The Ragman

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Greetings Saints:

I just received this from another christian listserv called CHRISTIA.
I reformatted it, and thought ya'll would like it.... enjoy.

Bro. Tyler

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                  "RAGMAN"  by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

I saw a strange sight.  I stumbled upon a story most strange, like
nothing in my life, my street sense, my sly tounge had ever prepared
me for.  Hush, child.  Hush now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man,
handsome and strong, walking the alleys of our City.  He was pulling
an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was
calling in a clear, tenor voice: 

"Rags!" 

Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet 
music.  

"Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!"

"Now this is a wonder," I thought to myself, for the man stood
six-feet -four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, 
and his eyes flashed intelligence.  Could he find no better job than 
this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him.  My curiosity drove me.  And I wasn't disappointed.
Soon the ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch.  She was sobbing 
into a handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears.  Her 
knees and elbows made a sad X.  Her shoulders shook.  Her heart was 
breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart.  Quietly, he walked to the woman,
stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.  "Give me your rag," 
he said gently, "and I'll give you another."  He slipped the handkerchief 
from her eyes.  She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth 
so clean and new that it shined.  She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: 
he put her stained handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to 
weep, to sob as greivously as she had done, his shoulders shaking.  
Yet she was left without a tear.

"This is a wonder," I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing 
Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

"Rags! Rags! New Rags for old!" In a little while, when the sky showed 
grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging 
out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in 
a bandage, whose eyes were empty.  Blood soaked her bandage.  A single 
line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a 
lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.  "Give me your rag," he said, 
tracing his own line on her cheek, "and I'll give you mine."  The child 
could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, 
and tied it to his own head.  The bonnet he set on hers.  

And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against 
his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood--his own! 

"Rags! Rags! I take old rags!" cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, 
intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt both the sky, now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and 
more to hurry.

"Are you going to work?" he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole.  
The man shook his head.  The Ragman pressed him: "Do you have a job?"
"Are you crazy?" sneered the other.  He pulled away fromt he pole, revealing 
the right sleeve of his jacket--flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket.  
He had no arm.

"So," said the Ragman.  "Give me your jacket, and I'll give you mine."

So much quiet authority in his voice! The one-armed man took off his 
jacket.  So did the Ragman--and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman's 
arm stayed in its sleeve, and when the other put it on, he had two good 
arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

"Go to work," he said.  

After that he found a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, 
an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick.  He took that blanket and wrapped 
it round himself, but for the drunk he left new clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman.  Though he was
weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at the forehead, pulling
his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and
again, exhausted, old, old, and sick, yet he went with terrible
speed.  On spider's legs he skittered through the alleys of the City,
this mile and the next, until he came to its limits, and then he
rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man.  I hurt to see his sorrow.  And yet 
I needed to see where he was going in such haste, perhaps to know what 
drove him so.

The little old Ragman--he came to a landfill.  He came to the garbage pits.  
And then I wanted to help him in what he did but I hung back, hiding.  
He climbed a hill.  With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that 
hill.  Then he sighed.  He lay down.  He pillowed his head on a handkerchief 
and a jacket.  He covered his bones with an army blanket.  And he died.

Oh how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed 
and mourned as one who has no hope--because I had come to love the Ragman.  
Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; 
but he died.  

I sobbed myself to sleep.

I did not know--how could I know?-- that I slept through Friday night and 
Saturday and its night too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence.  Light--pure, 
hard, demanding light-- slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, 
and I looked, and I saw the first wonder of all.  There was the Ragman, 
folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! 

And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow or age, and all 
the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.  Well, then I lowered 
my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the 
Ragman.  I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him.  

Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear 
yearning in my voice: "Dress me."

He dressed me.  My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside 
him.  The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!