Away in a Manger...

Last night I got to be myself.
Here is the skinny on how I found out just who I am. I was walking through Mt. Pleasant, Mississippi, looking for a safe place to set up my sleeping bag and gear. I noted that between the Shell station at the corner, and a bank and a Dollar General Store there sat a large building…two buildings, really. It was a tin sided industrial building that had been converted into a church, and there was a strange building attached to it, almost like a wooden annex and a step back in time.
I approached a woman on the sidewalk. She was watching over several children, and they were running amok in the parking lot. I had noticed a sign that said “Angel Food Ministries and assumed that there was a food connection that might have a bit of sway when they saw my WhyHunger card. The lady directed me inside to a man named Gary, so I went in, only to find that Gary was a minister and was in the middle of a bible study. He asked me if I needed help and I briefly explained my situation. He directed me to sit in the lobby and wait, or join them. I chose the lobby, not so much because I didn’t want to hear a bible study but because it was getting late and I needed to run to Dollar General to get supplies. Which I did.
Upon returning, and after a brief wait, the group broke for the evening and came through the lobby. Gary Davis told me that they had decided to allow me to stay in a special place that they had just created, and that I was to get my cat and follow a man named Roy.
Roy, a 26 year military man, lead me to a doorway in the other, oddly old looking building and we entered. He explained that the church had recently built the building and was making a recreation of the manger scene in Bethlehem. The floor was straw covered, there was a roof, and it was as cold as it could be in there. And it was great.
As I set up my stuff, air mattress and sleeping bag, Roy went into the church and returned with a large amount of leftover food that they had been enjoying. Sausage and beans in a sauce, rice and cabbage, I think with chicken broth added, some pudding pie, and a whole pitcher of lemonade. Oy, such a meal!
I say “Oy” because that night I got to sleep in the place of baby Jesus, and since he was a Jew might have said “Oy” at some point. He certainly would have said, “Man, is it cold!” and “Wow, that was good pie”, just as I, his substitute, did.
I slept fitfully in that straw filled manger, with no electricity and no heat. It was in the morning that I realized just who I really am: a grateful passing stranger who was allowed to have safe harbor by a group of kind people who didn’t have to do it. Something about the coldness of the night and the pain in my feet coalesced and a clarity of purpose manifested itself nicely. I am Jim. And I am happy to be alive.