The Mission Bell

Freedom Mission. Logansport, LA
In minutes I will be in Texas, picture taken at the border sign, backpack over-loaded with tokens and food from the brotherhood at the Freedom Mission which I am just now leaving after three days of serious bonding, and a wagon load of memories to cook down into something that I can put into words. By now it would seem that leaving would be like sweeping the floor for new guests to arrive. It is not. Leaving is always taking out my knife and cutting free from living moments in exchange for faces and voices faith alone tells me will come. It is always cutting for the first time with hands shaking. What if I cut free someone I will never see again? What if I remove a voice or experience too soon and miss the message that was there for me to recieve for my heart, for this book? In the end, it is all faith. I know that many of these great, unreplaceable souls will shine again in my life.
Freedom Mission is a Christ-based place of healing for lives that got lost due to alcohol and/or drugs. The thirty something men and half a dozen women that I leave behind have touched my walk. It has been my sincere honor to have also been allowed to step into their world and reach out to them. When I arrived at the mission I was issued a towel, sheets and a roll of tolet-paper. Leaving, I know that I have pages of journal to boil down into words that will show how intense this particular bridge to a recovering life can be. I have walked away from alot of fine and spiritual people on this journey. In all of my steps I have never seen so many lives smiling while trying to stay afloat. For just a little while I swam with them, and some things I will never see the same way.