"Ronnie" kisses me

"Ronnie" was about the homeliest, smelliest, loudest homeless guy at Nightwatch in our Shelter Dispatch Program. Every night he'd come in, juiced up and mouthing off. The shelters wouldn't take him from us any more because of his wild behavior. He seemed incapable of controlling himself. I'm sure he was used to having people yell at him daily, so I started whispering.

"Ronnie, you can't talk that way here," I would tell him, and he would whisper back "Okay!"

One memorable night we had conned some new shelter worker into taking Ronnie off our hands. He was standing in the middle of a room full of homeless guys with his pass into a shelter, and a big crooked grin on his face.

"Pastor Rick, ain't I beautiful?" he asked me.

I realized that every person in that room was waiting to see if I was going to lie to them. I didn't disappoint.

"Sure Ronnie, you're beautiful." Yeaah, he's in the image of God, right?

"Then hug me."

I recoiled inwardly, not wanting to get close this smelly guy, and I tried to get next to him to give him one of those friendly used-car-salesman hugs around one shoulder, but he turned toward me and threw his arms around me in a huge bear hug, his 6'2" bending down over me, his rough cheek pressed against mine, the smell of cheap booze and smoke and BO wafting over me.

Then he kissed me on the cheek and went off into the night. It was a God moment.

I was patting myself on the back about the good thing I had done, until a little nagging voice asked me a question.

"Who was being the ugly one in that situation?" I realized that I had wanted to keep Ronnie at arms length, keep him away from me. He, on the otherhand, threw his arms around me with glorious exuberant joy. I was the one who was being ugly.

Help me love everyone with Your uninhibited joy!