bench treasures

This morning at Heritage Square downtown, a Flagstaff woman was leading little kids, 2 to 5 year olds I would reckon, and their moms and a couple of dads through some delightful shenanigans. Two other geezers and myself were each sitting on our respective benches and watching. After a while I decided to go say hello. Both gents were travel-hardened with packs.

"What's the word for the day?" I asked the first one, sitting reading a well-thumbed Bible. He responded calmly and clearly with perhaps the best elucidation of the Bible and its message I have ever heard. I sat beside him and listened with open heart for some time. I arose to go and thanked him. "What is your name?" I asked. "Moses," he said as we shook hands.

I walked over to the other gent a little distance away. He was a Navajo man, deaf but able to communicate through sign, facial expressions, and brief spoken and written words (we availed ourselves of a pen and paper after a while). He told me of his earlier life, of his visiting Flagstaff as a young boy, of his riding horses and horse-pulled wagons in days gone by, of being in Vietnam in the Army. I told him I had been in the Marines. I asked him his age. He said 59. I told him I am 73 and called him a child. He burst into laughter. We laughed a lot and spoke of many other things. I said goodbye. We shook hands then saluted each other with a smile.

What riches, what treasures are before our very eyes! "For thereby some have entertained angels unawares." (Hebrews 13:2)