Unto the Least of These …

"Inasmuch as ye do it
unto the least of these, my brethren,
ye do it unto me"
By Ronnie Bray

Some years ago, when I was privileged to organise the Annual Single Adult Conferences, a
young man who had registered turned, up and by his appearance caused mouths to flop open
with astonishment and tongues to wag in barely disguised whispers.

His leather jacket had seen better days, and his blue jeans were of roughly the same vintage. But
what caused most stares, nudges and whispers, was the wonderfully exquisite and extensive
Mohican hairdo that he sported.

Once inside the building, among all the customary and noisy bonhomie of a Singles function, he
was not overtly sociable, preferring instead to remain in the small group of saints with whom he
had arrived.

There was much talk about him behind selfish hands that should have been extended in welcome.
Arms that should have gone around his shoulder were left to hang limply in studied neglect. I
found him very shy, almost painfully so, and he was hard work when it came to personal
interaction. Yet, there was a compelling innocence and sweetness about this gentle young man.

I caught glimpses of him from time to time during the Friday evening activities. He stayed in the
cradling comfort of the darker corners, away from the bright lights, isolated from the closeness
of the many huddled groups full of the chatter of the forging of new friendships, and the
awkward business of old ones being repaired.

He ate breakfast in silence. Nothing unusual about that. Travel the previous day had been long,
tiring, bed time had been somewhat late, and breakfast always came too early for most. He was
no exception.

After the devotional service, we went into workshop sessions. Emerging from the one I had
presented, I was greeted by a distressed sister. "Brother Phil has gone!" she blurted tearfully. I
did not need to know any more. I knew why he had run away. Those in the group that had
travelled with him came to me to tell what they knew about the gentle stranger.

He had been a member for about ten years. Struggling against the de-laminating effect of
schizophrenia on his mind, and its destructive effect on the integrity of his personality, he had
sought to ease his pain with the anodyne of alcohol, but it had served only to hasten his descent
into the fractured world of his terrible psychosis.

He had been inactive for several years, but through the ministrations of a caring sister, had begun
to attend Church again, and was trying to get some order and sense back into his life. His
outward appearance was a symptom of something profoundly troubling in the deep wells of his
questionable humanity, a problem most of us will never experience.

As his monsters were devouring him from the inside, he sought to establish an recognisable
identity and this was what he had come up with. It was his best shot, but not good enough for the
rest of us. The trouble was that no one else could see his monsters or feel the effects of them
tearing into his brain with their bloody claws. Mental illness has no face. We can only see the
misery, but can not see the cause, and so we judge foolishly according to the wisdom of man.

For me, the rest of Saturday and its activities passed satisfactorily, although under a cloud of
gloom and failure. Phil was eventually dropped as a subject of speculation and gossip. How sad
that he should so soon vanish from the consciousness and conscience of this happy company of
the Lord's people. Of the 250 attending the Conference, only one person spoke about the
runaway to me consistently over the weekend. Through Hilda's narratives, I built up a picture of
"the Mohican," as he was commonly referred to.

Sunday morning devotional was accompanied by a Testimony Meeting. This was always the
high point of the Conference, when one after another would movingly express their faith in the
Lord and how they had felt the Holy Ghost uplift them through the activities of the weekend.

As was customary, I stood to speak first, principally to call for brevity in testimony bearing to
allow as many as possible to testify. Otherwise, the meeting would run all day, and one of the
wards needed to get into the chapel to hold its service.

The Conference Choir sang. As I stood to speak, I was overwhelmed with a sense of what had
happened there. For what seemed an eternity, I stood silently looking into the sea of happy faces
who had been moved, some to tears, by the beautiful singing of a choir that had met for the first
time less than a day ago, but who had found unity, peace, and love through sharing music. I
thought about Phil and tried to grasp why he had felt it necessary to escape from us.

When I found my voice, I said simply,

"This weekend, the Saviour Jesus Christ has been with us. But we have driven him away. Most
of us did not recognise him. He wore blue jeans, a leather jacket, and had a Mohican haircut."

The effect was electrifying. After a moment of stunned silence, the recognition of what I had said
sunk in to the hearts of these good people. Many cried, most hung their heads under the burden
of guilt and shame that they now felt. Until now, they had not realised what had actually
transpired. In my head, I clearly heard the slow and deliberate words of the Saviour:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Each person that came to the pulpit to bear testimony spoke about Phil and about their sorrow at
having seen him only as an object of rude comment, and for not having seen him as a Child of
God. They understood that hearts and minds are not won by ostracising those who are different
from ourselves. Over two hundred of the attendees wrote to Phil expressing their love for him.
He answered my letters for several months before he slipped back beneath the murky waters of
his illness.

At the end of the Testimony meeting, we did what we always did at the end of a Single Adult
event. We stood and held hands in a huge circle and sung "I Am A Child of God," the Single
Adult anthem. Only this time we thought about Phil instead of ourselves. The anthem was
transformed from being one of self-identity, into a celebration of the divine identity of others,
and we were all the richer for it.

Later that day I sat quiet and alone and thought about my daughter Alex. I remembered the first
time I had seen her as a Gothic Punk. I remembered standing with her in Queensway London, in
the swirling crowds of people from every clime and culture and recalled how one nose and ear
pierced Asian woman had done a double take at Alex' multi pierced ears, nose and lips, taking in
through her wide-eyed stare all the chains that ran from one place to another in an untidy web
across her face.

I remembered how my acceptance of her self-identity helped bridge the gulf that she was sure
would spring up when I saw her like that. I didn't like it, but I heard the cry of a girl fighting to
become herself, whatever that might be. I also recalled the day in the crisp sunshine of an early
Spring when we had stood for our farewell in a back street in Colchester after talking together
though the whole of the previous night, emptying our hearts about who we were and what we
felt, and how, for the first time since she was a little girl, she threw her arms around me and cried
that she loved me.

I had not travelled the miles with her, in the same way that I had not travelled the miles with
Phil. Yet it was not hard to realise the truth of the old saying that to understand all is to forgive
all. We sometimes need to exercise patience and get to know the person behind the persona. The
effort is usually worthwhile.

May each of us so live that the Holy Spirit will have before our eyes continually the true images
of others, rather than the image of the false god of ourselves as the Significant One, whose needs
blind us to, and outweigh, the struggles and needs of others.

All Rights Reserved © March 2000 Ronnie Bray