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Part II: Into the Darkness of Sight: The Carpenter from Tennessee -- Risen and Real

Consider this the rest of the story about  the tattered and torn Christ I encountered yesterday, on his way to Tennessee with his mother and little puppy.

It's interesting that oft times when ministers minister to a transient soul, that after the good deed is done, the minister thinks he's done. Uh uh! Not so! Not even close. Part 1 tells of the trauma of the carpenter from Tennessee who I just know IS the tattered and torn Christ. He's out of gas, water and food, and is on the way to Tennessee with his mother and a beagle puppy. To recap, he had enough gas to make it into the Diocese Pastoral Center, a bit off the beaten path for a couple making their way from Phoenix to Tennessee. They had no cell phone so how did they find me? There isn't a big Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Las Cruces sign on our building. He asked no one for recommendations as to who might help. Our building doesn't really look like a church. I could understand if the tattered and torn Jesus was Catholic, but this one is Southern Baptist. So how did he find me? How did he blow into my door?

Well, the first installment (which I originally thought was the last installment) tells how I saw something unique in this man's eyes and I was moved to buy his food, gas and water. I even paid for it with my personal credit card and not the Catholic Charities account. So I buy the gas and some food. There are hugs of joy and he fills the tank, there are tears and they are off....and at that point I think, "I know who this man is." I am moved to write a bog post about this mystical visitation in the flesh. It was three in the afternoon, and Jesus was 200 miles into the journey. All was clear. I helped Jesus. I fulfilled my Matthew 25 obligation.

But I was not expecting what came next: another interruption from the carpenter from Tennessee. I was in the middle of basking in a sense of "triumph" that I helped someone out of a real bind. Just when I was ready to make a clean get away from going good deeds, the phone rings; I pick up the phone. It's the carpenter from Tennessee.

"Mr. Baca," he says, half out of breath, "Was jus' gettin' on Interstate 25 on the way north, and I see steam comin' out of my car. I pull over, turn it off as I see the heat gauge going higher. Blowed a hole in my radiator! Blowedit clean away! Ain't no water or coolant. But thank God the engine block didn't overheat. I turndit off right away."

"Where you calling from?," I asked.

"Nice man at the Valero store let me use their phone," he responded.

There was a pause on the phone.....an awkward silence.

I finally say in a tentative way: "I'm not sure how to help you, and even if you got towed to a garage, I'm not sure I could afford to pay the cost of the fix the car and where would you stay, yada,yada,yada."

"Mr. Baca, I am so sorry to bother you. I hate havin' to ask for help. I was able to let the car cool knowin' I was close enough to git to a place to park the car. I got the car turned around and decided to push her up the off ramp. I got the car to the top of the hill and then coasted her down to a Valero Gas Station. I'm there now. I had a few socket wrenches and jus' finished takin' off the radiator. I've called O'Reilly's Auto that I saw on the way and asked how much a radiator would cost. That's all I would ask. I have no money but hope you can help me with the cost of the radiator."

"Just give me a moment while I think." I just sat there perplexed, looking up at my wall crucifix, puzzled at Him. There was this long silence but I could hear his breathing and comments about how hot it is.

"Mr. Baca, I'm so sorry for botherin' you. If I was by myself, I'd just ditch the car and hitch a ride but ma and the puppy are with me and I gotta do all I can for them."

"Stop saying your sorry. It's not your fault. I just need to take a deep breath and think how I can best help you."

The interruption came when I had just completed writing the blog about this man, about how he looked like the Jesus of my mystical experience, and my sense of triumph that I helped Jesus get back to Tennessee. In my heart was the anticipation of all the folks that would read of my encounter with Christ. I was hopeful for comments on Facebook, Twitter, and Google. The bubblegum-like self triumphal bubble I blew around myself was so big that I could float in it. The call from the carpenter from Tennessee popped my triumphal bubble just as sure as the overheated hot steam popped a quarter inch hole in the carpenter's radiator. And the stickiness of the excessive sentimentality sticking to my face brought me back down to the reality of physical life affected by time and space, the elements, stress, poverty, destitution, bad luck, and despair. I couldn't help but recall the line from a hill billy song from the old television program, Hee Haw, where it says: "If I'd have no bad luck, I'd have no luck at all, gloom despair and agony on me." Those words didn't seem so funny in this context. And I became frustrated that maybe both the Christ of the Chalice, and the Christ of the carpenter from Tennessee were not the same person. Perhaps my mystical experience of Jesus appearing to me in a chalice a few Sundays back was all imagination. The carpenter from Tennessee person was no different than the hundreds of poor who call my office for help. The uniqueness of his big powerful eyes and my certainty of who the man from Tennessee was faded into oblivion. I was tired. I was concerned about our funding levels. I felt the weight of their problems. I was strapped with the weight of paying the Catholic Charities bills for the month, coming up with a new budget, finding more funds, writing reports, and assisting several other of the poor who had come through our doors.

I prayed frustratedly: "Lord, I really thought this carpenter from Tennessee was you, Lord. Did I imagine the appearance of your face to me at Mass? I had seen you, Lord, in the chalice. And this carpenter from Tennessee looked like you. Could it be that he's just another one of the run of the mill poor who come through my door every day? Lord, at this moment, I just want to say no more. Give me strength to help him as I would a brother. Give me patience. I have so much to do and no time to get it done, and not enough financial resources. I have external pressures; I have internal pressures. Lord, I'm kind of like the radiator in this man's car and I'm about to blow."

I almost begrudgingly then tell the carpenter from Tennessee: "I will call O'Reillys and get the radiator for you, but it will have to wait til morning since they had to order it overnight; and it won't be in until mid morning. Besides, I need two signatures on a check. I'll need a little time to get a check ready."

"Mr. Baca, thank you so much for all you've done. I just wanna get home where we have a roof over our heads. I thank God the radiator didn't blow between here and I-40."

"Why are you going north? Ain't you going to Tennessee?," I responded.

"Mr. Baca, I have to take I 25 to git to I-40 because I 40 takes me direct into Tennessee, and I know it's longer but, if I did git stranded on a back road shortcut, I could pretty much make certain we would be alone and stranded in the desert. I am so thirsty jus' from havin' to push the car up the ramp, it's so hot out here."

"I understand. But what are you going to do for the night?," I ask sheepishly and with a sense of guilt that I was not willing to invite him and his mother and their little puppy for a stay at my house.

He says: "Well, we'll jus' stay here for the night and try to git as much rest as we can with the heat and all. When the sun goes down, it'll be better and we'll be ok."

Still feeling guilty, I say: "Ok. I'll pick you up tomorrow morning around 9:00 a.m., and we will both go to pick up the radiator."

"Thank you Mr. Baca."

"Stay safe and see you tomorrow." Ugh. Stay safe? How lame. How weak. How lukewarm!

"We'll be ok here for the night especially once the sun goes down."
I hang up tired and defeated.

I thought to myself: Tom, they are going to be in the heat through the afternoon til nightfall. He's already done some work by pulling the radiator. Maybe you should go pick them up and take them home. But before I knew it, I was on my way home in La Mesa already too far to turn back. As I drove the Pecan shaded historic Highway 28 passed Mesilla, I prayed for guidance as to when enough is enough and when enough is not enough. I was trying to justify my not doing more. And what if the carpenter from Tennessee was Jesus? I placated myself by praying: "Lord, I entrust the carpenter from Tennessee and his mother to you. I am not in control. I cannot save the world. I know this could be an excuse not to do more, but this whole experience has exhausted me."  At home, I passed the time irrigating the lawn and looked at how comfortable my living arrangement has been over the past 5 years. More than a tinge of guilt entered my mind over the carpenter from Tennessee; and I had visions of him and his mother going through a sleepless sweaty night in a lonely asphalt parking lot corner of a sleeping city.

Morning! I'll just get to it. The rest of the story. I arrived at the Valero Gas Station and saw the carpenter from Tennessee standing alone by the car -- hood up. I asked where his mother and the puppy were. He said, "You should have known being a man of faith."

I looked at him puzzled: " I should have known what?"

"You should have known that my prayers would be answered. Wasn't it you who told us that when all else fails that we should pray?" I felt once again that sense of fear and amazement.

He then told me that as the sun went down, a man approached him and his mother and asked them, "Are you planning on sleeping here tonight?" The carpenter from Tennessee answered the mystery man: "It looks like it." Upon which the mystery man said: "Nope. You're coming with me. Lock it up and get your stuff. I'll put you up for the night in a motel room." He said that the man put he, his mother and the puppy up in a Days Inn about 3 miles from here. He said. "I know it was far cause I got up at 5:30 this morning and walked the distance feeling good that mom could rest and have a good breakfast. I ain't eaten yet. I even forgot to get the name of the man who put us up for the night. He kinda jus' showed up out-a nowhere!"

By this time, I'm sensing the tingles.

"Mr. Baca." He then paused and looked me square in the eyes. "You don't need to apologize to me. The Father upstairs had a different plan for me for the night. You were the answer to my prayer yesterday when I came to you."

I hung my head in shame relaying to him, "I am so sorry that I didn't go far enough."

"Mr. Baca, yes you did. You responded to my cry."

"But I failed and I know who you are."

He said nothing and showed no signs that my response was out of place or awkward. I fully expected for him to say that I didn't know him and that he was grateful for everything being a stranger and all, but part of me was hoping he would be quiet to that. So he said nothing to the statement of my "knowing who he was."

The man from Tennessee said with tears in His large eyes, unmistakable eyes, "Mr. Baca, the Father provides. He knew you couldn't do it alone so he sent someone to help by sending me this man to make sure mom and I and the puppy were ok for the night."

I was not listening with my heart as I sulked, "I have failed you and I am sorry."

"Mr. Baca, stop that. You didn't have to do any of this for a stranger. You could have just said no. You could have said we only help people from the area. You could have said you had no money. You could have said anything but 'yes' to us. But you didn't and for that you will forever be in my prayers. The Lord provides. Don't you really believe?"

At that moment I felt like Peter having denied Christ. While his response to my failure alleviated some of my guilt, I began to think that no matter how advanced we think we are in our faith-walk, we never arrive at the horizon until the moment we are completely out of breath. It is at that point we will have fallen and gotten up so many times, and when our lungs are caved in our eyes will answer the question put to us, "did you give me to drink? did you visit me in prison? did you give me to eat?, and did you listened to my cry? when you fell, did you get back up again? when I fell, did you pick me up?"

The carpenter from Tennessee was a teacher of sorts.  I never did tell him who I thought he was. I just told him I knew who he was. His big smile upon my departure after buying the radiator and his eagerness to get working to put it on the car revealed he had four front teeth missing that I had not noticed before. His eyes had been too entrancing for me to pay attention to  his missing teeth. But immediately, I thought, this carpenter from Tennessee has fallen down and gotten back up many many times. And perhaps, I was a puny kind of Simon of Cyrene today in spite of my guilty reluctance to go a little further with his plight.

I truly believe this was the mystical man in the chalice I saw in my vision. I was tested and tested again as would be "fire tried gold;" and when found wanting, I was tested again. And such will be the case until I run out of breath for the last time. The carpenter from Tennessee knows me more than I know him; and his faith was and is greater than mine. And me? All I can say shaking my head at myself in the mirror is: "Me of little faith." Go figure.

I remain amazed. The carpenter from Tennessee is out of gas, water and food. He is on the way to Tennessee with his mother and a beagle puppy. He had enough gas to make it into the Diocese Pastoral Center, a bit off the beaten path for a couple making their way from Phoenix to Tennessee. He had no cell phone so how did he find me? There isn't a big Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Las Cruces sign on our building. He asked no one for recommendations as to who might help his cause. The Pastoral Center building doesn't really look like a church. I could understand if the tattered and torn Jesus was Catholic, but this one is Southern Baptist. So how did he find me? How did he blow into my door?


You can help people like the carpenter from Tennessee by donating On Line to Catholic Charities at the following web site: www.catholiccharitiesdlc.org  (hit the donate button and follow directions to donate on line).

Comments

  1. I am almost speechless. Your account of this encounter with the carpenter is so uplifting and powerful. I needed such a story today to renew my sense of hope and love in this world versus despair and hatred most often seen while looking at news.
    You truly are an inspiration and our Diocese is blessed to have you be an advocate for the poor.
    BTW, in my humble opinion, you encountered Christ! Your response was beautiful, and the miracle of the story is that when you prayed that they were placed in God's loving hands, he responded to your prayer via the stranger who found them lodging for the night. Thank you for your good work! I am so glad I found your blog while looking at the Catholic Charities website.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Mrs. Hinderliter. You are most kind. A letter to the bishop might help give him a sense of the gravity of this ministry and the reality of the cause. The salvation of souls assumes the cooperation of the faithful in tending to the needs of the never evangelized, under evangelized, and fallen away evangelized. :) Your comments were like a cool drink of water in the desert.

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