Pastors

O God, I complained rather than prayed, there is Jimmy.

Jimmy, a street person, sat in a corner of our tired church basement. Unshaven, polluting the room with his pungent body odor, he pulled his moth-eaten (but nonetheless impressive) Harris Tweed jacket around his shoulders.

With a sigh, I issued a polite hello.

Jimmy was the last person I wanted to meet this early Monday morning. I had come to my office to grab a few quiet moments, but I had been greeted by light leaking from beneath our poorly insulated basement door. Exorbitant light bills demanded I investigate.

I found Jimmy, who had managed, somehow, to enter the church last night.

Jimmy was the kind of person who would disappoint you every time you trusted him. "I need two bucks," he would plead. "Pay you back next week," he would lie.

It was not the money or the lying that bothered me; it was his persistent, unembarrassed gall. While the rest of us lived with limits, Jimmy, by lying, stealing, and conning, managed to exceed the limits. ...

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