Church Time

This morning on my walk back to Chicago I stopped at a church in Michigan City. I haven’t been to church since I was 12. I thought I’d see what was new.

A preacher named Harlen Grayson stepped up to the pulpit. He said that God watches us all closely, sometimes as an encourager and other times as a chastiser. I thought, “Well, God must be my mind.”

Then they passed the collection plate. I was out of cash so I gave a stick of mint gum and a leaf I’d found and been carrying for the past couple of hours.

Then Harlen asked if there were any newcomers. I raised my hand. He asked me where I was from. I said Brighton because that’s where I slept last night, in Selnor’s Park, huddled between two coyotes. I think they thought that meant I was homeless because after the service they ushered me to the front of the church’s under-earner’s homeless soup kitchen line.