Open Air: Hard Hearted Alice

Or, A Long, Long Way To Paradise

I look along the shop fronts, from left to right and back again. It’s just beginning to get busier, on this overcast afternoon in early September. Peter and Janette are not yet in their usual places. There are a few motionless figures who might or might not be listening to Stephen. A rough sleeper is slumped against the wall between the Halifax and Zambrero. I notice that the graffiti which began on the backstreets has moved along the side streets over the last few months, and now a spray-painted VAL AL adorns the white pillar between Zambrero and Superdrug.

I look over my left shoulder. Stephen is in his shorts, but is hedging his bets by wearing a heavyweight hoodie as well. I’m a bit chilly in shirtsleeves, since the forecast was for fair weather. As Stephen touches on faith, forgiveness, and reconciliation, a couple of long-haired ladies try to take a shortcut behind him, knocking the GoPro to one side. As I review the video, days later, I now see another rough sleeper standing on Stephen’s left, his sleeping bag wrapped around him like a cape. He’s there for quite a while. I hope that his heart is not too hardened to be able to take in what’s being said.

When I notice that the camera is askew*, I go over and set it right, giving the GoPro a good view of my Miskatonic U. insignia. Springes to catch woodcocks - well, it’s possible, considering the characters you so often meet in Manchester City centre. Shortly thereafter, Peter arrives. I’m pleased to see him, but now it’s my turn to preach.

[* Strange but true - when you Google “askew”, the page tilts slightly to the right. Mildly amusing, I suppose.]

Lots of trams running today, lots of plunk-plunketty-plunk-plunk from our usual accompanist behind the Atmosphere Monitoring building, and various other extraneous noises; so, I try to speak as clearly as I can, to be heard above the din. A young man in black encourages me as he passes by, despite me saying as an introduction, “I’ve decided to cheer you all up by talking about hell for the next twenty minutes!”

But here comes one of the aforementioned “characters” - and he really doesn’t want me to go on. He comes up behind me, shouting “Oh, whoah!” and pushing my shoulder.

As I begin to admonish him, he shouts “Can ah jus’ say wun thin’?” and he seizes the mic, pulling it off my head. What makes this all the more curious is his appearance: he’s wearing a heavy black hoodie over an Indian kurta in a fetching shade of violet - and every visible inch of his skin is dyed to match. Dearie me! He’s taller and younger and much more vigorous than I am, so one would suppose that the mic is lost and gone!

But, no. All of a sudden he lets go of it with a muffled oath, as though it were a live wire or a red-hot coal, backing off as if in pain. Most odd, and quite possibly one of those strange phenomena that only Arthur C. Clarke could have explained - but he’s dead and gone now, so he can’t help us. Anyway, the Violet One comes back after a moment or two, and tries to save face somewhat by doing a silly little dance, wiggling his hips like some street urchin trying to annoy an enemy, but from a safe distance this time. And then, with an oath or two, he’s away.

Stephen has been standing by, just in case, but now he can return to tracting, and I can get on with cheering people up. Appropriately, I’ve just got to “Sin has consequences, in this life and in the next.” Therefore, “Seek the LORD while He may be found…”

There is a young man on my left, leaning on a bollard. He’s been there a while, listening, but now a friend comes to collect him. A breeze begins to blow and a careless fellow, laden with takeaways from the street food stalls, stumbles into our camera, tilting it as before; Stephen sees it, and steps over to straighten it again.

It’s time to change places, and we remark upon the oddity of the Violet One - perhaps an ancient Briton, a Pict or “painted one”, slipping through the interstices of the fan-shaped future? Who can say? Stephen launches into his “Acceptance and Inclusion” sermon, and here comes an unkempt harridan, fresh from talking to the rough sleeper by the shop fronts. Hands in the pockets of her light grey jog pants, she swears as she passes by. My mild rebuke has the unexpected effect of attracting the attention of an agreeable young woman, who comes over to ask for a tract, which she reads as she walks away. Good!

There are a few listeners over by the shops and planters. I find myself saying some of Stephen’s texts along with him, sotto voce, trying to memorise them. And here comes Janette, in a green outfit topped off (optimistically) with a white sun hat. I give her a couple of bundles of tracts, and she takes up her usual position. A little black boy astride a tiny bicycle stares wide-eyed at Stephen, so that his mother has to come back and claim him as the family moves along. There are a couple of street photographers about today, trying so hard to look unobtrusive that they stick out like sore thumbs. They’re both past middle age, perhaps senior citizens on a course at a local college.

Our busker has been quiet for a while, but he begins again as I take Stephen’s place, commenting on the phrase that we often hear from those passing by: “Don’t worry about me, because…” A bearded bloke in a grey top and black pants raises his hands in the air, one holding a can of lager. “Don’ worry ’bout me, ’cause I’m an alcoholic!” “Well, I wasn’t worrying about you personally, but I will if you come and tell us all about it! We will then worry on your behalf!”

He declines my offer, but it’s an opportunity to say that we are indeed here because we do care about folk and their struggles with sin. Then it’s on to being born sinners, rather than the idea that we’re simply bent out of shape by our environment - but you can take it from there, I’m sure.

The crowds have thinned out now, the wind is colder, and few folk are listening. Yet another careless fellow bumps into our camera, but Stephen, eagle-eyed, spots it and straightens it right away. A woman in a white, cable-stitched cardigan stops by a bollard, and a dark gent leans on the big lamppost across the way. They seem to appreciate my heart surgery illustration, and then the woman in white crosses to Stephen to ask for a bible. V. good!

And then I see Stephen is looking at his watch, and then at me, so I hurry on to the end, regretting that the four milkshake-slurping youths who pause to listen decide to depart as soon as I intone “because the bible says…” Oh well, never mind - and I finish with three of my favourite bible verses and a blessing.

And then it’s all over bar the packing up, praying, and a visit to the Arndale for refreshments. On the drive home, I meditate upon Mr Cooper’s ode to hard hearts, their causes and their effects: “Hard Hearted Alice”. As Norman Green so often used to say, “There’s a truth in there.” We have encountered many of them today. Please join us, if our Lord puts it upon your heart to do so, in praying that some of them may be softened by His Holy Spirit, as they consider the gospel presented in our preaching, and in all of the literature that went out, on that chilly and challenging Wednesday afternoon last week.

Every blessing!