50 Stories for 50 Years | Post 27
When I was a midshipman at the Naval Academy, I came to know our floor janitor. Everyone called him Boston. That was all I knew of him, that one name.
Casual greetings turned into real conversations over time. We were responsible for our own rooms, waxed floors, and properly stowed items. Boston kept the hallways and restrooms shipshape. He could have been invisible, the way janitorial and cafeteria staff often are at schools like ours. But Boston was a character, and a friendly one. He knew the passageways the way plebes knew their rates. Everything, always.
It was a friendship built in the margins of the schedule. Brief exchanges. Genuine attention. The kind of man who noticed who you were before you knew yourself. He was a kind soul in halls that could be antagonistic.
One day, Boston invited me to his church. It was a Spirit-filled Pentecostal service, alive with music, energy, and deep devotion. I was the only person of my race in the room. I felt conspicuous and unsure of myself.
In the middle of the service, they invited me to the pulpit. I started speaking in a timid voice, aware of my surroundings and my own uncertainty. But the congregation answered back. Amen. Hallelujah. Their encouragement carried me forward. What began halting grew steadier. It felt like being lifted and borne along by the same Spirit that animated the room, like standing in a rushing wind, powerful and communal.
When I returned to the regular rhythm of the hall, it felt dull by comparison. Saying yes to Boston’s invitation gave me a deeper, shared experience of faith.
Looking back over the years, I would love to feel that same visible fervor again. But instead of a rushing wind, I have come to recognize the Spirit more often as a gentle breath. The still, small voice that spoke to Elijah in 1 Kings 19.
I felt that daily breath recently, visiting a couple who mentored me in my earliest days in the Navy. They are in their late eighties now. They move more slowly. They repeat their stories. They measure time differently. It was the Spirit who prompted the visit. The Spirit gave me gratitude as we remembered the shared chapters of our lives. The Spirit gave me patience when repetition lengthened the afternoon. The Spirit gave me the grace simply to listen.
I have come to know the Spirit’s love as a daily breath. Steady. Sustaining. Quiet. My challenge is to exhale my own self-centered thoughts, so I can inhale more fully the love the Spirit so generously gives.
P.S. I wrote this piece originally for a class on spiritual formation. Afterward, I went looking for Boston, curious what had become of him. I found an obituary for a man who looked like the spitting image of what I remembered. The biography does not match exactly, so I suspect this was a relative. But the obituary described a Rev. Boston who served in the military, built two companies, including one in janitorial services, called Boston Janitorial Supplies, and came from a family of fifteen children raised in Anne Arundel County. Close enough to make me wonder. Close enough to make me grateful all over again.