Soon into the conversation I learned that he had graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in philosophy and that he had kept an active interest in the subject as an adult. He knew the major philosophical texts and their authors and spoke confidently about his views on them. We talked religion and philosophy for a while, and then, sadly, that he had spent sixteen years in the state penitentiary for drug use and sales and that he was currently living in a nearby abandoned grain silo. After a short, but serious and enjoyable conversation, he looked past me and asked in the way a man does when he is talking to himself, "Where did I go wrong?" It was a rhetorical question from a sober and haunted man. We talked about life in general for a while longer and then he left as quietly as he came. As I stood there watching him walk away, I heard myself saying, "Where do any of us go wrong, my friend?" We all do, in some way and at some time, and some of us, repeatedly. There are those who recover sufficiently from mistakes, and others, like my parking lot friend, who do not.
While standing there I recalled the Pharisee who said, "Lord, thank you that I am not like the adulterer, extortioner or even this tax collector." A statement that needs little explanation for its obvious meaning but which reveals an inherent problem of the religious, and that is that faith moves a man to habituate himself to the good and to do good, but while doing so makes him susceptible to the greater sins of complacency, arrogance, or pride. In the same parable, it was the humbled tax collector, unable to look up to heaven as he confessed his sins, who found pleasure in God's eyes, not the law-abiding Pharisee.
I liked the man I met on the street. I think his sins are not equal to the punishment he has received. I know that, practically speaking, he has to put the bottle down and accept responsibility if he is ever to be happy in this life. But I also know that all men are feeble and in of need God's grace and that this world has punished his sins more than mine, but probably, they are no worse.
I never saw him again, but I will remember his face, and believe that the final Judge of us all still honors the contrite.
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