At church this morning, I was informed that Bryan and his family moved to another part of the city (no word yet on where), so they won't be coming to church any more. However, Bob said that someone drives them to the kids' program during the week, so perhaps he will keep in touch that way. This appears to be a closed door, since I will no longer be working with Bryan in Sunday school, and that's disappointing. I believe that this will work out for good, though, in a way that I do not yet understand.
I can't share details about this next topic, but someone at church told me a bit about a kid who lives in Brookside. I thought the kid was making efforts to go in the right direction, but recent events seem to evince otherwise. I feel bad for kids like him who have been dealt a difficult lot in life, but I still have little patience for the drug abuse that is so manifestly counterproductive to the success they purport to desire. Maybe—and I'm being a little generous here—maybe he just needs accountability, someone to yell at him when he slips. If I do eventually get involved with this guy, I will show tough love. If he doesn't really want to change, my offering "assistance" would only make me an enabler. No, he will have to want to change, and I will not believe any impassioned statements to that effect; he will have to convince me by his actions that he means business.
In the paper this morning, the following blurb appeared: "A man's body was found floating Saturday in White River near 10th Street... There was no immediate determination of cause of death." I was notified this afternoon that the guy was Roger, a homeless alcoholic who has been going to our church. I don't know him very well, but I saw him many times during the pre-service breakfast, and I've shaken his hand on several occasions.
Emotionally, my response to this news has been anger more than sorrow. Roger's obvious problem with alcohol was undoubtedly influenced by numerous outside factors, but none of those excused his choice to abuse it. He was in a church that gave him breakfast every Sunday morning and told him about God's love. We aren't sophisticated enough (yet) to have a recovery program, but I know we could have done more to help him if he had actually wanted it. Maybe we could have helped him get a job and a place to stay, and I'd hope that we would have been patient if he relapsed. But Roger wasn't even trying, so there was nothing we could do. We may never know whether he committed suicide, or if someone pushed him in the river, or if he was too drunk to know what he was doing, but it stands to reason that if he had quit drinking, he'd still be with us. Call me heartless if you wish, but I think this horrible tragedy was mainly Roger's own fault.
I want good to prevail, but it's hard to see it in this situation. We're having a memorial service for Roger on Thursday, and I hope there's discussion not only of God's never-ending mercy but also of justice and truth. I hope it's not a saccharine memorial to the good of every man, but rather a severe warning that actions have inextricable consequences. It seems pessimistic and judgmental and even disrespectful to the dead to point out Roger's errors, but perhaps warning others to avoid his path is the best that can be done? Perhaps that's what Roger himself would have wanted? He was, after all, a nice and pleasant person.
When I returned home from church today, I spent some time with my new neighbor in the apartment complex, who is an 82-year-old retired policeman. He told me numerous stories of his personal and professional life, many of which dealt with rampant corruption in the police force. Like the time the incoming mayor told the policemen they wouldn't get a raise because of tight budgets, "but if you look for the money, you can find it." And how the cops quickly learned how to make a portion of the traffic tickets "disappear" from the docket. Or how the prosecutor regularly skimmed a percentage of the proceeds—then jetted off to join the Nixon administration. He described how he would wave on the city's rich and powerful without a ticket because he wanted to stay on their good side. And how he and his fellow cops were offered free meals at a certain cafeteria to help them keep quiet about the casino in the basement. There was the story about how he and his sergeant got a call from a furniture store that had been robbed. They nailed a suspect, put him in the back of the cruiser, and drove him back to the store to be identified by the owner. On the way, he shuffled in his seat, trying to move the money from his pockets to the fold of the seat to erase the evidence, thinking (mistakenly) that the two cops weren't noticing. At the furniture store, my neighbor told his boss, within earshot of the store owner, "Here's the money!" The boss was visibly angry, calling him a "dumb [expletive]" and ostracizing him from that point on; naturally, the sergeant had planned to keep the money for himself. The conversation was enlightening and dubiously entertaining.
Alright, this has been a melancholy day. Sorry this post isn't the light and fluffy fare you've come to expect from this blog (j/k). If you were incensed by what I said about Roger or otherwise feel a pressing need to talk back, feel free to leave a comment. I do value your opinion, even in the event that I must disagree with it.