Finding God at the Greyhound Station

Earlier today, Joe Mitchell and I took a couple to the Greyhound bus station to begin a 20-hour journey so that they could provide home care for the man's mother. We first met the couple on a Sunday morning in January or February, when the couple had come seeking food. Joe and I sat with the couple at breakfast and invited them to stay for services; they did. Sunday after Sunday, they returned for breakfast and the 11:00 service. As they told us one Sunday, they came seeking food for their stomachs but also received food for their souls.More than a few times, they told me how welcomed they felt at Christ Church. No one criticized them for showing up for a meal, for not belonging or for wearing worn clothing. No one criticized them for being an interracial couple in a mostly white church. He told they were amazed they never once heard while they were with us, a sermon that criticized their relationship or threatened them with damnation. Over the weeks of Sundays when they joined us for breakfast and worship, I noticed it became more and more difficult to get a seat at their table as parishioners joined them for a meal and conversation.

Life was not especially easy here for this couple. It seemed every time they took one step forward, life knocked them back two or three steps. Jobs for which the man had experience were nonexistent during the harsh winter. Her job required her to take two buses each morning and evening. "Affordable" housing in Lexington proved to be an oxymoron as I soon learned because being able to afford housing, groceries, utilities and daily bus fare while living in Lexington is a nearly impossible task. The Lexington/Fayette County Housing Authority literally has waiting lists of thousands of people. Subsidized housing developments require "application" fees ranging from $20-$35. Each location requires its own application and thus the fee. Some downtown neighborhoods, which look safe by day, become havens for gangs and drug dealers by night. When I was putting myself through college, I often ended up eating Spanish Rice for days on end when it looked as though my money and food were going to run out before I received my next paycheck. I thought I knew what it meant to be poor. I was so so wrong.

Right before Joe and I left our two friends at the bus station this afternoon,  we anointed and blessed each of them and then we prayed with and for them. Tears silently flowed down both my face and their's. A woman and her adult daughter came up to ask if we would pray with the young woman. When Joe asked what she wanted to pray about, she responded "everything". As we stood there praying with the young woman and our friends, I realized how blessed Joe and I had been by the love of God  which flowed through our two friends, who we were sending south. Driving back to the cathedral, I realized Joe and I had met Jesus and felt his glorious love at the Greyhound station.

Amen.