9:44 a.m. - Thursday, Sept. 16, 2004
Ahead of Me.
There's been so much going on in my life and in the lives of my friends, I can't begin to think what to write about. Good and not-so-good, happy and heartbreaking. This little journal is really only a snapshot of one part of my life.
So what's been going on lately? Let's start with Dave.
Dave is not a punchline. I shared a funny story about spending a day with Dave a while back, and while there is plenty to laugh about, I may have left a less than adequate impression of who he really is. Since that story, Dave has come back to Modesto. Almost two weeks ago now, I spoke with Lyn, his sort-of girlfriend at the time, and she told me that shortly after Jimmy and I left them in Santa Cruz, Dave revealed to her that he had pancreatic cancer. He's in the latter stages of it, and he is a broken man in more ways than one.
We've gone to visit him in the park, and he says he's made peace with God. Exactly what that means to him, I'm not sure. We've been able to pray with him, and he knows God loves him. I hope that a least some small part of his knowing that comes from knowing us. I thank God that Jimmy frivolously offered them a ride to Santa Cruz that day. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have, and I would have missed out on building a friendship with this man. [I'm so stupid sometimes.]
I came home last week and cried. It was around that time that I wrote that 'Life is Unfair' entry. It's not fair that I have friends and community in my best times, and Dave has almost none in his worst. I thought of the verse that says that the tax collectors and prostitutes are being 'welcomed into the kingdom ahead of you,' and I broke. They better get in ahead me, Jesus. They've already tasted Hell.
I saw Dave again yesterday. He broke his ankle recently, so now he's in a borrowed old wheelchair. He's sick, but he's still Dave, and he still makes me laugh hard. He knows his weakness, and he knows his need. Few people come to that place. If you don't get there, however, you'll never find the heart of God. He is Dave effing Faulkner, and he's getting into the Kingdom ahead of me.
"What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work in the vineyard today.' He answered, 'I will not'; but later he changed his mind and went. The father went to the second and said the same, and he answered, 'I will go, sir'; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?" They said, "The first." Jesus said to them, "Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prosititutes believed him" -Matthew 21:28-32
