Big Doug

I was walking around, loosely headed to see Big Doug and his cousin, to touch base about their house that burned down and see what progress there is in finding living arrangements. As I was headed down the street where he is staying with his younger cousin’s family, I saw him ambling down the road. So I walked with him to the bus stop.

“Where you headed?” I asked.

“Ah, nowhere, I just ride the buses.”

“Just all over town?”

“Yeah. I don’t mind talking to you now, tho, as long as the bus ain’t here.”

All I could think of was John Prine’s “Sins of Memphisto:”

The hands on his watch spin slowly around

With his mind on a bus that goes all over town

Looking at the babies in the factories

Listening to the music of Mr. Squeeze

As if by magic or remote control

He finds a piece of a puzzle

He missed in his soul

This is the Gospel Of Doug, as best I can tell:

He was born in the house that burned down. From our vantage point as the bus stop, he tells me where the grocery store used to be. Well, as an infant, he suffered greatly. His mother was mentally ill, and she purposefully starved him. So, he never really developed normally. Even tho he is 20 or so years older than his younger cousins, he always hung out with them and played with them, as if he were a kid, too.

He worked one time, had a job at some kind of plant where he swept up in the boiler room. He liked it. It was suited to him. He got a uniform… and some steel-toed boots. Some guys decided to play a trick on him and threw his shoes in the boiler. Then when the boss was upset about Doug not having his shoes, they told Doug to say he didn’t like them, they hurt his feet and he wanted some new ones. He did that, and got fired. He knew enough to know he was being pushed around, but did not have the wherewithal to stand up to them. How often is that kind of story told about fellows who are developmentally disabled?

So he has kind of ambled on in life, taken care of by his cousins, to better or worse degrees, each generation of cousins seeming to know that it would fall to them to take care of him as older ones passed on or were unable to do so.

When Doug’s house burned down, he lost a lot. It was in bad shape—no heat this winter, but by cobbling together different places to stay, he kept warm. But that was where he was born, where he’s lived his whole life, where his grandmother lived. It’s home in a way that many of us may not be able to understand.

Each year, Doug buys himself a new set of steel-toed boots. He is very proud of them, and will show them off when he gets them. And now I know a little more of why he gets steel-toes, like what he had that was taken away… and burned. No wonder it meant so much for Doug to tell me that firemen were able to get three things out for him: his wallet, his boots, and his Bible. The boots that were taken from him got burned up. These ones did not. And when he got his Bible, he said he was reminded that heaven and earth will pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away.

I have been so blessed by those words, from this man. It’s like my friend Buddy Pittman. He was developmentally disabled and worked with me at USM’s Physical Plant. We were planting trees and shrubs one day, sweating like dancing mules, and I asked him a question. I was wondering about the part in Genesis where God kicks them out and says Adam will have to work hard to even eat and women will have pain in childbirth. So I got to wondering why do we have AC or pain-killing drugs. Weren’t we cursed? Pitt said unforgettable words: “I don’t live under the curse. I live under the blessing.”

Blew me away. This is the egalitarian libertarian force of the Gospel, that a man like Buddy Pittman, who could never teach a class at USM gave me more wisdom than I had ever received in all my years of schooling. And he was entirely humble and straightforward about it. That’ what the Truth will do, I guess.

How much time I spent (spend) trying to be wise or strong! “But God chose the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of this world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world, the despised things, and the things that are not, to nullify the things that are, so no one may boast before Him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).

People like Doug—whether poor or developmentally disabled or both—aren’t going to tithe much. And so, frankly, many pastors and churches avoid them. They’re ok as mascots, but hear me: we will put up with any trouble, division, dissension, insults and problems from the rich, because we think our churches are built on them and by them. No, our churches are built on the deposit of the Holy Spirit. And His gifts and utterances are given to any who will receive them, in and by faith. “Aaron, you are naïve.” Yes. But if I am wrong, do you want to be right?

Strangelove,

Aaron