When my first business failed in 1983, I felt exiled and alone. I was a thousand miles from anywhere I would want to call home and Christmas was coming. I watched slowly, painfully as the auctioneer sold my hard work and dreams away, knowing full well that whatever I had left would go to the banker and still leave me bankrupt. Three months before this moment of darkness, my divorce was final and my life was on a downward spiral. My best friend at the time was a bartender, and nothing seemed right in the world. Iowa is cold in December, that year it was colder than ever.
I spent the next year, waiting for a second chance. But nothing, not the alcohol, not the drugs, not the new job and not even a new relationship made anything about that dull pain O.K. I was alone off Fifth Avenue in New York City walking back from a party I didn't even want to be at, when I witnessed a miracle. I watched from across the street as a man, a rather wealthy man, walked quite briskly past a homeless man lying over a steaming grate. He took two steps past the man, stopped, turned around, and knelled by his side. The well-dressed gentleman took off his camel hair overcoat and draped it over the sojourners shoulders. This was an expensive coat mind you, easily costing over a $1000 and then he patted the old man gently reaching into his pocket and handing him a wad of money. No words were said. The well-dressed man got up and walked away, ever more briskly than before as if he was trying to make up for lost time.
I knew in that moment that there would never be enough reasons to feel good enough about my life if I kept blaming the world for my troubles. At that moment I had a revelation, an epiphany, the first light of my own salvation from none other than my own sorry self. I was living in material abundance but my soul was wanting a reason to live. I realized in that moment that there were angels all around me, in that rich man, who was as much a part of the problem as his overcoat solution, they were around the old man lying in the street keeping him warm enough to remind us that we, Yes WE my friends are the hands of God that make a difference, and I, lonely, sad, self-pitying, John Morehouse, was right there in those same angel arms, finding for the first time in years, a peace in my soul.
My way all find the grace of small miracles in this time of darkness. May we all find peace in this season of light.
With Grace and Grit, John
