FIRST JOB

When I was sixteen I got my first job doing Japanese landscaping. Digging, planting bonsai trees and shrubs, arranging stones. The work was very physical, but I was young and strong and I relished the exhaustion.

What wore me down the most was my boss. He was an old family friend from church, a Japanese immigrant. He was a very spiritual and proud man and would repeatedly tell me stories about his experiences being praised by church leaders and the prophetic dreams he would have. I must have heard half a dozen different times about his future wife, chosen by God and sent to him in a dream.

He was a lonely man. He often told me that his ex-wife was wicked and had a dark spirit. He'd come over to our house most holidays to have dinner with us instead of going to one of his children's family dinners so he wouldn't have to see her.

He spent most of his free time sitting alone in his apartment reading scriptures. For him his church was everything. It was the only place he felt accepted, and the only place people would treat him like a friend. If he didn't have the church and didn't have the Lord he wouldn't have anyone.

I haven't seen him in several years now. My father told him he was no longer welcome to our holiday meals and that he had to spend time with his own family. A tough love sort of thing. Last I heard his children are paying for a small apartment for him all the way in Hawaii. Now he's as distant from his family in body as he was in mind. And now he doesn't have his church. It's just him and the Lord now.