Stand in the wind. Close your eyes, spread your fingers, and you may feel, flowing between them, the current of old stories and new stories--then and now eddying around you. The stories are something quite beyond you. The most you can do is dip in your finger, and for a moment, sense the current of their passing.
I heard today of a green-eyed lawyer who spoke for his people and won--won--and the liquor washed off by cold water and hot coffee just that most important morning. He was brilliant, I heard, and I do believe he cared: cared that when they said "Mexican-Americans," one justice asked, "What's that?" and another said, "Don't they call them Greasers down there?"
The justice gave him 16 extra minutes in that Supreme Court--to weave his story and tell just who they were. "You are," someone said, "What you have to defend." And they won, his people. But not him. He died on a bench, his liver ruined and his mind. Looking at his picture--his smile, his eyes light and maybe vulnerable (even in black and white)--I feel the tug against my fingers.
He won that most important day. Even after what came first--despite the hints of what came after. I am accustomed to the theory of "work like it depends on you, and pray like it depends on God." But the night before, this man didn't. Was it grace for the many he stood to defend? Was it grace for the grandmas and children who gave their mites for his great cause? Or was it, maybe, grace for him?
As this man's story runs away between my fingers, I find hope that even this bruised reed may be of some profound use.
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