Heather Lende
The good deed
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I had never seen him at church before, and now he was asking me, and the rest of the Vestry of St. Michael and All Angels Episcopal Mission, if he could camp on our new property, for a month, maybe two, until he could get a ride to Bellingham.
We are not a wealthy parish. About thirty of us struggle to cover the cost of the land payments, rent at the Chilkat Center for the Arts, where we meet Sunday mornings, and a small stipend for our vicar, who thankfully has a day job. We all dream of building a church some day. But we also agonize over the benefits of a new church versus doing good things with the money it would cost. This fall we gave $500 to orphans in Bulgaria instead of putting it in the building fund. We do that kind of thing all the time. Food bank or new hymnals? You guessed it. The food bank.
I'm beginning to think our only hope is that a wealthy old line Episcopalian with a fondness for St. Michael and Alaska will leave her estate to us. Then we can help people and have stained glass windows.
This is Haines, so of course we all knew who the young man was. We'd read his name in the court report in the newspaper. Folks had pitched in when his wife had the baby, but thought it was probably best when she left town after her mother sent her and the child one way tickets home. She was so young and looked so lost. He was almost thirty.
He said he didn't have any place else to go. He had a good tent and a camp stove. For the interview he had taken out the nose ring, shaved,cut his hair and dressed neatly.
While everyone else had hot beverages and cake in the lobby, the church management committee and our vicar stood in the narrow ticket booth where we keep our rolling altar, prayer books, hymnals, candles and vestments during the week, and debated what to do.
Bill wanted to know about insurance. We had it. The vicar said the barn on the property has an oil stove in it. Staying inside would be better than the tent this time of year. Dwight had a portable boat toilet.
But I was thinking, this a was a big mistake. The Episcopalians in Haines are already on the fringe of the Christian community. It may be an old denomination, but we're relatively new here. What if he does something bad and the other churches decide we shouldn't build a new one? We should explain that we don't have camping facilities. That we're sorry, but it won't work.
Wait a minute. Didn't Jesus hang around with guys just like this one? Having been raised a Book Of Common Prayer Episcopalian I'm not very good with scripture, but I do know that Jesus said in the least of you, there will I be. He also said we are supposed to love our neighbors, especially the difficult ones.
Dwight had an idea. He wanted to ask the young man to be our caretaker. Give him a key to the building, $50 a week, and some chores -- real responsibility. When Dwight was young, he said, a good priest made him a similar offer and it changed his life. He saw this as an opportunity to pass on the good deed.
We summoned the man who would be caretaker from coffee hour and he joined us in the ticket booth. We were shoulder to shoulder. Dwight told him our plan. We all smiled. "This isn't what I had in mind," the new caretaker said. We shook his hand, assuring him it would be great.
After church I told my husband about it. He couldn't believe we had done anything so foolish. "What if he burns it down or gets arrested on church property? What were you thinking?"
It wasn't worth getting in an argument over. My husband knows how softhearted and impractical I am, and I think that's why he loves me. He also knows the rest of the church management committee members are too, and I think that's why he goes to church.
A few days later I saw Bill, from the committee, at the beauty parlor. There's just one hair cutter in Haines so we all go there. Bill said he heard at the Bamboo Room Restaurant that our new caretaker was leaving, soon, on the ferry.
At coffee hour after church on Sunday I heard the rest of the story. He left without telling anyone, even Dwight who had befriended him. He also didn't return the key.
My husband was relieved he was gone. I think everyone else was too. One man was angry about the key, but we shrugged it off. We all knew it could've been worse.
It could have been so much better, too. The young man could've turned our six acres into a garden and healthy woods. The honest outdoor work and our kindness could have brought out the best in him. His family could have come back. In a perfect world, the caretaker would have decided to go back to school, become a teacher, start a camp for wayward youth and have the kids build a little stone and timber frame church.
But St.Michael and All Angels first caretaker didn't do much of anything, and left without saying goodbye.
I bet the committee would make the same decision again. I know I would. Because someday I want to help someone without expecting anything in return. And I'm always on the lookout for stories with happy endings.