THE BELOVED RAGMAN
I came across an intriguing inspirational story by Walter Wangerin,
Jr. and feel led to share it with you. Here it goes:
Before 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 cloths and clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear,
tenor voice: “Rags! Rags! New rags for old! I’ll take your
tired old rags! Rags!”
“Now this is a wonder,” I thought to myself, for this man stood
six-feet-four with arms like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and eyes flashing
intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in
the inner city? My curiosity drove me to follow him, and I certainly wasn’t
disappointed.
Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her porch. She was
sobbing into a handkerchief, sighing and shedding a thousand tears. Her
knees and elbows met; her shoulders shook; her heart was breaking.
The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly, he walked to the woman,
stepping around tin cans, abandoned toys, and discarded diapers. “Give me
your rag,” he offered ever so 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 and glanced 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 began to weep,
sobbing as grievously as she had done, his shoulders and body shaking. Yet the woman was left without a tear.
“This IS a wonder,” I breathed to myself, and I followed the
sobbing Ragman like a child who could not turn away from mystery.
“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!” he invited.
In a little while, the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I
could see shredded curtains hanging out of darkened windows. The Ragman
came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty and
hopeless. Blood soaked her bandage and a solitary line of blood ran down
her cheek.
The tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity and took 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 her bandage,
removed it, and tied it to his own head. The new bonnet he set on hers.
And I gasped at what I saw: for along with the bandage came the wound!
And from his brow a substantial stream of blood started to flow!
“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing,
bleeding, strong, and compassionate Ragman.
The sun was now high in the sky, and the Ragman seemed more and
more in a hurry. “Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned
against a telephone pole. The man shook
his head ‘no.’ The Ragman pressed him: “Do you have a job?”
“Are you crazy?” sneered the stranger. He pulled away from
the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket. It was completely flat
and the cuff was stuffed into his pocket. The man had no arm.
“So,” invited the Ragman, “give me your jacket, and I will give you
mine.” There was such a quiet and comforting authority in his voice.
The one-armed man immediately removed his jacket. So did the Ragman – and I trembled at what I
saw – for the Ragman’s arm stayed in his jacket sleeve, and when the stranger
donned the jacket, he now had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the
Ragman had only one. “Go to work,” he whispered lovingly.
After that he found a drunken homeless man, lying unconscious
beneath an army blanket, hunched over, worn out and sickly. He took the
old man’s blanket and wrapped it round himself, leaving the inebriated man with
brand new clothes.
By now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was
weeping uncontrollably, bleeding profusely at the forehead, pulling his cart
with one arm, stumbling with drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted,
old and sick, yet he persevered with determined speed. He skittered
through the poorest byways and alleys of my 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. It hurt me to see his
sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was headed in such haste, so
that I might somehow know what drove him so.
Eventually, the little old Ragman came to a landfill, the garbage
pits of the city. I wanted to help him, but I hung back, hiding in the
shadows. He climbed up a hill and with
tormented labor, cleared a small space on that hill. Then he sighed and
laid down. He pillowed his head on an old worn out jacket. He
covered his bones with a frayed army blanket. And he died.
How I cried to witness his death! I slumped in a junked car
and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope, because somehow I had come to
love this Ragman. Every sad face I had seen had faded in the wonder of
this precious man, and I cherished him more than life itself. But he had
died, so I sobbed myself to sleep.
I did not know. How could I know? So great was my grief
that I slept through Friday and Saturday too.
But early Sunday morning, I was awakened by an earth shattering
noise. It was accompanied by radiant light, a pure, bright and wondrous
light shimmering slowly over my face. I blinked, I looked, and I beheld
the greatest miracle of all. There was the Ragman, carefully folding his
tattered blanket, with scars on his body, but now healthy and more than alive!
There was no sign of sorrow or pain, and all the rags he had gathered on
Friday now glowed with the brilliance of the dawning day.
I lowered my head and trembled for all that I had seen, and
haltingly walked over to the Ragman. I told him my name and shared my
shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off my prideful
garments in that hallowed place, and with a deep yearning that sprang from my
soul, I whispered to him, “Dress me.”
The Ragman dressed me; he completed me; and I bowed at his feet
with unspeakable tears of joy. The Ragman…the Ragman…THE CHRIST!
Indeed, THE RAGMAN continues to be a wonder-of-wonders…in all believing
souls.
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