Chapter 9: The Preacher with a Cane
There are some people who enter your life like folklore.
Rough.
Raw.
Unforgettable.
He was one of them.
He grew up in the same town I did, but his version of it looked very different from mine.
He remembered segregated schools.
He remembered land that had once belonged to his family being sold off piece by piece until
nothing remained.
And he remembered Vietnam.
Not just the uniform.
The war.
The bullets.
The things he survived.
By the time I met him, the streets had worn deep lines into his face.
He had become something of a local legend among the homeless population downtown.
Everybody knew him.
Especially law enforcement.
He slept on a pallet near the square, usually with one eye open. He had learned to protect
himself because he'd had to. People had jumped him before. Beaten him. Mocked him.
And if you got too close without warning, there was a decent chance his cane might find your
shin before your words found his ears.
But he loved me.
And honestly?
I loved him right back.
I'd pull up beside him in my car, and his whole face would light up.
He rarely asked where we were going.
He'd just get in.
Sometimes we'd go get a burger.
Sometimes we'd check his mail.
Sometimes we'd just ride.
Windows cracked.
Blues playing on the radio.
No particular hurry to get anywhere.
Wherever we went, it was usually an adventure.
And I was always glad he let me come along.
He could be rough.
He could be defensive.
He could make people nervous.
But I knew another side of him.
I knew the man who sang old hymns.
I knew the man who laughed.
I knew the man who could sit in my passenger seat with the blues playing and, for a little while,
just enjoy the ride.
Then one winter morning, I got the call.
They had found him outside.
His face was frozen to the concrete.
His body temperature was barely eighty degrees.
His pulse was almost undetectable.
And somehow, he was still alive.
I raced to the hospital.
Day after day, I went back.
Some of the nurses seemed unsure of him. Some were frustrated. Some seemed a little afraid.
I understood why.
If you only met his defenses, you could misunderstand him pretty quickly.
“He's not dangerous,” I told them. “He's just been hurt more than most of us can understand.”
I wanted them to see what I saw.
Not just the cane.
Not just the roughness.
Not just the homeless man brought in after nearly freezing to death.
I wanted them to see him.
A veteran.
A survivor.
A man who had lived through things I hadn't.
A man who had been hurt by people and still somehow got up and sang old gospel songs like
heaven was close enough to hear him.
Eventually, he recovered enough to be released to an assisted living facility.
I was hopeful.
Maybe this was it.
Maybe he could finally rest.
Sleep somewhere warm.
Be cared for.
Have a little peace.
Then we arrived.
The staff member handling his intake looked at me and said flatly,
“What do they expect me to do with these homeless people?”
I bit my tongue so hard it hurt.
I wanted to say a lot of things.
Instead, I looked at her and said:
“He's not a case. He's a man. A veteran. A survivor. A brother in Christ. He sings the old gospel
songs better than anyone I've ever heard. Give him a chance—you'll see.”
She didn't say much after that.
But I saw something in her face soften.
Maybe she heard me.
I hope she did.
Because he was never just “one of these homeless people.”
He was himself.
Rough.
Unpolished.
Blunt.
Funny.
Defensive.
Faithful in ways you might not notice if you didn't stay around long enough.
There was something about him that reminded me of gospel music coming through an old radio
speaker.
A little gravel.
A little static.
But beautiful if you were willing to listen.
Takeaway
The world usually met his defenses before it met him.
I didn't.
Or maybe I did, but I stayed around long enough to see what was underneath them.
That's the difference.
It's easy to meet someone after decades of hardship and judge the person standing in front of
us without knowing anything about what it took for them to get there.
By the time I knew him, he had lived through things I had not.
He had known segregation.
War.
Homelessness.
Violence.
Cold.
He had learned to sleep lightly.
He had learned to protect himself.
He had learned not to assume everybody coming toward him had good intentions.
Then we looked at the result of all that surviving and called him difficult.
That doesn't mean every behavior was acceptable.
Sometimes it wasn't.
That cane was real.
So were the boundaries people needed around him.
But I've learned that understanding why someone became hard is different from excusing
everything they do.
Compassion and boundaries can live in the same room.
So can dignity and accountability.
I didn't have to pretend he was easy to love in order to love him.
And I didn't need him to become polished before I could recognize what was beautiful about
him.
I think about all those rides.
I don't remember most of where we went.
That's funny to me now.
At the time, I'm sure whatever errand we were running seemed important.
But that's not what stayed with me.
I remember his face lighting up when I pulled over.
I remember him getting in.
I remember the windows cracked.
I remember the music.
I remember companionship.
Maybe that's what he needed sometimes.
Not another person trying to fix him.
Just somebody willing to ride beside him for a while.
Then I think about the assisted living facility.
“What do they expect me to do with these homeless people?”
These homeless people.
There it was again.
A category where a name should have been.
I had heard versions of it before.
I would hear versions of it again.
But by then, I knew him.
So I couldn't hear “homeless person” and stop there.
I knew too much.
I knew there was a veteran underneath that label.
A storyteller.
A survivor.
A man who loved music.
A man who sang hymns.
A man who had scared a few people with a cane.
A man whose face lit up when his friend pulled over to pick him up.
A whole person.
That's what proximity does.
It makes stereotypes harder to maintain.
It's easy to have an opinion about “the homeless.”
It's harder when the homeless man has a name.
When you've heard him laugh.
When he's sat in your passenger seat.
When you know which songs he likes.
When you've stood beside his hospital bed wondering if he's going to live.
When you love him.
Jesus was constantly getting close to people others had already categorized.
And the closer I get to people, the more I understand why.
Distance lets us simplify people.
Love doesn't.
Love makes us learn their stories.
It makes us hold contradictions.
It makes room for the fact that someone can be difficult and deeply loved at the same time.
That someone can carry a cane for protection and still sing hymns.
That someone can need boundaries and companionship.
That someone can be rough around the edges and still reflect the image of God.
He taught me that.
The preacher with the cane.
I don't remember every place we drove.
But I remember the sound of the blues coming through the speakers.
I remember that weathered face beside me.
And I remember being grateful that, for whatever reason, he trusted me enough to get in the car.
Sometimes ministry looks like helping someone find housing.
Sometimes it looks like sitting beside a hospital bed.
And sometimes it looks like rolling down the windows, turning up the music, and going for a ride
with your friend.
