Dave & the Black Boots (Part 1)

An early Merry Christmas to you all!

Before we get started, here’s a brief update on the book:

Layout is done, endorsements are rolling in…and we got to print in a week! On top of that I was in Nashville a few short weeks ago working with some of the best musicians in the world on Songs of Restoration, an EP of original singer/songwriter songs that will accompany the book. I’m very excited to share all of this with on February 17th of next year, and I’m incredibly grateful for all who have been a part of it so far.

Ok…here’s part one of Dave & the Black Boots:

It all started with the generosity of two Asian women. I use the term Asian because when it happened, I couldn’t be certain of anything more specific. Come to think of it I couldn’t even tell you how they were related. They could have been sisters as easily as they could have been mother and daughter. But for all the vagaries, they were indeed and without a doubt ridiculously and radically generous.

It was December of 2014. My wife Ashley, who was pregnant with our third son Beckett at the time, my two older boys Brody, Bentley, and I were living in the far northwest corner of Phoenix, AZ. The Olson’s had moved from Nashville to the desert in 2011 to serve at a megachurch called CCV and raise a family. By the time this story took place we were neck deep in both. It was a season steeped in attending rehearsals for weekend services and changing diapers, both extremely necessary.

In general things tend to come to life in the desert during the winter months. Once the locals survive the tyranny of oppression from the summer sun, they are ready to enjoy the long stretch of cool dry air that comes the rest of the year. In addition, it’s no surprise that out of state folks tend to find themselves around at that time for Superbowl festivities, college bowl games, and PGA events. In the same vein, Christmastime at CCV drew a very large crowd. It was the biggest event of the year. I was getting myself mentally and physically prepared to take on the 16 (give or take a few) Christmas Eve services that were a few short days away. For some reason, most likely induced by pride, I felt the need to stop into a local clothing shop to look for a new pair of jeans to wear during the services. After a few bouts in the fitting room, I found a pair that I liked and fit the cool, young, worship leader vibe and headed to the checkout counter to buy them. That’s when I was confronted by the two Asian women. They recognized me from church.

“Are you the singer from CCV?”, they asked as they stared at me through their matching oversize rose colored eyeglasses. They were both the exact same height and had the exact same haircut and facial expressions. “Guilty as charged,” I responded. Without hesitation they snatched the jeans from my hands and placed them on the counter along with whatever they had brought to purchase for themselves. “We’ll get these,” they said with wide smiles. I responded abruptly, “absolutely not!” but it didn’t seem to do any good. The more I tried to reason with them that their generosity wasn’t necessary the more they insisted, and the more they insisted the more uncomfortable I felt with the teenager behind the register taking it all in. I gave in, but the conversation continued. They asked me about my family and what our plans were for the coming holidays. I let them know how busy the next few weeks would be at the church and told them I was looking forward to spending some time with my wife and our two boys after they were over. “You have two boys?” they asked. “I do, and my wife is pregnant with our third.” After a short, silent, glance exchanged between the two of them, one of them reached in her small handbag and pulled out two crisp fifty-dollar bills and began shoving them into the front pocket of my button-down shirt. The other one cheered with Christmas glee. It was as if they shared the same brain. I squirmed like a toddler whose mother had licked her thumb and reached to wipe dirt of their face. A small physical skirmish broke out between the three of us there in front of the checkout counter. The short line that had gathered behind us waiting to buy whatever they had found all looked on with gratitude for the entertainment. By the time it was all over, I got back in my car with a pair of jeans I hadn’t paid for, $100 in cash, and a ding in the pride that had brought me there to buy the jeans in the first place. The two $50 bills felt like they were on fire in the front pocket of my shirt the entirety of the drive home. By the time I hit our front door I had resolved that that money wouldn’t be spent on the Olson’s. Not a chance! It would be used for a higher purpose. The only proper thing to do would be to find a way to pay this money forward. I set it in a specific place on our kitchen counter until the proper opportunity arose.

The wrestling match with the two generous Asian women wasn’t the only one going on at the time. I was in another kind of tussle—an internal one. CCV, the church where I was employed, was a great place. It was growing by leaps and bounds at the time, thus all Christmas Eve services. For a sense of scale, we would probably see north of 50,000 people walk through the doors of one of CCV’s campuses during the coming weeks to celebrate Jesus’ birth. It was an exciting place to be, and I was grateful for the opportunity to serve there. But there was cultural barrier that kept me from a sense of internal peace with all the growth. The lead pastor had adopted an evangelism strategy that focused on reaching men of a certain kind of social and economic status. He figured if he could get those types of men involved at CCV their influence and resources would watershed down into the greater society having a greater impact than if a broader, less pointed approach was taken. He was a smart guy and a good leader in an organizational sense, but I could never reconcile the specific attention Jesus’ paid to the down-and-outers in the gospels with what he was up to. Keep in mind, at the time I had a very public position in the church, and the more I found myself up in front of a microphone in front of all the thousands of people that were coming the more the ache grew in my gut over what we as a church were up to.

A few months before I ran into the two generous Asian women, I had decided to do something about the tension I was living in. Through a few chance encounters I had struck up a relationship with a homeless man who bounced around between the Circle K gas stations on the major thoroughfare where all the shops, restaurants, and theaters were on the north side of the city. Dave. Dave was in his mid-to-late sixties and looked how you might think he would, haggard and unkept. He had a straggly greying beard that covered his face. His clothes, hands, and what you could see of his face under his bottlecap glasses were all equally dirty. He made his way around the city to wherever he felt he needed to be at any given time by way of his bike and carried a small backpack along with him wherever he went. The first time I saw him Ashley and I were getting gas at a Circle K after having dinner at the In ‘n Out Burger across the street. He was pilfering around in the trash can between the pumps opposite where we were parked looking for anything valuable. Ashley got my attention as I finished pumping gas and suggested we stop back at In ‘n Out to buy him a burger and fries, I agreed. When we brought it back and offered it to him, he adamantly refused to take it. We fought with him for a little while, but eventually ended up leaving it on top of the trash can for him to pick up after we drove away. I’m still not sure if he ever did.

Late one particular evening when the angst in my chest over what was going on at the church felt heavier than usual, I made the decision to get in my car and drive down to see if I might find Dave. I figured one of the ways I could deal with the internal dissonance I was experiencing in my ministry life was to try and develop a personal relationship with someone who didn’t fit the mold of the church’s evangelism strategy. It wasn’t as if I thought Jesus was disinterested in the socially adept and economically influential men of the area, I just didn’t think he valued them any more or less than someone in a position of need—someone like Dave. Come to think of it, my motivations for driving down that night to find Dave had more to do with my angst with church than they did with anything Dave might have needed from me. I found him at the Circle K that night and found that very thing to be true. It was around 11pm that evening when I spotted him and when I approached, he was immediately guarded as he had been the first time we made contact. I wasn’t sure if he recognized me from the burger Ashley and I had left for him a few weeks before. I tried to strike up a conversation. He wasn’t interested. I persisted. After a few minutes of asking questions, he finally began to let his guard down. He eventually let me in on his name and told me where he slept at night, by the dumpsters behind the Target down the street. I shared my name and what I did for a living in return. He knew about CCV from the logo stickers on the cars that were everywhere around the city. “Big place,” he said. I told him why I came down to see him, that I was trying to do something that Jesus would do in getting to know him. He didn’t seem to care or show much of a response. I asked him if he needed anything, and if I could stop in to see him from time to time. “Don’t need much,” he said “but…sure. I’m usually down around here somewhere.”

For the next year or so I drove down to find Dave after our weekly Thursday evening rehearsals for the weekend services at CCV. He would be at one of the corner gas stations on the main street with his bike and backpack. Every visit I would bring him what I thought he might need. A bike lock. A pack of warm socks. A candy bar. He got to know me well enough to accept them without an argument. We’d talk for an hour or so. He told me how he ended up on the streets. He and his ex-wife worked together with complimentary businesses. He cleaned windows and she houses. A few years prior, when their marriage blew up, she sunk his business in spite. Simultaneously he had suffered a major heart attack and discovered that he had a serious case of congenital heart failure. He had enrolled in a government assistance program to get the medication for his condition, but after a while he had given up hope deciding to move out on the streets. I got the impression that his decision to let go of any sense of home was a part of him preparing to not be around anymore. There was a hollow fatalism in his words as he spoke. It was striking to hear, especially in light of what was happening at the megachurch where I worked a few short miles away. The crazy thing is…Dave also listened to me. I talked to him about all kinds of stuff. About family, about Jesus, about what I thought he was like, and what (who) I thought he loved. About what I thought life was about. He would ask me intriguing questions from his point of view. We had amazing conversations. I was grateful for them. In it all my goal wasn’t necessarily to convert Dave persay…although, I knew that was God’s heart for him. In an odd way his presence in my life every Thursday night and the conversations we shared enriched me with a sense of gratitude, and a deeper sense of who Jesus was. Ironically, Dave acted as a sort of priest in my life. I began to look forward to talking with him every week.

My wife, Ashley, was born on December 18th (I will show discretion with the year…just know she’s younger than she looks) making the weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday all the more special, and hectic. Ever since we were married, I’ve been confronted with the challenge of how to appropriately navigate gift giving between the two major holidays, some years more successful than others. Right around the time the Asian women had accosted me at the counter with their generosity, I received an inside tip on a certain scent in which she had expressed interest. It just so happened that there was a discount/outlet store down on Dave’s main thoroughfare that was known to carry that very scent. So, on my day off, I decided the best use of my time was to make the familiar trip down to that part of town to take care of acquiring Ashley’s birthday gift. That’s when it dawned on me. In fulfillment to the vow I had made that that cold hard cash wouldn’t be spent on the Olson’s, I now knew why the Asian women had given me that $100…Dave. The realization landed on me like a cool wet blanket dousing the fire that had blazed in my front shirt pocket on the way home with the jeans. With this new sense of clarity, I grabbed the two $50 bills and headed down to find my wife’s perfume and my new unlikely friend…

Stay tuned for part two of Dave & the Black Boots.