| Sunny Side Up Feb. 4, 2004 �2003, Kathleen Gibson What would Jesus really do? The calls keep coming. Strangers, all. Helpless voices. And a peck of sad stories. My baby has no milk or diapers. My friends moved out and took my food. I'm outa gas, and have no money to get back home. I need money for a bus ticket, would you help? I don't have a place to stay the night, could you put me up in a hotel? I don't know how our number got on the list, but I want it off. It's far easier to put one of those WWJD bracelets on your arm than it is to know exactly what Jesus would do. Like that fall morning a few years back when a six a.m. call from the mother of a teenager and a handicapped baby woke the Preacher and I. Traveling through town, she needed gas to get back home. Saskatoon. Okay, I said, I'll meet you at the station. I drive a rusty blue car. What are you driving?" She chuckled. "A rusty blue van. And God bless you." Well, he does, I thought, but probably not the way you think. I pulled up to the Co-op in my genuinely rusty blue Dodge, circa 1985. A late model van sidled close to the pumps. Blue. Not rusty. The woman and teenage boy who sprang out wore new clothes with designer labels. She had gold teeth. I asked about the 'baby.' She'd left him at the Imper�at the hotel, at the desk. I pumped forty dollars worth of gas into her tank. Bit my tongue rather than ask how she could afford the glad rags but not gas. "Only forty?" The Preacher is peeking over my shoulder as I write. "I put seventy into a little truck one day." See now, I didn't know he did that. Perhaps he's the real reason why those calls won't stop coming. Summer's the worst. One week there were twelve. Saturday it happened again. Another call, this time from a very young female voice. "I have no food. I have no money. I have no job. Salvation Army's closed. My husband has no work." I prayed, but felt no peace till I assembled a food parcel, and trundled it to the address she gave me. I met a man there. Turns out he was the girl's father. On his way to or from some kind of substance trip, I couldn't tell which. Thirteen, he said. She's thirteen. She has no baby. She has a baby. She was using her sister's name. No, she wasn't. Yes, no, we have no food in the house. Definitely no food. Jesus would have handled this perfectly, I'm certain. I just wanted to ask, "How much money did you spend on booze last week? Smokes? Gambling?" I wanted to say, "Who let you be a father?" Maybe I'll say all that-next time. But I handed over the food and left. Wondering what Jesus would have really done. Thinking�. a whole lot more. You can respond to this column at [email protected] |
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