suffer little children

Our last weekend in The Big City was relaxing. I took the day off (Saturday) from my work-a-holic in-law's to run errands and hang out with my family.

We went to a city park where there was a play ground and water jets that shot out of both the cement and little statues for kids to run through.

I was sitting there watching my three kids in the distance, my wife napping next to me, wondering why everything looked so "perfect". The whole vibe was upper middle class. Nice shade trees. Manicured grass. High-end playground equipment. Yuppie-looking supermodel moms in high dollar sun dresses pushing BMW strollers.

This was slightly off from the environment I was use to in our former TX assignment. Where were the panhandlers? Why was there no graffiti on the playground equipment? What about the foul-mouthed kids perched on top of the monkey bars swearing at everything walking by? What is this place?

Then suddenly this native-looking guy strolls through scoping out everybody. "Here comes the panhandling!" I thought. Finally, some REAL action.

I watched this guy pull up on a park bench next to one of the moms and start talking. She seemed fine with him, even smiling and laughing. Like maybe they knew each other.

Then twenty minutes later he stalked us out. And my wife says, "I met this guy last week here with my sister. And my sister has met him before".

His name was Telly. Or maybe Kelly. He had a speech impediment. Telly was a 17-year old mentally handicapped kid who lived around the block from the park. "Isn't this a great day?" he kept asking enthusiastically.

Telly would go on and on about his excitement over some local parade and carnival happening next week. He'd ask what our favorite parts would be. His was the fireworks. Then he'd get up to hit the button for the kid's water sprayers so they could keep playing. He rambled on a few more minutes before leaving to help push some kids on the swings.

Here's a young man with the mentality of a five-year old. Happy as can be about everything. And an upcoming parade.

And I have the gall to wonder what Jesus meant by "to enter the kingdom, you must be like this guy".