The Waiting Man

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul . . .”

I have a porch at my house. It’s an old porch. It’s an old porch because it’s part of an old house. I come home to my house often, and each time, I walk across my porch, which happens to be open to the sky, and enter the front door.

On my porch is a couch. It’s an old, ready-to-be-thrown-away couch that just sits out in the rain and soaks up all the corrupting influences it can handle. And lately—oddly—my couch has a visitor.

Now it’s not altogether unreasonable to think that someone would sit on my couch (although if you saw its condition you might think it was unreasonable). But, occasionally, I throw a big blanket onto it and sit there myself and enjoy the cool of the day. Or at night, I might soak in the sight of the stars. And then, on occasion, I will have a guest use my couch if a homeless person in my neighborhood trusts me enough to accept a place to lay his head. Sometimes, one of them might come and make their abode for the evening, sleeping off their exhaustion or perhaps the alcohol intake of the day. But mostly, my couch stays vacant, soaking in the environment and taking up space.

My couch’s latest visitor is an old man. Not terribly old as in ninety-nine, but old in a respectable way, like seventy. He’s not a scary old man, and so I’m not afraid of him. He’s casually, but respectably, dressed and has the most pleasant look on his face. (If it were okay for people to sit somewhere and just take up space, you would order two of him because he is just so kind looking.) In any case, he comes and sits on my couch, on my porch, waiting. I pass him every day. Coming home. Leaving home. Stepping outside to stretch. There he is, sitting pleasantly on my couch.

I think he likes it. I don’t know if he sleeps there. I’ve been too busy and too nervous to check. I don’t know where or if he eats, since he seems to be always on my porch, but he’s not the kind of man you ask about that. He seems to be doing just fine. If any words were going to be exchanged you can just tell they would be deep ones. Deep words—about life and how to live it and about the beauty of it all. Not that he’s opposed to courtesy, in fact, we exchange hellos often. I always initiate. He always responds with gentleness. I know he wants me to talk with him. But he never seems anxious about it. Not once has he coughed or sniffed to draw my attention to himself. He’s never replied “hello” with that tone that seems to long for more. No, he waits. Yes, Waiting is his thing. I think I might have even referred to him as “the Waiting Man” in conversations with others.

“The Waiting Man was there again today,” I might say (pensively), “I wonder if he is waiting for me. . . .”

“Why doesn’t he get a job?” my friend might say.

“I don’t know. I don’t think he needs one,” I reply calmly.

“Doesn’t that wig you out?”

“Actually, not really. He’s quite nice.”

I wonder if he’s waiting for me. Why would he wait for me? Indeed, he doesn’t seem to be someone who needs company. He seems quite content on my couch on my porch. And then, I think, why does he wait? Indeed, he seems to be the kind of man who does have other things to do. But they must wait. Because he waits. Patiently. Ever so patiently.

His patience wears on me. It scrapes against the impatience in me. And I begin to itch, to get a little irritable. In and out, in and out, I go. And there he sits, waiting. My chaotic life, which I often euphemize as “full,” spins by him as he sits, still and waiting.

“Don’t you have something better to do?” I want to turn and scold him as I put my key in the door. But I hold back, because I know that saying it would be inappropriate. The Waiting Man. Why does he wait? Could he be waiting for me?

As I walk to the kitchen, I find myself imagining what it would be like to just stop my busyness for a moment and ask him a question. Find out something about him. I imagine what kinds of stories he might tell and how fascinated I would be. How experiencing his world for just a few minutes might help my world make just a little more sense. Because even though I go and go, I don’t have a place to go, nowhere to see my world for what it is. Instead I view it from the inside out, trapped like a passenger on a bullet train, the landscape whizzing by. I think he might just live on that green hill—the blur of it catching the corner of my eye.

He lives on that landscape out there, and that’s why he bothers me, because I know I’m here on this train and I can’t get off! I keep waiting for the next stop, but that stop still hasn’t come. I glance at the red Emergency Stop pull cord and wonder. Do I have the courage? Do I have the right? Don’t other people need me? Am I not on this track for >them? But the cord keeps swaying to the rhythm of the speeding train. . . .

Those green hills look more and more appealing. I sense a change; the moment grows to a point where tranquil slow-motion overtakes me, and all sound around me ceases. I reach for the red cord . . . and I pull.

I am on my porch. The old man looks up, his eyes meeting mine, his face waiting, open.

“Hi,” I say, “my name is Jon. Are you waiting for me?”

Jon Parker serves InterVarsity staff in south Texas. He lives in San Antonio with his wife, Amelia, and his son, Ewan, “who is the cutest baby ever.”