At this moment a thousand years ago ... I was a "Professional Christian" ... getting paid to love everybody ... while asking everyone else to do it for free.On Sunday mornings, I'd rise at 6:00 and make my way from the apartment on the third floor to the Fellowship Hall in the basement and start to fry sausage.
Chester Fawbush handed me coffee as I entered the kitchen.
"Morning Rev," the old homeless man said in a sweet grandmotherly way and he sat on a stool by the roll up window separating the kitchen from the Social Hall where a hundred homeless men were already waiting for the only meal they'd get that day.
RRRREEEEVVVV," Sonny Broughton hisses as he strolls in to cook the biscuits.
Making the gravy, I nod to the tiny, balding, fidgety man with who always wore blue jeans with creases and a blue work shirt.
Sonny was the best dressed homeless person I've ever known.
Well ... there was another from my Union Mission days who got up every morning, put on a suit and tie, packed his brief case and walked to the Chatham County Courthouse to pretend he was a lawyer ... but Sonny was the first.
Believe it or not, I had a staff ... people I supervised ... inexplicably the Baptists supported what I was doing.
None of the staff showed up until Sunday School time and breakfast for the homeless was my baby!
Pushing 7:00 I stroll into the orange Social Hall, announce breakfast is served, mumble some prayer and watch hungry men, women and children storm the window.
Chester and Sonny sweated like pigs slopping sausage gravy on biscuits while I stood there looking ministerial.
To this day I hate that shade of institutional orange because it reminds me of hungry people.
After breakfast, I'd lock myself in my office, slam in the 8-Track of "The Eagles" and listen to "The Last Resort" again and again before wandering into the Sanctuary to preach.
"And you can see them standing there on Sunday morning, they stand up and sing about what it's like up there. They call it Paradise ... I don't know why ... you call some place Paradise you kiss it goodbye."
There's never a Sunday morning that I don't remember these things.
