Some soul soup
By Jonathan Gramling
Life has been a little hard for me of late, prime conditions to withdraw and feel sorry for myself. That is not good territory to be in because it is territory from which we can easily not return.
Whether it is injustice or just unfortunate circumstances, we can let the weight of this world pull us down and down and down. We can have enough bad feelings to last us a lifetime that drive us deeper and deeper into that land of despair and hopelessness. And after a while, we can lose our way and not be able to climb out of our depression.
God does show us the way to climb out of our depression if we only stop focusing on ourselves and look out on the world around us.
And God did show me the way today, a Sunday, which I guess would be most appropriate. I was in the grocery store in South Madison buying some munchies to eat while I watch the Green Bay Packers -- that depression is another story. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a familiar figure; although he was about twice the size he was when I knew him well.
I caught up with him in the produce section and called out his name. I suffered the usual nanosecond of anxiety as I called out his name because I always fear -- especially as I grow older -- that I will have forgotten the person's name if I haven't seen him for a long time or have one of those false memories and call out the wrong name, only to slink to a corner of the room in shame. I was wrong and John -- not his real name -- responded. There was no forgetting John.
I asked John how he was doing and he proudly told me that he was going to graduate with his B.S. degree this winter. I told him how proud I was of him and how proud I knew Betty Franklin-Hammonds would be of him as well. Why Betty? Well, a long, long time ago, John lived in a low-income housing project in Madison when Betty was the president of the Urban League and I was the vice-president of operations.
John was an African American middle-school student who was up against the odds in a big way. He was an angry African American young man. He had a learning disability. He lived in a low-income housing project and was from a single-parent household. Worse yet, John's mom was addicted to crack cocaine and spent every penny that came into the household on the deadly drug. John's house had no furniture and his mom wasn't present half the time.
Now these days, John would be labeled an "at-risk" student. He would be expected to achieve nothing except a prison term. Kids like John aren't supposed to do anything with their lives and their circumstances are supposed to keep them down permanently. How many sociologists, educational experts, and Washington policy makers would have written John off and doom him to a horrible life that everyone expected him to live.
However, John had two things going for him. The first was Betty. Although she was president of the Urban League, she took John under her wing. Betty never stopped being a social worker, no matter how full her plate was. She helped John get into a better situation. Betty case-managed John and John would frequently hang out with Betty. Betty did everything short of adopting John and I know she was a strong, nurturing figure in John's life.
The second thing John had going for him was the African American church that he belonged to. The members of his church gave him love and hope and faith -- and probably still do. This church gave love and spiritual healing to John in a society and world that would written John off and placed him in the trash heap of humanity. This world can be so cold, and this faith community took John in although he probably had little that he could give them. This church was an oasis in John's life that gave him shelter from the world so that he could heal and grow.
And so, in this grocery store as I wallowed in my own despair, I came upon John and found that he was getting his B.A. degree in spite of what the world expected of him. And I had to smile and be happy. I told him Betty would be happy and John smiled because he knew that was true.
And what did John receive his degree in? Social Work, of course! As the old Blood, Sweat and Tears song goes: "When I'm dead and gone, there'll be one child born in the world to carry on, to carry on." And I had to smile because indeed God -- and life -- is good!
