Discovering Jesus daily

Week of February 14, 2006 - Session 4

The Leper: Robert’s Story

D-1

August 9, Tuesday

I caught up with Robert today as he was pushing his ripped-off Safeway cart to Esther’s Pantry, a hole-in-the-wall that distributes food to people with HIV. It is located in one of the desolate ware­house sections not far from where he lives.

We talked as he rolled his cart back to his hotel. Yes, he did drink heavily on Sunday and slammed some coke. He did not want to talk, was depressed, and had a flick-it-all attitude. Where now? He mentioned that he was going to see the doctor tomorrow. Given the unhealthy situation he has put himself in, his physical condition will take a turn for the worse. Nevertheless, I did not preach at him or whine about what he had abandoned. I just walked with him down the empty street. I asked him if he could be interested in going to the Oregon coast with me. Good move on my part. He had not been to the beach in years. Yes, he would like to go.

There we were, walking along that obscure street. ‘What strange companions: Robert—short, street educated, gay, drug addicted, sexually promiscuous; and me—tall, university educated, straight, clean, and celibate. We were the apple and the orange, united and bound by the searching love of our mutual Creator.

D-2

October 10, Thursday

Yesterday, when Mary Sue and I visited Robert, we caught him in a rampage of suicidal thinking. He had not gone for his radiation treatments and talked instead about another kind of destruction that was not so prolonged. The addict who is depressed is never far from taking himself out. I brought him a sand dollar from the beach, a sea urchin that is rich in Christian resurrection and life symbolism and an item that we had not been able to find on our previous trip. He wept over it, saying, “Damn you, you have screwed up my plans.”

So he stayed alive one more day, buzzed and happy. I keep asking myself so many questions: Will he kill himself? What is possible for God here? Can God cure him? Will God? And are such prayers pa­thetic? I mean, why keep him alive? For more loneliness, more empty sex, more pain, more despair, more mice, more cockroaches traveling across his face at night?

D-3

February 4, Saturday

I noticed Robert’s cheekbones for the first time. They are sunken and extended. His is the gaunt face that I have seen on other AIDS patients, a sight that always makes me think of the survivors of the Nazi death camps.

The three of us talked about God’s providence and how we have all been brought together. He asked me what providence meant I explained, “It’s like when you have some good friends and you would like them to meet each other so that they can grow and love in each other’s presence; that is how God looks upon us and tries to enhance our lives.”

D-4

May 31, Wednesday

Robert continues to waste away. So thin, yet present and gentle and not panicky~ He is using less morphine.

Mara and I visited him today. He talked at length about belief and faith and God. “My resistance to God,” he said, “has always been rooted in my feelings of being dirty.  Like I am always a leper. But I know that we are all lepers to some degree and that in spite of that God still loves us. In fact, Jesus spent a lot of time with lep­ers, didn’t he, Mara?”

He became silent. Then, with a look of peace that I had never seen on him, he said, “Father, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Will you baptize me?”

So there it was, Robert asking to make the move; in many re­spects he had made the move long ago, but now he wanted to for­malize it before the end of his life. He knows that he is dying, but what has been a revelation to him is that he is finding himself to be more and more at peace, and that he is loved. And he knows that he is not the author of that peace or that love. We decided to talk about the baptism soon and start the planning.

D-5

June 28, Wednesday

I baptized Robert today in a simple and modified baptismal liturgy. In attendance were the biggies of his life: Mary Sue, Sister Kate, Sister Cathy, Sister Elsie, a few friends, Mara and Joe (his chosen godparents), his favorite nurse at Good Sam, and assorted others. He came dressed in what he called “cat’s ass” clothes, pur­chased by Sister Kate, who did a remarkable job, obtaining a pair of pants and a long-sleeved shirt that gave him a distinguished ap­pearance in spite of his gaunt face and emaciated body. I told him he had a disco look.

I used the parable of the good Samaritan as a Gospel reading. I offered this commentary: “You are the good Samaritan, Robert, because you have pulled all of us out of the safe trenches of our lives. And your love—so squeezed out of you by life and history— you have claimed again and given back to us a hundredfold. What a grace it is to be present to see you commit your life to the one who is the author of your love. Your faith is healing oil for our wounds.”

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