More Than I Imagined by John Blake

Author:John Blake [Blake, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2023-05-02T00:00:00+00:00

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It was Christmas Eve, and I was walking toward a subway station in West Baltimore. The sidewalk was packed with pedestrians hustling home with hefty shopping bags. Donny Hathaway’s soulful voice belted out “This Christmas” from a passing car radio. The sun was setting, casting violet streaks across the horizon, and people nodded and smiled at one another as they passed on the street.

I should have been in the holiday spirit, but I was preoccupied. I’d had a troubling phone conversation with a high school buddy named David the night before. For some reason David brought up Christianity, a subject we never talked about. “No blond, blue-eyed Christ for me,” he said. “My oppressor doesn’t get to set himself as my God. I can’t be the blind believer who stops thinking or questioning. Worse is the arrogance that tells some people that they and Gawwd are so close that they’re on his payroll and that makes their actions justified. Too much evil is done in the name of religion.”

I thought of Darren and all the other Christians I’d recently met. I took a half-hearted stab at saying that not all Christians were like that. We ended the conversation after talking about something else, and I hung up the phone, shaking my head in disgust at myself. I felt like a hypocrite, defending Christians without being one myself.

David has an excuse—he hasn’t had the experiences I’ve had, I thought. What was mine? What was holding me back? Before I went to bed that night, I made a vow: The next time someone talks to me about Jesus, I’m going to make a decision.

As I rushed toward the subway the next day, I was concerned with something else. Someone was following me. I glanced over my right shoulder and spotted a young Black man across the street weaving in and out of the sidewalk traffic with his eyes on me.

As I rounded a corner to head to the subway entrance, I heard the young man shout, “Hey, friend!”

I stopped, turned, and saw him standing across the street. He was a big, bulky guy with a short, matted Afro and a chipped front tooth, and he wore dusty construction boots. He jogged toward me, pausing to allow traffic to pass by. I squinted at him, trying to figure out where I had seen him before.

Is he someone I know from high school? I wondered. Why can’t I remember him?

Then my body tensed. I started looking to my left and my right. Maybe this is a setup, a robbery? I thought.

I didn’t keep walking, though, because his smile held me in place. It was so warm, like we had known each other all our lives.

He reached me and stopped to catch his breath. Then his smile disappeared, and he looked at me with utmost seriousness. “Don’t you know that there are so many things in this world that are taking you away from Jesus Christ?” he said.

I dropped my hands to my sides and lowered my head.

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