I sat alone.

Behind me, there was no one.  To my side, only a single body occupied the pew’s far end.  A pair of women clustered in front of me, off to my left, but aside from their tandem entrance into the sanctuary’s somber air, the gathering was an individual assortment of souls like myself, unfamiliar with the person to one’s side, seated to one’s back, clustered before one’s eyes.  I did not know who the two women were; I did not know any of the people I saw.

The double doors at the center aisle opened to a group of souls trudging down the aisle’s shortened path.  Humbly attired in blue jeans, casual shirts, and identical black leather vests, their appearance did not fit the tradition of the hallowed halls or the solemnity of the occasion.  However, as member of the Christian Motorcyclists Association, their number filled three rows.

Daniel rode a motorcycle.  Everyone who knew him was familiar with his preferred means of conveyance.  It was the sole bike in town, white in color, with a windshield proclaiming: “Jesus Is Lord”.  I never knew he belonged to this motorcyclists' group.

On the opposite side of the aisle, I recognized someone I knew from the coffee shop, the same place from which I knew Daniel, and though I saw them talking a handful of times, I could not say how they knew one another.

  A second group of people, identifiable again by the attire they wore, filled two rows of the section of pews to the right of the center aisle.  This collection of men wore the traditional church clothing, the sacred garments of the priests, as they were ministers from the denomination under which Daniel pastored.

I knew Daniel was a pastor.  He mentioned it once.  Yet, my thoughts of him in the mold of that austere presentation – dark or gray suit, demure formalized tie, white or pale-colored shirt, and impeccably shined dress shoes – would be a stretch to conceive.  Daniel wore the clothes of the everyman.  He rode his motorcycle like any regular Joe.  He had an avid interest in the Denver Broncos football team.  He could, and did, communicate with the people – as the immense turnout showed.

I noticed – finally distinguishing them from the mass of others – several rows ahead of where I sat, the ladies from the coffee shop where Daniel frequented for his morning cup of brew.

The two front rows on the other side of the center aisle supported the family.  A cornucopia of young, old, and middle-aged; men and women; boys and girls -- they were a stately, Waltonesque group in presence and size.

Though I knew Daniel was married, a fact I learned from one of the ladies at the coffee shop, I did not know the scope of his family, which as wide and as deep as any family upon planet earth.  In my times around him, he never mentioned a word.

A comment from the podium shifted my attention to a small collection of people to the far right of everyone else.  They were not a group, as the others already there, but rather like an individualized collection of souls bound together by some informal commonality.  In the corner of the sanctuary, these were a mixture of people from the soup kitchen and the church to which it was adjoined.

Daniel was the soup kitchen’s director – something else about him I did not know.  His involvement, I was well aware of; but his leadership, and his friendship with the church’s pastor, I never learned until I heard it from the podium.  One of the ministers mentioned it.  He was one of the three who, oddly enough, represented the groups in attendance as ideally as the groups themselves represented facets of Daniel’s life.

The first to speak was the traditional.  Finely attired with a charming smile, he stood before the crows as not only a friend of Daniel’s, but also as the district representative to the denomination under which Daniel preached.  The second was casual, comfortably dressed in a discerning presence, this was the amiable pastor of the church adjoining the soup kitchen.  The third was the former senior pastor of Daniel’s church.  He, like Daniel, served in the CMA, preaching a message of salvation, per Daniel’s request, decked out in boots, blue jeans, cowboy shirt, and black leather Christian Motorcyclists Association vest.

Listening to these three men speak, I realized Daniel was a man I never truly knew.  In retrospect, it would be fair to state, I only learned his name within the past year, while he only learned mine over the past six months.  We only began talking when he offered me a ride on his motorcycle.  I was hoofing down the road by foot and he rode by.  As was Daniel’s nature, he gave me the ride where I needed to go.

So why was I there?  What prompted me to sacrifice an hour of my day in attendance amongst hundreds of people I did not know? Perhaps it was due to what little I did know, what truth about Daniel that was first and foremost to anyone who was fortunate enough to meet the man.

I learned what I knew of him from mornings at the coffee shop.  I would arrive first, staking out my seat at the table by the window.  My Bible would flip open to where I intended to read for the day, and with a cup of the regular brew in my hand, I would begin to read.

Daniel would follow a few minutes later, ordering the same drink – he and I were the only one to partake of the “normal” coffee – and throw out my way, in his trademark soft-spoken, , big-bear-of-a-oak-tree-man demeanor a:

“Did you look up…?”

“Check out…”

“I was so blessed when I found in…”

Coming from anyone else, it might have proved the stereotypical irritant.  Most people view unsolicited conversation about religion flagrant attempts at proselytizing.  However, from Daniel, such comments never came through as “religious” in their intent.  His interest was in the Bible.  His love was for God.  His desire was to show Jesus to whomever God brought across his path.  To me, he was a bastion of knowledge I could inquire of with a passion that came forth sincerely.  I was comfortable in asking him any question, as I knew he would speak to me with the voice of a man – what I could relate to – and not as a god to whom I had nothing in common.

The day he died, I stopped in the coffee shop at an hour of the day outside my normal routine.  My reaction, I imagine as the same as any person who knew Daniel’s name, was shock: complete and absolute shock.

Why, I only saw him the other day.  He didn’t appear sick, ill, or pale.  I didn’t know anything was wrong with him.  How could he be gone?  How could I never see him riding his motorcycle along the city streets again?  How could I never see him closing down the doors of the soup kitchen again?  How could I never speak with him about scripture again?  About God?  About Jesus?

As I sat quietly amongst the people who had, for the most part, only Daniel in common, I wondered again why I was there.  Daniel was not a close friend.  The CMA and the other church pastors and the people who depended upon the soup kitchen for sustenance and the grand family of young and old certainly knew him far better than I did.  I was just another soul to whom he shared a few extra moments of his time with a few poignant pieces of his heart.  What caused me to believe I belonged in the company of these others who actually knew Daniel, where he was from, his favorite foods, his pet peeves, his worst nightmare, his greatest joy?

Maybe it was the mass of single people I saw, those who knew him in the way I knew him – in the passing moments of the day.

Perhaps, it had something to do with the cultural ethos surrounding any soul’s final moments.  Tradition, as I knew it, dictated funerals as somber, mournful times.  A loss has occurred, after all, loosing grief in all its rapacious fury to claw and scrape with tears and wailing to rend the heart. Sable covered whatever pieces remained, coating what formerly profusely poured forth love, and joy, and peace, in the dark blackness of a midnight undeterred.  A great soul was dead to this world to be heard from again nevermore.

Such tradition had no place here; for Daniel was not a man governed by the established mindsets of other people.  He was under the rule of Jesus Christ.  I knew this from the heart he freely shared.  Jesus was present in every word he spoke.  Be it a pithy moment or lengthy discourse, it was Jesus people saw and heard.

How could I mourn for Daniel when I knew where his heart would forever reside?  His heart was a direct window into heaven for me, it was access into God’s kingdom for me every time he spoke.  Through him, I could understand, I could see a piece of what life would be when that same day for me eventually arrives.

No, I could not mourn for Daniel.  He has awoken to a new day, at the feet of Jesus, where his heart had always desired to be.  My tears are reserved for those who will never meet the man who knew Jesus, who will never partake of his heart filled with Jesus.

Perhaps, if I try a little harder, I can step into Daniel’s shoes and show the same heart of the man I barely knew to the people I see in my routine of going about from day to day.  Maybe now it is my turn to carry on the charge of sharing the truth I know to the people who have yet to hear, to the ones who have yet to know.  Then, one day, a soul I meet offhand might write of me, the one whom they did not know, but they knew my heart, a heart filled to overflowing with Jesus Christ.

© 2004 Wendall Sexton.  All Rights Reserved