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Published: 2008
Category: Spirituality
I don't read or review books by Christian publishers, for the same reason I don't read political books published by companies that have a declared political agenda --- I know how they end. That is, the heathen finds Christ as surely as the right wing zealot discovers the superior wisdom of progressive liberalism.
Make no mistake: I'm happy that anyone anywhere sees any kind of light and is “saved”.
I just like surprises on every page.
And yet I devoured Same Kind of Different As Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together, which bears the imprint of Thomas Nelson, a Nashville-based publisher of Christian-themed books.
How could I not devour this book? On the level I read it, it's quite the love story.
The unlikely recipient of this love is Denver Moore, an aging African-American from Red Parish, Louisiana, where he worked on a plantation without salary until he was thirty. Homelessness followed, and then, unremarkably, ten years in Angola Prison for armed robbery. No surprise that was followed by more homelessness, this time in Texas.
Moore hung around the Union Gospel Mission in Ft. Worth, which was where he met Deborah Hall, a wealthy woman who loved to help others. And why was she interested in this particular guy? She'd had a dream --- that Ecclesiastes 9:15 had come true, and a poor man had saved the city. She and her husband Ron, an international art dealer, had volunteered to serve dinner at the mission; during their first night in the kitchen, Denver Moore had flipped out and threatened to kill anyone who got in his way. This, she sensed, was the man in her dream.
Ron, rich and elegant, was not on board with this program: “I was always one that was more interested in writing checks than getting my hands dirty. I really didn't care. I was more interested in spending time at our ranch than I was volunteering to feed a bunch of homeless people.” But he'd had an affair, and his wife had forgiven him, and he'd decided “for the rest of our lives together, as a married couple, I would do basically anything that she asked me to do.” So he served dinner. Serving God wasn't part of Ron's deal.
As for Denver, he didn't have a friend. And he didn't want one. He thought he knew what a real friend was, and he didn't feel he deserved one. Nor did he want that much obligation --- in the shelter, he was already busy looking out for the weak.
But Deborah, Ron and Denver do became friends. And then they become family. And then...but there are surprises here, lots of them, and I don't want to play the spoiler.
The end? Of course you can read it as a predictable testament of faith. Here's Denver:
I used to spend a lot of time worryin' that I was different from other people, even from other homeless folks. Then, after I met Miss Debbie and Mr. Ron, I worried that I was so different from them that we wadn't ever gon' have no kind a' future. But I found that everybody's different - the same kind of different as me. We're all just regular folks walkin' down the same road God done set in front of us. The truth about it is, whether we is rich or poor or somethin' in between, this earth ain't no final restin' place. So, in a way, we is all homeless --- just working our way toward home.
I'm no Christian, but on the human level, I can't fault this --- or the way Ron and Denver tell their surprising, humbling story.
To buy “Same Kind of Different As Me” from Amazon.com, click here.
To see Denver Moore's art, click here.