Subway Preachers

1.30.02

I love the subway preachers.

It's true. When I get on the El in the morning, I never know who will start up with the familiar introduction: "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to ask for just a minute of your time this morning, to share with you the message of the Lord…"

The normal etiquette on the train is not to talk to anyone around you if you don't know them, so when someone raises their voice and addresses the whole train, you can't help but pay attention.

A few weeks ago, it was a woman in an olive-green dress coat with a matching and very stylish hat. She looked like anyone making their way downtown to go to work, but she was in the mood or the habit of sharing her feelings about God.

I couldn't hear her very well as she got started down at the other end of the car, but as she got to the middle, I began to hear her message of love.

She was preaching to the commuters, telling them the Lord had a soft spot for each one of them. "He loves you! He loves you, and he has a special place for you. You're not just any old body to the Lord - you're special! Yes!"

Soon I was feeling her enthusiasm. I think more people need to feel special to God, or at least to another human being. I know one of my great joys in life is to feel that there is someone who knows and loves me simultaneously, as much at odds as the two might seem.

As the woman made her way to my end of the car, I smiled in her direction.

She did not come over and ask me if I was saved, or try to swoop in for the conversion kill. She just smiled back at me. A big, warm, happy smile that said she meant every word she said about feeling loved by the Lord.

This morning a man was preaching. He was raising money for a drug-intervention ministry that had helped him, and now he was giving back to it.

For any amount of donation, he would give you a bag of fund-raiser M&M's.

Although I am usually receptive to the subway shpiels and preachers, I hesitate to give money to a church I don't belong to. If I give to a church I've never heard of, I have no idea where the money is really going. So I was leery, at first.

But as this preacher got rolling, I began to take notice. He told his story of drug addiction and recovery, interspersing it with passages from the Old and New Testaments.

His voice grew in conviction, and he moved away from his story, and into those messages that hardly ever fail to touch my heart.

He talked about love. He quoted Psalms left and right, emphasizing God's power to create, and the tenderness that He feels for us, His creation. And he erupted with passion, beseeching us with a heart that seemed exposed for everyone to see.

"So why don't we love each other?" he asked. "Why are some of us full of hate, full of anger, fear, misery? Why should we suffer this way when God has told us that He is love, and wherever there is love, that's where God is! He says 'Let us love one another!' He says 'He that loveth knoweth God!' You can know God right now!"

That is from the New Testament, 1 John, chapter 4, verses 7 and 8. "Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God, and he that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love."

To me it is one of the most simple and mystical passages in the New Testament. I learned it at a Christian school I attended while living abroad as a teenager.

The verse was set to the most ridiculous melody and punctuated by a peppy clapping part, but I am so grateful that I learned those beautiful, transcendent words.

This subway preacher, raising money for a drug-intervention ministry that had helped him ten years ago, made me feel the presence of God there on the north-bound Red Line train this morning.

And that is why, in my coat pocket, there is an unopened yellow bag of fundraiser M&M's. The spirit just moved me.

Personal musings:

Wilderness: Dreams of living in the wild persist and change.

All grown up: At 12 I looked like I was 20, at 24 I looked 15.

Altruism: Can you ever repay the kindness of a stranger?

Photos in a box: A package from my brother turned my memories of childhood upside down.

Short story long: How to lengthen a narrative in a few easy steps.

Writing: Going the distance to find things to write about.

Neighbors: An amazing account of urban generosity.

Snacking: The angst of a healthy diet.

Thoughts on spiritual matters:

Subway preachers: Transcendence on the Red Line.

Thoughts in the Kingdom: How do you keep your mind in heaven and your heart in the world?

After September 11: Response to an attack on a mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., on September 12.