Shine

It's a moment before I see him. He's waving a large coffee cup above his head, on the other side of the junction. Oversize mirrored sunglasses, tattered backpack, one thumb hooked into his jeans. Clearly a Californian.

Hey scruffy, I call out over the traffic.

You're ridiculous, he calls back.

We find an empty cafe serving full Irish breakfasts. He's leaving in a week, to return home. What's home? I asked before. Where I have to set up a Church, he replied.

When the bacon and eggs arrive, he pulls a book out of a satchel, a little battered around the edges. From travelling with me around Italy, he says, shrugs.

It's by CS Lewis. I turn it over in my hands, open it, read the inscription. I look back at him, blinking into the low morning sun. I decide I like it better for being a little battered.

Mere Christianity? I ask.

You're too proud, he told me before. Don't be too proud to leave the door open. I close the book carefully, put my hand on it where it lies on the table. The cover is warm under my palm.

Thank you, I say. And I mean it.

He smiles, leans back in his chair with lazy grace. He has to go in a little while, to work. Work is one day a week in a Christian bookshop. He says mostly he talks to the people who come in. They come looking for something, so he talks to them, to find out what it is. Sometimes he can help them.

It's the best job in the world, he says.

We talked before, about his church, about his faith. It's love, he said. It's love. And I see it, when he goes out into the world, when he walks across a road or holds a cup of coffee, that he burns a little with it. And when you see it, it has a strange effect. You love a little better yourself. A little more freely. A little more openly.

I wonder, looking at my friend, where he found this courage from. Because he's not sure, so it takes courage. You have to be brave to love. Who gives him permission to be so brave?

We part, and I take the book with me. It's an outrageously wonderful day outside, high blue skies and warm breezes. The sunshine brings people outside. They sit on the kerbs, drinks on the pavestones beside them, reclaiming the streets. There's a woman in a sunflower-yellow top, with lemon slices dangling from her ears. A four-year old charging the flocks of pigeons. They swing their arms, and gather at corners. The first sight of the sun and they open up.

And as I stand at the junction, watching them, I remember a quote that we used to have pinned up on our kitchen wall. I think maybe I understand now what it said.

That as we let our own light shine, we give others the permission to do the same.