SAUCIER — Loosed on earth

We were moving into a building we bought for our ministry to women looking for redemption, recovery and reentry.

I was working with a man I’d never met, a volunteer from the church most of our women attended.

He had a tough but welcoming look. He had a veteran’s cap, a scruffy beard and muscular, inked-up arms. When he wasn’t talking though, his face rested around a smile.

I learned about his service time, his motorcycle days, and a tempestuous relationship with his father that had weathered its way to love and respect.

He told me that he was helping us move into this new center that would house classrooms and offices because he knew what these women were going through.

He was lucky — never got caught, never did time like the women, though in a way he regrets that. He said he may have gotten sober sooner and hurt fewer people had he been forced to face himself in confinement. 

He led a wild life. Hung with a tough crowd. Then he fell in love. She was an addict, too, but found the courage to get clean. Then, she led him to sobriety.

As he stumbled his way along, he got into an argument with his running buddy. In their parting words, his friend threatened to come over and beat him. 

“Try it,” he had replied, “and I will kill you.”

This animosity simmered for years. My man admitted that while he swore off drugs and alcohol, he never addressed the anger and pain that lurked below the surface.

After some therapy, he and his wife were looking for a church. A cousin invited him to his, where, admittedly, the sinners far outnumbered the saints.

They were going to try it but then heard that the former friend went there. But his wife convinced him to go. They would sit up front where he wouldn’t have to look at anyone.

At one point, he inadvertently turned around and saw the guy. He looked away and started planning his exit.

But when the service ended, instead of heading for the door, he found himself going up to his old friend, seeing tears in his eyes, and wordlessly embracing him.

The healing took later conversations, but the grace of forgiveness was immediate.

“Jesus,” he said, “it was a powerful experience.”

I didn’t ask whether his “Jesus” was an emphatic of that experience or an attribution of its source. 

I trust it was both.