away? The book fell that always closed at twilight and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet. Always, always you recede through the evenings toward the twilight erasing statues.

As always…Neruda makes the ever present loneliness more intense. But it comforts somehow. Someone else has felt what I feel. I miss her. Then I picked up my pen and wrote. I sat in the back yard under the sprawling oak and wrote long. Some of what I am sharing here. Some I will never share. But the confessions are there on paper in my unintelligible scrawl. And I suppose that makes them real.

So, I have been thinking alot about my conversation with Nadine. How easily she moves in her world and how her influence spreads effotlessly. It has caused me to examine my influence on people. Here are four questions I have came away with that I have applied to the handful of significant human relationships I have

1. As a result of being in a relationship with me, does this person feel closer to God? Desire to know God more? Know more about God?

2. As a result of being in a relationship with me, does this person feel better about themselves as a person? More hopeful for their future and what they can become?

3. Since entering into relationship with me, does this person feel more passionate about their life?

4. Without overstating my own importance, would I leave a significant hole in this persons life if I were to cease to exist tomorrow?

These are the gifts I want most to give to the people I love.

I was desperately trying to squeeze in a work out between business, family time, and having some boys from a shelter over. I had dashed into the health club and was on a cross trainer machine, reading a book propped up in front of me. All around me busy people were desperately sweating and grunting and fighting the battle of the bulge.

The first thing I noticed was her awkward walk. A strange shuffle that a parent of special needs kid will hone in on. That hesitant stride of someone that knows they don’t fit into the world. Hers was something more. The way her limbs would not respond… Some affliction that affected her physically, and as she came closer you could tell by her slack jaw that the affect was not just physical. An elderly gentleman carrying a newspaper walked behind her. And she came to the machine next to mine and awkwardly clambered on.

Her speech was halting and slurred, and her and her father tried to figure the computer on the machine out. I stopped long enough to step over..and get her started. She smiled..a huge smile. Thaaank…you. Her speech was guttural. Loud. “You are very welcome” I said. AAhh….Ahhhh..Ahhh I I am…Nadine.. She smiled. I am Kevin. She was slowly working the machine. Hazel eyes sparkling. Blond hair curling on the nape of her neck. “ Leave the man alone Nadine”, her father murmured. Really, it is ok, I told him. I explained that I have a handicapped child that does not speak. I would love to have a conversation with her. He shrugged, smiled, and said let me know if she gets to be too much.

So for the next hour me and Nadine worked out side by side. And she talked, and talked. I found out….

She is twenty years old.
Her Daddy brings her to work out 3 times a week.
She is working out to be healthy not look pretty because working out to be pretty would be silly everyone is pretty and do not need to work out for that…
Mommy takes her for a walk every evening and mommy told her that is the best part of her day.
She works at a fabric store putting up the bolts of cloth after ladies lay it out. Her boss told her that they could not run the store without her.
All of the ladies that come in the store want her to put their cloth up when they are done.
Her and Daddy eat ice cream together almost every night.
Her Daddy is her boyfriend but not really cause he is really Mommys boyfriend but Mommy said they could share but it is not like her sisters boyfriend. Her sister goes to college and she saw her sister kiss her boyfriend and it was gross.
She likes going to work. The fabric store smells nice and every person is nice.
She likes it when Daddy picks her up from work and they stop at the park on the way home so she can swing while Daddy reads a book.
Daddy reads a book to her sometime. He is REALLY smart. He says books are better when he reads them to her.

I know how tough it can be to raise a special needs kid. Her parents had done something incredible. They never let this child know that her being in their life had in any way made their life tougher. To the contrary, this girl believed the world around her was a wonderful place. She views her world as full of love, where everyone in it is happy that she is part of it. She takes joy in the simplicity of her life. There is wonder at the smallest detail.

At moments during this endless speech the drool would come down her chin and her Father stepped around and wiped it off. An action I have done a thousand times for Ashton. It never slowed Nadines speech.

Then she said..

Whaaa—at…about…you? What about me? Tell me about you… Well, to be honest, I thought about my life, the petty aggravations, the silly disappointments at circumstances that I think are less than perfect, the spoiled thought processes that have me demanding more for me. I was kind of embarrassed to share my life with Nadine. But I did…

She was astounded that I had a daughter. She asked, “Is she normal or special” ? She asked in the wide eyed innocent way that only a small child or a mentally challenged person can ask. She is special. Really? Slack jawed wonder. I showed her a picture. Wow….she is VERY special. Yeah. I told Nadine that Ashton cannot talk. Wow..she is even more special than me. How do you figure Nadine? Well, the less a person can do…the more special they are. Why is that Nadine? Well, my Daddy told me why there are special people in the world. The world runs too fast. It is broken. So it runs too fast and can run so fast it will explode. So God put special people in the world, cause, the world has to slow down for us. We can’t run, or talk fast, or drive, or do a lot of things. But that’s ok. The world has to slow down for us. This keeps the world from exploding. She leaned close, I thought she was going to fall off the machine. She grabbed my arm and very seriously, whispered, (her whisper could be heard across the gym) Special people are very important. Her eyes were big and she nodded as she said it. Believing it to the core of her soul.

Then it was time for Nadine to go. She said bye. Then asked, without being the slightest bit shy, if I wanted to be her boyfriend. Her Dad looked embarrassed. I was honored beyond words but told her I already had a girlfriend. Oh yeah, your daughter. I laughed, yeah, and my wife. Well that’s enough then she said. Besides I have Daddy. Daddy grinned from ear to ear. And then she was off. Shuffling through her world. Smiling at everyone who would make eye contact. Supremely confidant of her role in the universe.

Thanks Nadine. Thanks for soaking up the love all around you, while so many barricade themselves. Thanks for being happy when you have every reason to be bitter. Thanks for believing that you count, when so many are so desperate to make others believe they count, while the hollowness of their own life robs them of significance. Thanks for asking me to be your boyfriend. That was a sweet touch of grace.

But most of all…thanks for slowing down my world, just as it was trying to explode.