The warmth of a smile on a park bench

What happens when the sun shines? You see more colors, you feel more radiance, and people smile more at each other. And today was no exception. I am almost unsure if I can even write about today - for what happened is not short of a miracle, yet, I also can not share the secrets of a man's history without permission. Nor do I think I can share the legality of asking a public defender to look into a situation.

So I am left just being vague. Which doesn't give much of a story to read about.

Yet today I find myself humbled by being a messenger of God, this is the only way I can describe how I feel right now. To have had the power of connecting to one man who needs help. A marine who needed to be heard. A brother watching his sibling dying in the hospital. A father grieving his murdered son. A man who need a glimmer of hope and a desire to be 'seen' after the world kicked him into a hole. After loosing his son and his father months apart. A man who felt the pain of anguish and anger of the desire for revenge surging through is blood. Of wanting to protect his surviving children at all costs, when their mother's new partner was beating them.

A man who was the protective parent many of us want. Who went to jail for not standing down to the police because he wanted his children protected from an abuser.

So here I am...on a park bench, in the sunshine, grabbing a dosage of Vitamin D, and listening. Listening to him, to his story. To his desires to have a good job, to provide for himself, to be a man of influence as a pastor or visual story teller. A man whose whole body lights up like a tree during Christmas time when he speaks of empowering others through his words, written and verbal.

And then there is me. Paying attention to the hairs on my skin rising. To the knowledge I just met a woman who is a public defender. I know nothing about the workings of the legal system. Could she be of service? Is it appropriate to share his info with her? Will she think I am crazy? Yet EVERY CELL IN MY BODY tells me "send an email" and so I write. And before I hit send, I read the note to him. I saw tears in his eyes. He said, " I think God sent me an angel today."

Me? An angel? No, I don't see myself like that. How could I be an angel? I just connect people? I just talk to enjoy talks with strangers sometimes. I just listen. I connect people when I hear the message. I doubt myself often. I feel awkward thinking someone thinks I could be a messenger of God.

Yet, today I really made an impact on a man's life. Perhaps a little on the life of the public defender. And in turn, perhaps on the lives of anyone reading this little blog, lost in the swirls of 0s and 1s making up bytes of data we call the internet.

The end of the story...or perhaps the beginning of the next... The email... yes, it was read. And the public defender called him. And replied to me. And it was good news. There is a strong likelihood his record can be expunged. And the VA may have a program to help him. And her words to me "I called and talked to him - what a nice, sincere young man!"

All because the sun shined in Pittsburgh today, and I wanted a little Vitamin D, and I took a chance to talk with a stranger.