The Lesson of James
T his is a picture of James and I that was taken by my wife. She insisted on taking it. We are standing in the library of my 125 year-old church--a library that also doubles as a huge reception/fellowship space. When this picture was taken, my church had just held its annual Christmas concert, which is only the biggest event of our entire year. We had over 530 gaily dressed folk at the concert, which was a record, apparently. There was a huge reception after the concert with four long tables filled with food, cookies, pastries, goodies, punch, eggnog and other assorted holiday fare. James had been standing outside the library door, afraid to come inside and wanting to talk to me. Quite a few folks ignored him or walked around him until someone came inside and told me he wanted to see me. Here's the thing, James is a homeless man, who lives on the screened-in porch next to my office. The reason he is living on my office porch is complicated and almost entirely Mark's fault....