Mr. Brown

It’s his hat that I remember most.  I don’t think I ever saw him without it.  You know the kind: navy blue truckers hat... the kind with the foam front half and plastic mesh back half with the little plastic snap band for sizing.  U.S. Navy was emblazoned in gold on the front and that stuff that looks like scrambled eggs was on the brim.  He always wore it perched on his gunmetal grey hair, everywhere he went.  He dressed well too, always with a polo shirt and slacks.  He’d be walking down the street and there was no doubt it was Mr. Brown when you saw him.

His smile.  I remember that too.  He always had the biggest smile and friendliest laugh of anyone I’ve ever met.  Always a joke.  Always an encouragement.  Always brightening your day.

Mr. Brown was an elderly black gentleman who I met when I was 17 and working at the restaurant.  I never knew his first name, he always introduced himself with a smile and said, “I’m Mr. Brown, what’s your name?”  He’d come in and say, “Hello,” to everyone in the dining room and every staff member.  He had a way of talking to you that made you feel like you really mattered.  He’d remember your name (and everyone else’s) and ask you how your dad was doing, how you did on your final, or some other tidbit about your life that he had tucked away during your last conversation.  He was a presence when he came into a room.  You couldn’t miss him.  He was the most amiable man I have ever known.

I only saw him angry once.  One of the counter girls had been treated poorly by her boyfriend shortly before and she had been crying.  Mr. Brown put his arm on her and told her that she was beautiful and that she was too valuable to waste her time with someone who couldn’t appreciate that. I believe that her soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend would have been really sorry if he been there, at that moment.  Mr. Brown soon had her sniffing away the tears and laughing along with him.

Mr. Brown was generous with his time.  He helped me do my taxes for the first time.  I think he did the same thing for almost every young kid there.  He helped my friend work on his car and helped me fix my bike once.  He always seemed to be helping someone with something.

We walked together from the restaurant to my house to do my taxes.  It was normally a 20 minute walk, but it was five times that with Mr. Brown.  Along the way, he stopped at almost every shop and business to say, “Hello,” to people he knew there.  He took time with every single one of them to flash his smile and to listen to their story.  And, he introduced me to every single one of them as if I was his closest friend in the world. 

Mr. Brown impressed me so much, that I vowed that someday, I’d be like him.  I want to live in a community of people and be known by everyone.  I want to be able to encourage people and help them out.  I want to lift up those whose spirits are down, and be the kind of guy who can make a young girl smile through her tears and be just a bit scary to her loser boyfriend who hurt her.  I want to help some dumb kid with his taxes and maybe pass along a few life lessons along the way.

That’s who I’d like to be.  Just like Mr. Brown.

For years, I’d see Mr. Brown and his Navy hat walking around the streets of this neighborhood.  I moved to a different part of the city for a few years, and I haven’t seen him since I’ve moved back.  He’s probably passed on by now.  It may not be theologically accurate, but I like to picture Mr. Brown strolling the streets of heaven, wearing his Navy hat, stopping and talking to every single person there, remembering their name, and listening to their story.

He may be gone, but Mr. Brown lives on in my memory, and in my desire to be just like him.

Stumbling Through Nostalgia

In the past several months, through the magic of Facebook, I have been stumbling through nostalgia. I have reconnected with some old friends and acquaintances from my grade school and junior high school years. I don’t know about most people, but I’d honestly rather forget most of what happened during those years. In fact, I’d rather have my fingernails pulled out without anesthesia rather than face some of those memories (for the record, I have recently experienced having part of my fingernail pulled out – it hurts).

However, having stumbled on to an old friend on Facebook, I began to encounter others. Some found me and wanted to be friends and I found others, including those whom I don’t want to be friends with. I wandered around a few fan sites for my old schools, checking out other people who were in my classes as well as pictures from the schools. I even went so far as to pull out an old year book to compare pictures. My friend looked pretty much like an older version of himself then. He hadn’t changed much. I found a girl that I had a huge crush on in eighth grade. She’s not so pretty anymore. I found out that one of the bullies that I had to deal with died violently a few years ago. I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Memory is a funny thing. As I looked at old pictures and tried to remember things, I realized how skewed my memories had become over the years. Things that I thought I clearly remembered were actually different. Faces were different than they were in my head. Places in the school looked completely wrong. Even the map that I have in my head of my hometown doesn’t reflect reality. Many of these memories had a surreal feeling to them as I explored the reality. It was as if I was viewing them through a filter, like an old movie reel.

I don’t know what bearing this has on the world, but for me, there are many memories that I don’t really want to be crystal clear in my mind. I’d rather not remember too clearly those years of puberty. I really don’t want to have the pain of loss from a loved one stay razor sharp for the rest of my life. The fear I remembered watching my wife in childbirth and heading off for c-section is something I don’t want to be fresh in my mind on a daily basis.

I’m not sure why our memories fade so,

but it is probably a gift.

How Sweet it Is

Life is too short for broken relationships.

Rifts between loved ones, cold distance between former friends, and estrangement through busyness are all perfectly terrible ways to waste precious time and precious people. There will come a time when you lay on your deathbed awaiting your end. Will any hurt be worth taking to your grave? Will your pride be so much that you push people away even then? Will all of your time spent in pointless activity be worth the loss of time you might have spent with someone you cared about?

In the last few weeks, I have gotten a chance to experience reconciliation in some relationships in my life. One, a family member, has finally opened up, allowing me and my family back into his life. The other is a friend that I used to work with who crashed his life through drugs, disappearing from my life for several years.

In both cases, it was not my desire to break the relationship, but it happened anyway. The hardest part was facing the fact that, no matter how I felt, no matter what I did, it was up to the other person to come back.

With that said, it is so sweet to be able to reforge broken bonds, to be able to connect again to those you have lost. It is amazingly easy to get past the pain and hurt if you just decide that the person is more important than the past.

I learned much about broken relationships and reconciliation as a child. My father and his father were at odds through a large part of my childhood. During that time, I had no grandparents. They were there, but I wasn’t able to see them because of stubborn hard-heartedness on the part of both my father and grandfather. As a child, I could never understand why my grandpa didn’t love me. I now know it had little to do with me, but the damage was still done to a little boy. It wasn’t until my early teen years that they reconciled.

I am no saint. Though I observed the lesson, I didn’t learn it till later in my adulthood. During my late teens and early twenties, I treated the relationships in my life flippantly. I threw away people as though trash. It tears my heart as I think back on hurt that I have caused others.

I greatly regret the 2-3 years that I was apart from some very close friends because I was so self-focused. I also regret some terrible things that I did and said to people during that time. Nothing can ruin a relationship faster than self-centeredness. There is still a girl to this day who I owe a deep apology too for how I treated her. We once were friends and now, no longer are. I hope one day to reconcile that relationship.

I am taking steps now to reach out to people who I have pushed away in the past and those who I have just been too busy to make time for. There are no acceptable excuses.

This is important to God. Jesus says in Matthew 5:23-24 that reconciliation is even more important than going to church today or offering to God. He says to leave the gift in front of the altar and go be reconciled, then come back and offer at the altar.

As I said before, Life is too short for broken relationships.

That’s my challenge to you, this very day. Will you toss away friends and family as though they were garbage? Will you let those past hurts be more important than the person that you valued? Or...Will you reach out. Will you begin to bridge the gap?

This is the day. Don’t let another day pass without reaching out to bridge the gap. It doesn’t matter if they’ve hurt you or you’ve hurt them. It doesn’t matter if you were too busy yesterday, only that you aren’t too busy today.

Someday, some random Thursday afternoon, you are going to get that call. You know the call I am speaking of, the call that says there will never again be a chance to reconcile with them because they are gone. If you don’t do something today, then that someday will come all too soon.

I urge you, stop reading this blog, turn off the computer, and make that call. Be humble. Be forgiving. Ask for forgiveness. Reconcile. Today. Now. Don't wait till it is too late.

How sweet it is to be welcomed back.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Romans 12:17-18