going to mass, people watching....and then...Milo

In the middle of downtown denver there is a beautiful old church. a Catholic church. Lead by the Arch Bishop himself. and blessed by the pope when he came in 1993 to denver. I don't put any stock as a christian in the hierarchy of the catholic church but it was intriguing none the less. Derek and I walked past it the other night and noticed that they did Mass, on wednesday nights at 7. So today we were working on a roof, and we were like..."hey, we should go to Mass tonight, I've never gone, it could be an experience" and thus started our night...off to Mass.

We came home from work, showered up, even dressed up (well as far as I normally dress up ;) and headed out for Mass. This particular church is down town only a few blocks from the capital. So we drove down and parked behind Paris on the Platte (sweet coffee house) it's a bit of a walk from there but its a good walk and I enjoy it so we decided to do that. crossed the river and hopped on the 16th street shuttle. We got on at the start of the line so there weren't many people there. But as the line got further down 16th street it filled up quickly. at almost the end of the line we were standing with strangers. the last load of people that we ended up standing with were four people my age-ish. as they walked in and stood on the other side of me I noticed the beautiful elude of Peanut butter!! turns out it was one of those pre-made sandwiches in a bag. They offered me one but I declined. This process led to a discussion over the proper pronunciation of Ramen noodles. Is it a long or short "a." the guy eating the peanut butter pronounced it all wrong was what we came up with. So any way, world problems solved we got off the shuttle and walked up the hill to the cathedral; but when we got there the church was all locked up. We checked the sign again and decided that we should double check the service times BEFORE we are at the church for Mass...Oh well another day maybe. So we pondered the plan for the evening for a moment as we wandered back towards the 16th street. "wanna go hear Rob Bell, He's speaking tonight at the Filmore"....NAH!!! (lol...not to keen on him so it probably would have just ended with me feeling contentious)
We kept wandering not really sure what we were actually gonna be doing with our evening. Mostly our time was spent getting coffee for me... and an available urinal for derek. I scored first, Starbucks...Mmmmmm. we had to walk to the Mcdonalds for the bathroom though. On our way there I was like "you may not be into this, but I'm really in a people watching mood" So derek went pee....and I found a bench in the middle of the street, sat down with my Peppermint mocha and enjoyed people.
Interesting people down town (I love it by the way) Rickshaw driver feverishly TXTing until she gets a passenger. A couple walking, holding hands. they were cool. they seamed familiar with each other, no like an early relationship would be, but at the same time they were both very happy, and almost seamed refreshed in each other. it was cool! Girl with pink hair, another girl, with a really cool fro. By this time derek is back from his "outing" and has found his way to where I parked. We notice a few people; the pimp...a 50 something black man, with hair like Albert Einstein if he'd just stuck his fingers in a light socket, and he's waring a shiny/sparkly gold suite, slacks and, oh yes, even matching wing tipped shoes. and He talks like a Mississippi man. We both wanted to talk with him. There's a cop a block away having an argument with a bystander, the bystander walks away (smart move) A group of people walks by, dressed up for dinner i assume...Whitney Goodnight!?!?!...nope but man she reminded me of her. (She carried herself the same way). Hmm, smiled and prayed for whit.
A number of other people stand out but This is a long enough story already and I'm not even at the good stuff yet. So the shuttle stops near our bench (which is great for people watching) on one such people puking from the shuttle, a rather large native guy steps off, trying his hardest to impress this girl, Whom he obviously just met they end up standing beside our bench, He's on the tail end of a mild inebriation and she I cant tell if she's totally creeped out by him or if she's intrigued (she's really ditzy and going back and forth between the two I think) He's talking about boxing, offering to teach her. yadda yadda. Any way they exchange a few words with Derek and I as we're sitting right beside them. She eventually leaves to meet up with her friends at a bar, and he tries his hardest to be allowed to walk her there, but is shot down. He then looks at me and goes "wow, I'd tap that, wouldn't you"....I was like "well, um, she was cute man yeah, but I'm more of a purest, I think its so much better one girl with one guy for good." The conversation moves around a little. and suddenly we find ourselves talking about Milo's (the random dude) mother, who died last year from breast cancer. You can see it in his face that it still is heavy on him (the fact that he's still slightly intoxicated I think was helping but ya know) After only talking about her for a few sentences you can see tears on Milo's face. We've only met this man only like 4 minutes at this point and he is just being pealed open in front of us. I started praying "lord, this isn't normal, This is heavy on him"
He kept talking about her, how much he misses her. How much he hurts. He's 22 and now looking after his young brothers. He shares with us that they are really little and don't know that mom is dead, He hasn't told them about death, He's been telling them "she's gone and she'll be back soon" by this time Milo is sitting between myself and derek on the bench crying as he shares how he's been trying marijuana mixed with crack cocaine trying to cope. He overdosed, stopping his heart and placing him in the hospital for a while. He takes a whole bottle of toquilla to his moms grave, pours a shot and sets it on her grave marker, and will stay there for 4-5 hours talking to her. At this point Derek and I have bairly said anything, a few probing questions but thats about it. Milo says things like "I would die, if I could only see her again for a minute" he said that a few times, and in a way that was very sincere, he'd thought it allot, and it was very real idea to him. I asked if I could share something with him, he said ok.
So told Milo that I knew for a fact that he understood love....REAL love. I told him I heard it in the way he talked about her, that he would die in her place. He'd been reading a Mormon bible, and he said that he was almost angry, asking God why he could take someone like her away from them. "Milo, if your mom died, so that you could understand Love, REAL love; the kind that changes your life, would you consider that a good thing then?"..."yes." Derek and I started going through a couple of verses with him. It was a little difficult to keep his attention, he liked talking about her! so for a while we would just go back and listening. We talked about death, Milo said "you only have one man, you gotta do something with it." We went and read Heb 9:27 "for it is appointed for a man to die once, and then face judgement" Milo got this! We asked what he thought that looked like? "well he's gonna look and make sure your a good person you know, that you did good things" We'd already been discussing how much life hurts, and different mistakes made in life. Derek showed him how we are disconnected from God because of sin, and sin is what makes life hurt so much. and how the only way to connect back to God is by paying the price that sin requires: death. At this point Milo was intent, he was focused. We talked again about his mom, how he wished he could die to bring her back. We talked a while about how God has that same desire for us. We read John 3:16 (ol-faithful) We talked about how belief means trust. and looking back at that judgement after we die. Milo can sit before God, Point at Jesus and say, I know that the price of admission into heaven is death... but... HE paid for mine"
Milo borrowed my phone to call his family, he was getting late. He asked if we could walk him to his bus. He was really digging into our conversation, you could see it on his face. but derek and I were both not sure how much was getting through the alcohol and the tears. As we got up derek was showing him about Eternal security, that no one can steal what belongs to God. Milo asked me where he could get a good bible. I'd been thinking earlier that I kinda wanted to give him mine (which I do and don't like doing, I loose allot of notes that way.) but when he asked, I reached into my bag and handed him mine. I have never seen anyone hold one so close. He clutched it to his chest and cried some more. "I'm gonna read this"....I'm gonna read it to my brothers"..."I'm gonna tell them that moms not coming back, that mom's dead."
On the way to the bus he asked if I could write my address in the cover. he wanted to write a journal of what he reads and send it to me. "I'm gonna read it and mail it back to you!" He pulled off a bracelet he had been waring and gave it to me "when I finnish, we'll trade back." We waited with him until his bus got there; gave him a hug and started back to the car. When the bus passed his face never left the bible as it drove passed us. Derek and I spent the rest of the walk to the car trying not to cry, it was overwhelming for sure. If you've read this far I ask you to pray for Milo, I think I've been crying the whole last hour writting this post. I think he's one of the people I'll always remember meeting.