(First published in Baptist Times - Heartbeats column - 29 April 2011)
The epithet 'man of the world' might have been made for my cousin James. His career took him all around the Far East, making contacts and negotiating deals. Colleagues, who wouldn't want to spend all those months away from home, secretly envied his lack of ties. Footloose and fancy-free, untrammelled by faith or fidelity, he pushed the doors of experience. He saw life. Periodically, he returned for a couple of weeks and caught up with office and social life, before packing his bags and disappearing again.
I was always glad to see him. In childhood, he was one of the 'big cousins,' almost another generation. Even then, he was away for long periods of time, in exile at a boarding school I envisaged as a mediaeval fortress where he was kept in a dank dungeon. He seemed on a different plane from his small girl cousins, and in a darker place - always under a cloud, in disgrace for some reason or none. He was only a few years older, in reality.
As an adult, when home in his prestigious-location dark-as-a-dungeon basement, he would phone and sometimes visit. When away, he sent postcards from exotic places. His life sounded glamorous, but he looked tired. He needed to put down roots, he said, but whenever he tried he grew restless and took a new job. Travelling again.
I remember, in the early '90s, praying for him with sudden desperation: 'Lord, no one can really get through to James! There's a brick wall around him.' An image arose of the resurrected Jesus, appearing to his disciples inside a locked room. No brick wall could keep him out.
My cousin went silent for a few years. The postcards stopped coming and vague promises of meeting never materialised. Birthday cards, messages and invitations received no response apart from a Christmas card with no inscription - just 'James.'
Finally he replied. He had been on the edge of suicide. Life had begun to seem meaningless. He had been everywhere, done everything, belonged to no one. What was it all for, anyway? Encouraged by friends, he began praying and seeking God. And running. He became super-fit, ran marathons and attempted increasingly difficult goals. He aimed for spiritual fitness with the same intensity, battling temptations and straining to banish negative thinking.
A year ago, he asked God for a more physical sign of his presence and was answered by pennies from heaven. Literally, every time he asked for help he would find a one penny piece - in the road, on pavements, in churches. Once, when desperate, he found two in an almost impossible location. For a man who had pursued money, it was a sign that a God who knew him was laying a trail. He had a destination.
In January, training for a climb up Mount Kilimanjaro, he fell down in a major seizure and was diagnosed with a stage four brain tumour, inoperable and life-threatening. The treatment sounded more gruelling than any marathon.
In the midst of the shock and fear, he felt a weight shift off his shoulders - as if the dark cloud of his earlier life had lifted. He said, 'I've finally let go and let God take control, and it's a pretty wonderful experience.' He started packing up his basement dungeon, to move to a lighter place where he could feel at home, in between hospital treatments.
In March I went with him to the church where he prays every day, a dark old cavernous building with the only light coming in from above. He's praying for a miracle: he'd like ten years' more life. So I'm praying for that for him. But I can't help thinking the real miracle has already taken place.
Jesus said there's great rejoicing in the Kingdom of Heaven over one lost 'man of the world' who finds his way to the Light.
That's some noisy Kingdom party going on now for James.
