The Nearly Man

I saw him sitting there on the church steps as I drove past on my way home. A young man, I think, but all I saw clearly was the garish pink polo top he was wearing. Cresting the hill I swung the car left, passing his stationary Audi, and slowed to a halt in our driveway, just a hundred yards from where he was sitting, head bowed, outside my church. People only come to our churchyard for one thing during the day time; to lay flowers and remember the dead.

I cut the engine and sank back into the seat, realising I'd a choice to make. I sat there deep in thought for a good few moments, well aware that this would probably look weird to Rosie if she'd happened to look out the kitchen window.

Part of me - the efficient, jobsworth part - tried to play it down. It was none of my business... he probably wanted to be left alone to grieve... there was work I needed to be getting on with. Yadda yadda yadda. The coward inside me nodded and reminded me that I could be walking into a difficult situation here. Maybe he was on something; maybe it was my case he'd be on, because I was a minister and God - this God who's building he was sitting outside - had stolen someone precious from him. What if I ended up in the firing line?

But despite whatever reason those arguments contained, I knew, viscerally, what I had to do. I had to get out of the car and walk round to see that stranger. I don't wear the cheesy wristband, but I know that's exactly WJWD. So screwing up my courage I trudged round to the front of the church, without answers or anodyne; but by the time I'd got there the steps were empty and the car was gone.

Who the man in the pink polo shirt was I'll probably never know, and maybe the conversation we never had wouldn't have been life changing for either of us. But as I think about it, maybe the encounter was all about that choice I made in the car; the choice to risk vulnerability in the thin hope that somehow I could be an angel, a messenger of God to him.

Maybe next time I won't be so slow to spread my wings.

TODAY'S TRANSLUCENT PEARL OF WISDOM: Life consists in what you do, not what happens to you. Things happen to a stone.