Update #4.2 - Of Meatball Sandwiches and Forgiveness

Eating lunch with two homeless guys was never the plan. Never our plan, at least.

Michael and I had taken off in separate directions - he to the Tobacconist for a chat and I to the town square for a game of chess. A lone man sat at one of the tables next to the Lady-Virtue-pouring-out-water-from-her-fingertips statue. "You up for a game of checkers or chess?" I asked. He mumbled something which I took to mean "Yes, Chess," so I sat down and joined him. After a few minutes of the game I wondered what good a conversation with a mumbler would do, and the longer the game went the more I despaired of making any meaningful headway. Eventually Michael showed up, chatting away with two homeless gentlemen he had invited to lunch. Of course, they all arrived just in time to see me thoroughly defeated. Score tally: Alan - 0, America's homeless - 4.

So with that, we headed to Quizno's. The first man was the talkative sort: Doug, by name, and he was full of conversation. The other said very little, but clearly enjoyed the free meal. As we talked to Doug we learned several things. First, he was extremely well read - "I like to go to sit in the square and read. We should all read so we can get other people's opinions and then come to our own conclusions." This struck us as odd coming from a homeless man. Later we discovered that he was not always homeless. In fact, only recently had he gone (back?) to that lifestyle - "A year ago I had two jobs, a card, and almost anything I wanted. I worked 17 hours a day though, so I never got the chance to think. People like that always assume they're happy, but if they stop to think about it, they're not." So Doug had purposely "thrown it all away." We took this to mean a drug addiction, but couldn't be sure.

After a while, we learned more about Doug's paradoxical character. Here was a man who admittedly knew what the Bible said, realized the need to submit to the Lord, and yet struggled to accept His forgiveness - "It's not that I don't believe God, but I just can't forgive myself. You two are young, so you wouldn't understand. You can't understand." He was insistent on this point.

So we tried to explain to him the ability to forgive himself in light of God's forgiveness (bringing up King David, Moses, and other Biblical stories), and again, he seemed to understand, but just couldn't do it. When the conversation closed, we didn't know quite what to think. If nothing else, we had given him (and his friend) something to chew on for the day, and the two were very thankful for the lunch.

~Alan Halbrooks