I met David just two weeks ago in Hawaii where Frances and I were guests of her sister and family. We had signed up for an All-Terrain Vehicle trip through the rain forest in exchange for listening to a sales pitch to buy a time share. We had no intention of buying a time share mind you, but this was the dance of comedy we had to make. The ATVs started off and we were bouncing along merrily in the jungle until we came to a waterfall which was down a steep embankment. The ATVs were all parked and it was then that I noticed David swing his legs by his hands over the side and pull out two canes from the back. He was barely able to walk. He hobbled down the embankment with the rest of us and some of us (well only two of us, myself and my brother in law Jim) jumped into the ice cold water under the waterfall. We then dried off and headed back up the hill. We waited a long time, because David could not climb back up the hill, and was pulling himself up backward on his fanny with his hands. I had never seen such determination. When he got to the top we all cheered.
Later over lunch, I introduced myself and asked him what had happened. “I used to teach Sky Diving” he said, “but my chute opened too late and I broke my back. I was pronounced a paralyzed from the waist down, a pronouncement I refused to accept. For the next five years I willed myself to walk again, not like I did of course, but I manage.” I realized then that the ATV trip was perfect since he only controlled the vehicle with his hands. “This is my son Garrett” he said, and I introduced myself to a young man of 17. They were on an adventure together.
He asked me what I did for a living, a loaded question to be certain. “I am a minister” I said. “Oh” David replied with a frown, “I don’t believe in God. I am an atheist” he said almost defiantly. “That’s fine” I said “Many members of my church are atheists, for all I know I may be one too. I probably don’t believe in the God you are thinking of either” I replied. This really threw him for a loop. He hadn’t expected that kind of answer.
He asked me about my religion and I told him that for most of us, God is not a chess master who causes tragedies like his, but rather a force we work with to make the world a better place. “Well, I could never believe in a God that what do this to me or in some plan that makes me climb back from the edge like I had to do. It wasn’t fair or right. I suppose I am still pretty angry.”
“Perhaps you are God” I said, “perhaps you are own force of will and change is divine” He thought about that for a long time. “Perhaps” he said, “but why did this happen? It was a freak accident. God is supposed to know these things, isn’t he?” “I don’t know what God knows David.” I said, “But I know you have some fierce power to overcome this injustice to your life. And that, for me, is God. And, you are showing the world, your son, most of all yourself that you have the power to go on even when your life has been broken.”
As we said good bye, he gave me his card. “If you ever want to go Sky diving” he said, “this is my company”. “You still sky dive?” I asked with amazement, “Only with a partner. But I teach people to sky dive every day.”
Here was a man broken, even angry but sure in his resolve to undo the injustice that life had dealt him. I don’t know if he feeds the homeless or stands for immigrant rights but I do know that his faith in the power of his own humanity has stood in the face of justice and fought back, despite being broken. All of us are broken and all of us have the power to reclaim our brilliance as an act of justice making. All of us live within the paradox of being both broken and called.
With Grace and Grit, John
