John Hicks

I knew an old man who lived in that house. He sat in that chair and stared into the street.
He smoked his cigarettes and fed that cat. He pontificated rights and easement ways. His funny common sense wisdom always proved neighborhood orthodoxy. His name was John Hicks.

In 2009, newly wed, we moved in across the street from this old man in a place in Nashville where no-one cared to look. Barely knowing anyone in the community we began to make friends with this hard-eyed, masonry-handed, gentle-hearted man.

The more we got to know John the more of a goofball we realized he was. One morning when I decided to tag along with John on his Shoney's run I discovered this further. Not only was he the biggest Shoney's waitress flirt (they loved it too), actually none of them knew his real name! We went in and they all shouted: "Hey Sam!" He also told them that he lived in a cave and had a pet opossum.

But as the years went by the more I understood how John wasn't just some funny old man, but somewhat of a community patriarch who represented a different time and era... Whose relationships went deep with those who knew him. John and his siblings had grown up in the house in that photo. Remnants of a neighborhood fading away... In many ways, he was a testimony to a way of life that preached about commitment and even covenantal-neighborhoods. It is the forgotten art of staying put... of harvesting the fruit of a life of consistency. What might the world be like if we could relearn how to pour ourselves out completely to a particular place and people?

I could blog-on about how I've seen this man do for others, mowing grass for people half his age, working on cars, and on and on. Little did John know how much he had been inching into the Kingdom of God over his 75 years.

But as I sat beside his bed, with only days left to live, his coherence almost lost, neighbors and friends came to visit. His life spoke true by those who came. It was those neighbors from around the corner. It was the women who worked at the Circle K. Local lives touched by a local man.

Now John may be gone, and soon to follow this house where we clocked hours on those old metal chairs... yet, the kingdom of heaven has advanced and will continue to do so as John's life ripples into today.

We thank God for such a person and may we all learn something about the simplicity and power of presence through him.