THE NASHVILLE EPIPHANY

January 6, 2008

Epiphany.

On New Year’s Day 2008, I worked. It was a frigidly cold day in Nashville, and the Campus’ day room was packed to the brim with people. So, I decided to go outside to make sure everything was alright out there. I leaned against the cold railing on the ramp that leads to the door and talked to some of the guys who were there, exchanging “happy new year” greetings. They asked whether my parents and sister made it back to Indiana alright after their visit over Christmas. When they moved on, another man came up to me, who I’ll call LP. He came to us about a year ago now, and has been a positive presence in our community. He attends all the classes, is a mainstay at “Sanctuary,” which is the weekly devotional service that I coordinate, and always has a kind greeting for all of us on the staff. I knew that he had been in prison before he came to us homeless, but didn’t know a lot of his story. After a month or so of being with us, I remember the day he came up to me and Maggie at the support desk and thanked us, with tears in his eyes, for being the first people that had been nice to him in a really really long time. It was one of those moments that keep us going, and reminds us why we do what we do, even when it gets tough and doesn’t feel too important. My New Year’s Day conversation with LP was another one of those moments. He told me about the evening they released him from prison after eight years, with a small mesh bag that contained all of his earthly possessions.

LP, in his former life, had owned his own construction company. He had a home, a wife, and kids. He coached his son’s little league team. One night, he came home to discover that his best friend was having an affair with his wife. In anger, LP broke in to his mother-in-law’s home and stole pictures of his kids. At his lawyer’s urging, he pled guilty to the crime or burglary, which because of the plea should have meant just a few years in prison. However, the judge imposed the maximum sentence of fifteen years. Being well-behaved in prison, LP served half of that sentence, and he was released into a freezing cold January night in Mississippi. Having severed all ties with friends and family, he had nowhere to go. He decided to ride the train to wherever it would take him. He hopped onto a flat car—not even a box car that was enclosed—and began to ride into the night.

The train was moving about 50 miles per hour, and being exposed to the freezing air brought about misery. Suddenly, the train came to a complete stop in the middle of a cow pasture. He thought he was probably in Kentucky or North Carolina by this time, since the weather had become so cold. He cried out to God in desperation. He even asked God to take his life so the suffering could end. The train began to move again, making the cold feel worse. He started to feel a warmness come over his body, which he knew was a sign that he was literally freezing to death. LP was trying to come up with a plan to throw himself under the train because he felt that there was nothing to live for and the cold was too intense. Just then he looked up and saw a light. As the train moved closer, he was able to see that it was a billboard for Channel 2, Nashville’s ABC affiliate. LP realized that he must not be in North Carolina or Kentucky after all, but in Tennessee, and close to the state’s capital. He decided that he would jump from the train and walk to the city the next morning. He leapt from the train, and hit the ground, rolling about fifty feet. He sat up, surprised to see some people around. Realizing that he wasn’t just outside Nashville, but actually just outside its downtown, LP went up to the people he saw to ask where exactly he was. A man told him that he was in the parking lot of the Nashville Rescue Mission.

Not believing that he had just jumped off a train at a seemingly random point, and rolled directly into the parking lot of a homeless shelter, the very kind of place he probably needed to be, LP walked around a little to get his bearings. He found another homeless man, who took him to the McDonald’s at 12th and Broadway to warm up with a cup of coffee. The man explained to LP what he needed to do, and where the best places to eat, sleep, and receive other needed services were. The man told LP that the place for him was a called Room In The Inn. LP came to Room In The Inn, and its Campus for Human Development that morning, and has been there ever since.

The thing that stuck with me from my New Year’s Day conversation with LP was his saying, “here I was, ready to let a train cut me into pieces because my life was so bad, and God literally throws me into the parking lot of a rescue mission, then takes me to coffee with a guy who told me about the greatest thing I’ve ever had: people who love me just the way I am.” He explained that he first met God in prison, but then found him in the flesh at Room In The Inn.

I told LP a little bit about how I got to the point where I was that morning: standing, listening to him on a ramp that led into a homeless shelter, with piles of bags around us, and pigeons overrunning the parking lot, eating the scraps left by those who had been eating their lunches outside. We had to put my story on pause a few times because of the deafening whistle of the train that runs along the same tracks by which he came to us. I told him about my journey, the original destination of which was becoming a professional musician. I told him about the time when I didn’t enjoy music anymore, and left school for a while. I added in the part where I answered the phone 150 times every day for a year and a half at Columbia House. I told him how I got fired from that job and went back to school at ISU with a major that my mom suggested based on the fact that I liked watching The West Wing. I told him about how I found joy in music again as a music director and organist at Trinity Lutheran Church, where I decided to work after saying I would only be a substitute for the four weeks of Advent, while finishing up school and preparing for seminary after that. I explained to LP how somewhere along the line I decided to do something else for a year between college and seminary and decided to apply for the Young Adult Volunteer program. I told him about the phone calls and discernment process that led me to Nashville. I explained that it was me telling Susan Brantley that I didn’t want to work with children that led me to the place I was at that very moment.

My story wasn’t quite as dramatic as LP’s, but in the end, we had each reached the same destination, albeit for different purposes, and shared a bit of humanity in that moment. And a little divinity too. God found a way to guide us not to the places our carefully laid plans would have taken us, but instead to a place where we would meet God in person.

As I look back, the Nashville Epiphany Project took me to many of those places. One of those places was a little green house called “The Toolshed” where four wise people spent the nights while they were in a search of Emmanuel in this world. Chasie, Patrick and Tara provided the community I needed for a year, and friendships that will last well beyond. Second Presbyterian Church provided the hospitality needed to sustain us on our journey, and the spiritual foundation for our quest. Vocational discernment with Janet Salyer and the steady guidance of Susan, our site coordinator, gave us the tools we needed to ask God where we should seek his presence next.

I did, along with my companions on this journey, find the living Christ in this world. We found him among the poorest of the poor in our communities. He was there in children who have never met their fathers, and who don’t know what a loving family is like. He was there in adults who wanted better things for their lives than the violent and fearful streets. He was there in those who are among the most despised in our society, in immigrants who speak and act differently than the ways to which we are accustomed. We found him there amongst the filth, the sickness, the fights, the wars, and the poverty of human existence.

Like LP, I had been introduced to God many times. In this year, I found God in places I never imagined I would go, and met the living Lord in the flesh. I found in those epiphanies, a love that loves me just the way I am. A love that frees us and gives us light, shining like a star—or even a billboard—breaking the fearful darkness of this world, and guiding us on our long and winding journey home.

Amen.


Thanks for reading this chapter of my journey.

The star recently painted on the inside of the support area at the Campus for Human Development, over the desk where hundreds of people come every night seeking Room In The Inn.