Knights of the Light

Several weeks ago one of our regulars, Robert, came by my office and asked me for a ride the his apartment because he had too much stuff to carry on foot. Happily I helped him get home and he was excited to show me his apartment and building. He is part of a transitional housing program geared especially toward people with some sort of mental illness, counselors and case managers have offices on-site among other things. During the tour of the facilities he showed me the community room where he told me that he and one of his buddies Goldie hold services, they have robes and everything. This definitely made me curious to see what they were up to. I imagined it to be something like kids playing school.

A few weeks later I arranged to come by their meeting one morning. I arrived about 10 minutes late because my office painter was late so I had trouble getting into the building. Thankfully another man, Freddie, who reminds me of the mole from Frog and Toad, came down the road with his shopping cart just after I arrived and hopped the waist high fence and opened the door for me (something I considered but didn't think was appropriate to do in my clerical collar). Once in the building I made way to the community room and discovered that Robert had a doctor's appointment and was unable to join us. But Goldie was there leading the meeting. This is more Goldie's vision than Robert's. They are still in the organizational phase so we just met more informally.

I came mostly out of curiosity, and with a good bit of skepticism and probably too much well-trained snobbery. Every day I learn that all my intellectual inclinations and academic training sometimes gets in the way of dreaming big and remembering that God uses all people in big ways. Thankfully I get frequent reminders. Goldie calls the group the Knights of the Light. He hopes to bring God's Word to the people of the community. No arguments there! Some of their hopes for the group I will openly admit that I am skeptical of them actually achieving, for example, they want to make a (perhaps several) full length films of the entire Bible. Not sure where they'll get the equipment to do that... but hey... God can do great things. But regardless of my skepticism I came away inspired. I was in awe of their unbridled passion for the Gospel and their willingness to dare to dream big. We talked about current events, Bible passages, how we're gifted by the Spirit, and how the God blesses the desires of our hearts that are in accordance to His will. If I had out my theological fine tooth comb I could probably find a lot of flaws... but overall I left richer for having come observed this motley crew love the Lord with abandon. Thanks be to God!