Finding Momentum

“I called you, Drew, but you didn’t pick up.”

I con­fess, I tend to ignore Mike’s phone calls. He’ll invari­ably call me in class or some­times the call will get dropped instantly when it comes in. I use these as excuses to hang up on him. But it’s mostly because I know what a phone call means (it usu­ally means he needs money).

I’m at the Asian Ghetto (Durant Food Court, to be PC) with Glen on Fri­day evening when I run into Mike. He’s called me ear­lier in the night dur­ing IV large group and I had to hang up on him because I couldn’t excuse myself. Okay, I didn’t want to take the call either. He left me a voice mail, which I haven’t checked when I see Mike in per­son a cou­ple hours later.

“Drew, I called you but you didn’t pick up.”

I mum­ble some sort of apology.

“Lis­ten to this voice mail.” He calls his own num­ber and has me lis­ten to a voice mes­sage. A man with a grav­elly voice has called Mike and offered him a job as a ser­vice assis­tant to a dis­abled per­son. “I meet with him 10AM tomor­row,” Mike tells me with a pained expres­sion on his face.

I’m con­fused. “That’s good, right?”

“I called you, Drew, but you didn’t pick up. Look man, I need some cash. Last few offers I got I couldn’t do cuz they wanted me to have a car.” He con­tin­ues to talk about his pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ences as a health assis­tant, espe­cially with a dis­abled fam­ily mem­ber. “Look man, my fam­ily got issues. I can’t depend on them. I come up to Berke­ley cuz I know I can depend on peo­ple here. I can depend on you col­lege students.”

Some­times I wish Mike wouldn’t talk so much so I could get a word in edge­wise. Some­times I don’t know what to say. This time, I don’t know what to do.

Depend is the last word I want to hear. I don’t want him to depend on me. It brings up too many bad expe­ri­ences. It makes me feel like a crutch. It makes me feel used. It brings up ques­tions of code­pen­dency I don’t want to consider.

But I give him money. “Look man, I’m doing this cuz you’re my friend. I trust you.” I know he needs the money for bus fare. But it’s tear­ing me up inside because I won­der if all I am is an ATM machine to Mike.

“Thanks Drew. I love you.” We pray.

Walk­ing back up, I share these thoughts with Glen. He tells me his pastor’s story of offer­ing help to a stranger in need who, in the end, is fleeced. The pas­tor doesn’t harden his heart, but again gives gen­er­ously the next time around. For who is he, in light of incred­i­ble grace, to claim the right to his money?

I’m not sure I totally agree or under­stand. But it is com­fort­ing at the moment. And who am I, hum­bled in light of stun­ning Mercy, to declare myself inde­pen­dent of a bro­ken world?

(His last name is Har­ris. Michael Harris.)