Hope for Christmas
It is Saturday morning. Outside the restaurant, broad fluffy snowflakes are
quietly burying memories of fall. Christmas is around the next corner. Near me
parents and children are munching happily, storing energy so they don't drop
when they shop.
Across the table sits my friend Bruce. Something about him causes small children
to stop and stare and parents to hustle them on by. But Bruce doesn't seem to
mind. As he talks, I find myself wishing that everyone on earth would stop
shopping long enough to listen to his captivating story.
Twenty Christmases ago, Bruce was staring out an apartment window, clutching a
black leather Bible. Four floors below him frenzied shoppers bustled about,
searching for last-minute gifts. As he wrestled again with what he was about to
do, images of his life mingled with the shoppers: running free along the forest
trails...a small logging community…parents-good friends. Bruce smiled briefly as
he thought of Sunday school. An ancient religion that never seemed to take hold.
The smile quickly faded as he thought about that day in eighth grade. A day that
changed everything. "Your father... dead...killed in a logging accident." He
still could not erase the power of those words. They spelled the end of
childhood. The beginning of a slippery descent.
Like the prodigal son, Bruce soon moved to the city to try life on his own. But
he fared no better. Reform school was his first stop. Regular school was
confining enough, but there was no recess here. On the other hand, he did pick
up some useful trades. Pickpocketing 101. Advanced Breaking and Entering.
Graduation from reform school marked the beginning of a string of arrests and
imprisonments. "One day I walked into a department store and took a hat off one
dummy's head." Grins Bruce, "placed it on another dummy's head-mine--and walked
out of the store." Minutes later he was arrested.
"'You keep going down this road,' a judge warned me a few months later, 'and
you'll hit a dead end.' I knew it was time to change."
Before long Bruce found a job and upgraded his education. But soon the old
lifestyle beckoned. "I was more qualified to steal than work," he admits.
"Besides, what did it rnatter? Every time I tried schooling or honest work I
only found more trouble ...or prison time."
A waitress offers us menus, but Bruce declines. "Just a Coke, please," I say. I
can tell he's having trouble breathing. "You okay?" I ask. He's okay. As the
waitress pours, the story continues.
Just before Christmas, the long nights of winter moved in, encircling him with
their cold clammy talons. Defeat and an overwhelming sense of failure took over
his life. Hope was fading fast. A new job held promise. Until a boss learned
he'd done time. His live-in girlfriend of four years walked out the door,
leaving him alone. He couldn't remember quietness ever sounding so loud.
Back when he was a child, the Christmas season had been a time for laughter. For
parties and friends, short walks and long toasts. But not this Christmas. From
his fourth-story window, Bruce studied the cold, lifeless pavement below and
thought of his life. The depression would never lift. His hopes, once dim
possibilities, now only taunted him. The bleak winter mirrored a despair so deep
that there was only one way out.
Gripping the spine of the Bible, he hurled it across the room and watched it
bounce off the wall. Then he walked resolutely toward the fridge, turned around,
and raced toward the open window.
He awoke, straining his eyes to look up. Above him was a stuccoed hospital
ceiling. "I couldn't believe it," he says now. "My arms were broken, I had a
ruptured spleen, shredded knees, and a broken jaw. I swore at myself. All I
could think of was, `Gee Bruce, you're such a failure you can't even kill
yourself."'
Wheeling himself numbly down the hall one day, he met an old friend. "Listen,"
said the friend, after they exchanged greetings, "you need to talk to a lady I
know. Here's her phone number."
Bruce looked at the name. And remembered. Ten years ago this lady had tried to
cram religion down his throat. It hadn't worked. Politely, he put the number in
his wallet and forgot about it.
Back on the streets, he found himself walking a familiar path. A downward slope.
Old memories began to haunt him. Old feelings returned. One day he reached into
his wallet and dialed the number. This time he was ready to listen.
They talked for hours. "Bruce," the lady told him, "God loves you so much that
He sent His only Son to die for your sins. It doesn't matter what you've done,
He will accept you. He's the only religious leader who doesn't have a grave
marker on His tomb, Bruce. And He loves to turn things around. Give people a new
start. A new life. Purpose and peace."
Alone in his kitchen that night, Bruce elbowed aside some dishes and folded his
hands. "Jesus," he prayed, tears inching down his face, "I don't know what You'd
want with a guy like me. But if You can make something good of this mess ...here
I am ...I need You ...I need You bad."
Some changes came easily, others were slow. Bruce shook his head when he
realized how much he loved reading the Bible he'd thrown against the wall. It's
solid, he thought. Unbreakable. Church became his new hangout and through the
guidance of friends there, things began to change. He completed a nurse's aide
program and found work.
In September of that year, the government granted him a full pardon.
"I've always believed it was a direct result of first being pardoned by the
blood of Christ," Bruce says. "And right away I realized I'd like nothing more
than to go back to jail. This time I'd like to be chaplain."
In a cafeteria line one day, he caught the eye of a pretty young maiden from
Michigan. He had no idea that Suzy was a widow. Or that she had three young
children and a silver Yorkshire terrier named Morgan. "At forty, I couldn't
imagine myself married, much less the father of three," he says.
Suzy wasn't ready either. "It takes many years to train a man right," she jokes.
"I didn't know if I wanted to start again!" On July 15 they were married.
Together with three children and a very furry dog, they traveled from Michigan
to Victoria, Canada, spending the nights in a four-man tent. Bruce laughs when
he tells me about it. "Someone told me that the shortest sentence in the English
language is 'I am.' And the longest is 'I do.' But marriage has been marvelous.
Not perfect. Just the second-best thing that ever happened to me."
He memorized a verse. One that seemed appropriate: "In all things God works for
the good of those who love him" (Romans 8:28, NIV). How true it was. His new
family would watch him graduate from seminary soon. A life once filled with
despair now held all the promise in the world.
Bruce smiles as he remembers those days. He looks out the window. The snowflakes
seem larger than ever. The smile fades. A storm is on its way.
Four months after graduation, Bruce sat in a stuffy doctor's office feeling like
he had back in eighth grade. He could only stare in disbelief. The words were
distant, impossible.
"You have cancer, Bruce. It's terminal." The doctor cleared his throat.
"Mesothelioma has never been successfully treated. I'm sorry. You have four
months to live. Nine if things go well." It wasn't the first time Bruce had
stared death in the face. Pain loomed on the horizon. Hopes of a chaplaincy were
shattered. "I remember thinking, I will never watch my kids graduate or marry. I
will never hold a grandchild." When he broke the news to the kids, there was
stunned silence. Finally Erin, the youngest, blurted out, "This is my second
dad. It's not fair!"
"She was right," says Bruce. "I guess there's nothing more challenging than
trusting God when everything inside me cries out against what's happening."
A few days after the diagnosis Bruce visited me in my office. "I had all these
hopes..." he began, staring at a bookcase above my head. "Hopes to be a chaplain
...hopes to make a difference in this world... I had all these hopes..." Then a
smile came to his face. And he chuckled. "I guess all I've got now is hope!" As
the weeks turned to months Bruce began the job of reconciliation. He'd inflicted
many wounds in his prison years, so he searched phone books and asked
forgiveness. For the first time family members began to listen as he told them
about Jesus. And he decided he might as well work toward being a prison chaplain
anyway.
Prison authorities loved the mild-mannered preacher. Until he came equipped with
an oxygen tank. If he were taken hostage, one said, it could be used as a bomb.
No problem, said the others. Bruce is different. We'll work with it.
One day while sitting in church a few rows ahead of me, one of Bruce's oxygen
tubes sprung a leak. It sounded like he was about to deflate. People didn't know
what to do. Before fixing the problem Bruce turned around with a "Help, I'm
about to explode," expression on his face. We all laughed. And felt better. As I
finish my Coke, a small child stops before our table. "What's that. Mister?" He
says, staring at the tubes and oxygen tank.
I can overhear his dad: "Come on...don't stare...keep moving. "
But Bruce leans over and offers part of the tube to the child. The boy holds it
in his fingers, feeling the air pulse through. "It's oxygen," says Bruce. "It
keeps me alive." The little boy smiles widely and looks up at his dad. "Can I
have one too?" He asks.
During a trip to St. Lucia, a few people stopped to ask Bruce why he didn't like
to breathe their air. Bruce laughed. And told them about cancer. And where he
was going when he breathed his last.
Back home Bruce continued to outlive the doctors' most optimistic predictions.
He seemed to live life with purpose, taking special delight in praying with
inmates and helping children who weren't learning as quickly as their parents
wanted them to.
When he entered a classroom, kids followed him like the Pied Piper. "Hey, it's
the guy with the mask!" They said. For the Olympics, Bruce erected a large
Canadian flag and cheered wildly. He borrowed movies from me. Adventure movies.
Comedy classics. His family fought over his favorite chair, a reclining green
rocker, worn by the years. But when Bruce was home, it was his. "It's the best
seat in the house," he said. And Morgan thought so too.
"Do you ever get discouraged, Bruce?" I ask, as I finish yet another Coke. "Do
you ever get down?"
"Oh yes," he replies. "But I keep a prayer book. I have notes, pictures, prayer
requests in it. I take it everywhere, and when I'm discouraged I open it up and
write something to others or pray for them. There are plenty of people worse off
than me. Think of it-Michael Jackson pays money to sleep in an oxygen tent!
Insurance pays for mine. Besides, this thing will run out one day. And I'll be
Home."
"Do you ever ask why God allowed this to happen?"
"Sometimes. But I've had peace you can't explain. Friends who really care. I've
lived four years longer than I should have. So I wake up each morning realizing
that the tomorrow I wasn't supposed to have is here today. Each day is a bonus.
I've lived long enough to watch my children graduate. I've given one away in
marriage. And I had the privilege of baptizing Erin a few summers ago. I have
time to do the stuff that really matter now. I'm blessed, I really am. I think
it's helped to keep a sense of humor about myself and my circumstances. There's
no stronger medication than a good chuckle. But I must admit that I'm tired now.
Heaven is getting more appealing every day."
On December 27, two days after Christmas, Bruce fell asleep in his favorite
green chair. And awoke in heaven. Sitting near me at the funeral was a young
woman Bruce had led to the foot of the Cross. The service was videotaped for the
inmates at his favorite penitentiary. And Bruce had planned the service, right
down to the words inscribed on the front of the bulletin. Words written in
prison by the president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel:
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that
something will turn out well. But the certainty that something makes sense.
Regardless of how it turns out.
I will miss my friend. If you knew Bruce, you'd understand why. His face
radiated joy. His life emanated hope. Bruce was the kind of guy who left even
the undertaker feeling sorry when he died.
Callaway, Phil. Laughing Matters. Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2005, p.
236-243.