“It sounds terrible,” I commiserated.
“It was,” Samuel laughed without much humor and shook his head. “Before I’d been sent out on this little scouting trip, I’d been reading the parable about the prodigal son. It’d made me a little bit mad. I felt angry for the son who stuck around and was faithful and then got pushed aside by his dad. I thought I understood what Jesus was trying to teach with that parable. I thought it was all about that Jesus loves the sinner not the sin, and that he will forgive us if we will just return to him and allow him to heal us. And I knew all that was true, but I just kept thinking about how it wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, and the ‘good son’ didn’t deserve to be taken for granted. I was even thinking that Jesus’ parable wasn’t the best example of welcoming the sinner back into the fold – that he could have used a better story to illustrate his point.
“So here I am, tired, ticked-off, and I’ve got this story of the prodigal son running through my mind. Just about this time, I see what looks to be the target approaching this entrance with two other men. I get excited because I’m thinking – finally someone’s going to get what they deserve. Can you imagine it? I’m critiquing the master teacher in my head, and I’m getting ready to blow another guy’s head to kingdom come. I’m all excited, I’ve got the orders to shoot to kill, and suddenly my partner says - “It isn’t him.”
“It’s him! I’m saying. It’s him! It’s a go! I’m insisting that I shoot even as I’m realizing it isn’t our guy, but I don’t stand down.” Samuel’s voice and body were tense as he retold the story, and he shook his head adamantly, transported back to the craggy overlook in a country far away.
“I’m actually getting ready to pull the trigger and suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice speaks to me, as clearly as if my buddy were talking directly into my ear.”
Samuel paused, and all at once his face was drenched in emotion. “But it wasn’t my partner. He’s still whispering frantically – insisting it isn’t our guy. The voice I heard wasn’t audible to anyone but me. The voice said ‘How much owest thou unto my Lord?’”
The silence in the cab was thick with something akin to anguish – and although I didn’t quite understand what the question implied, I knew Samuel had understood, and waited for him to master his emotions enough to share his insight. He breathed deeply a few times and continued hoarsely, his voice cracking a little.
“The story of the prodigal son isn’t just about the sins of the son that left and came back. It’s about the sins of the faithful son as well.” Samuel looked at me, and I stared back waiting for him to continue.
“That day, in a rocky corner of Afghanistan, I was so wrapped up in everyone getting what they deserved, that I almost killed a guy that I knew was not a target. He could have been looking for his lost goat for all I know. The thing is, what do any of us really deserve, Josie? What are we entitled to? The words that I heard that day were words from the very next parable Jesus teaches in the book of Luke about the unjust steward. I’d read it right after I’d read the parable of the prodigal son – but I’d been so wrapped up in what I had perceived as injustice in the one parable, that I hadn’t really read the words in the next. ‘How much owest thou unto my Lord?’ How much? How much do I owe? The truth is I can’t ever pay my debt. Ever. We ALL owe everything to God. There is no level of debtedness. I am no less in debt than that man who almost lost his life at my hand. The more faithful son is no less in debt that his prodigal brother. We all owe Jesus Christ everything. Yet at the end of the parable the father says lovingly to his angry son, ‘Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.’ Now that is love. Two sons that were undeserving, both of them loved and embraced. That day, with a gentle reminder, a merciful father showed me how undeserving I was – and saved me in spite of it. That’s the day I really started to understand.”
I unhooked my seatbelt and slid over next to Samuel on the wide bench seat. I laid my head on his shoulder and wrapped his right hand in both of mine. We sat with tears in our eyes, hands clasped, beyond words for many miles.
We arrived in Dilcon just before sundown. It looked a lot like any other small town. The landscape was a little different, and its signs boasted Navajo rugs and jewelry – but it didn’t seem that different from Levan, truth be told. We wound through the town and out again, traveling down roads without signs or markings, occasionally passing a herd of sheep or an occasional double wide trailer. I counted a few abandoned pick-up trucks. I saw a hogan standing forlornly in the middle of nothing and pointed it out to Samuel.
“When the owner of a hogan dies it is not lived in anymore. Do you remember chidi? How the bad spirit remains? Whether you believe in chidi or not, respect for tradition just dictates that the hogan be left uninhabited to return to Mother Earth. You’ll see abandoned hogans here and there. Fewer and fewer Navajo live in hogans these days. It’s just more comfortable to have running water and electricity and temperature controls. We’ve got some hold-outs, though. Grandma Yazzie is definitely one of them.”
I didn’t know how Samuel found his way, turning down this road and up another until finally he bounced his way over uneven earth to a lonely hogan with an old pick-up truck that looked like Old Brown’s older brother parked out front. A huge corral made of juniper logs was knit together in seemingly haphazard fashion to the north of the hogan. At least a hundred sheep were confined within the enclosure. The hogan faced east. The door was open, and the deepening shadows of the setting sun created shade in the front where a little old woman sat combing what looked to be wool around a large wooden spool. She didn’t move or rise as we slowed to a stop, and the truck heaved a grateful sigh of arrival as Samuel turned the key. We stepped stiffly out our respective doors, and I held back as Samuel strode forward and picked the little woman up off her stool holding her tightly in his arms. Her wool and spools fell unheeded to her feet as she clasped him to her, her small hands running up his arms and strong back, patting his cheeks and muttering something I could not understand.