(Continued from ‘Bad Thursday’ and ‘Why Good Friday’s Good’.)
Wendy’s café. Saturday before Easter, One year on
“What a difference a year can make!” remarked Ben as he sat drinking his coffee. “When I think back, I felt my life didn’t amount to anything worthwhile. My only aim was to lower my golf handicap, but then I felt so miserable when I’d had a bad round. Now I look to see how I can make a difference to people’s lives.”
“Yeah, it’s opened up a whole new way of seeing the world,” said Wendy. I’ve still got Long Covid but nowadays I thank God for what I’ve done in a day, not moan about what I can’t. Reading through the gospel of Luke was a great start. It’s like Jesus walked out of the pages – I could imagine him standing right here, then sitting at our breakfast table…”
“Biggest thing for me,” I said, “is that I don’t go around feeling dirty inside. It helped when I met up with the kids, and told them I wanted a relationship with them. We’ve started having days out, like we went to a show last month. Linda’s got a new partner but I met with her at a café in December to give them some Christmas presents, and she listened while I said how sorry I was. She was quite tearful, but she put her hand on my arm, and just very quietly said, “Thank you John, that means a lot.”
And I just said, “You’ve got the Cross to thank for that!”
-o-O-o-
It had, indeed, been a year of change. Ben’s large, empty garden was being transformed. The snowdrops and daffodils had flowered and wilted, but tulips were coming into bloom along with colourful primulas that lit up the borders. Alice and I had paid several visits, and she’d drawn up a plan. Ben and I had visited the local garden centre several times to buy the plants on her list, and she’d sat in a chair and bossed us about. Although my bionic body found physical work painful, I felt good when I knew we’d done a job well.
In turn, we’d given Alice’s little plot a facelift. We were amazed by the way she had eyes for the garden, imagining how it would look in a year’s time. We tucked small alpines into tiny cracks and holes, and gave a new lease of life to climbing plants that looked tired and straggled, by trimming them so they would grow new, stronger shoots around graceful arches.
“Hey, Alice,” Wendy remarked, “your garden’s like our lives! I’ve found some of Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel in my modern version: I am the vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant.” We all agreed how well it fitted.
And what about me, the printer? In my ‘desk job’ days, before I washed my career down the plughole with whisky, I’d learnt how to design posters, flyers and stuff like that. I proved quite good at understanding and filling in forms. Poor Wendy hated the paperwork side of running her café and she was very glad of my help. And then Ben and I decided her business needed a leg up. We popped flyers into letterboxes along local streets, and the number of clients gradually crept up and up.
-o-O-o-
Revd Judy had coined the term ‘café church’. But – well, we often ended up talking about prayers that had been answered, problems we needed the others to pray for, Bible verses that had meant a lot to us, questions we’d got…and one day, someone new came along. He took off his flat cap, parked his stick and asked if he could sit with us.
“Hope you don’t mind me asking,” said Dennis, looking at Ben, “but was it you who fixed my grandson’s bike?”
Ben remembered that day. Up till recently, he’d have steered clear of the local children, but with his new spiritual eyes he had seen Jesus in the face of this forlorn 10-year-old lad. It seemed natural to help him out.
“Yes, that was me,” said Ben. “Poor lad, he looked so down in the mouth. I’ve a few useful tools in my garage, and it didn’t take five minutes. He’d left his bike on the pavement and – when he came back to it, it was lying in the road. Looked like someone had driven over it. The front wheel was warped and I had to straighten it out.”
“Well, not many people would’ve bothered with a young lad’s bike nowadays,” said the man. “Thank you! Mind me asking – you always seem to be here on a morning, an’ you look as if you’ve something going on…”
A week or so later, Dennis’ wife joined us…and his neighbour…and…
-o-O-o-
Hmm…Ben had been mulling over turning his garage into a workshop for local people, combined with a meeting place for when our group was too large to meet in Wendy’s café alone. And what about starting a small business to sell Alice’s flower arrangements? Her creative designs, him and me (and perhaps other local people) doing the ‘spadework(!)’, me creating the advertising?
Easter Day tomorrow. This time last year, we’d been pushed and shoved into the church building, persuaded by Wendy. Now, a year later, we were geared up to walk ahead on our journey as disciples of the risen Jesus. The truth was, we’d spent the last year learning together at Jesus’ feet. St Paul said that “Death is swallowed up in victory” and we were seeing this worked out in practical ways.
Bible references: John 15 vs 5 (The Message); 1 Corinthians 15 vs 54
johnhearsonwrites.com 