I’ll tell you about fallen Starr.
We met while I was resting on the shady steps in front of a vacant office complex. I hadn’t seen him before, but he’d seen me.
“Hey preacher,” he said quietly.
Without knowing him, I knew he was having a slightly better day than usual. He was walking like a man who got beat down a few days ago, but at least he was walking again.
Because that’s what happened. Starr didn’t like to fight – he told me to trust him on that – but you know.
We sat together and talked for about an hour that afternoon. Starr had been homeless for only a few months. Because of heavy drinking, his wife of 30 years left him. Lost the house, then moved in with his wealthy dad. Then dad got fed up with him and he landed on the streets.
“I can totally understand that, too,” Starr said. “I’m a total drunk. I know that. But I also know I can quit.”
“Amen,” I said.
Starr was a football star in high school. He had already lined up a number of scholarships with scouts his junior year, but then he got injured. It was a torn ACL, which is often the end of a football career, not the beginning. But Starr set his mind to recovery and winning. He did recover over the summer break, and by his senior year he was back on the team and again making big plays, still getting the interviews with the local tv guy, still going pro.
Starr was his last name, but he went by his first name.
“I’m calling you Starr,” I said.
“That’s what my coach called me,” Starr said.
“Yeah. I’m calling you Starr.”
“You know what?” Starr lit up with excitement.
“What.”
“I was once Jesus for a whole day.”
We stared into each others’ eyes. He was dead serious. His bloodshot eyes were almost popping out of his head.
“I kid you not.” He held up his right hand while shaking his head no.
“Tell me more.”
“All day, bro, I didn’t sin once. I didn’t look at girls, I didn’t drink. I didn’t even want a drink, bro. And you know what? I knew. I knew what it was like to be Jesus, bro. All. Day. Long.”
I preach on a few themes to the homeless:
The blessings and power in your weakness before God. Get over yourself and walk with Jesus. One Step Recovery When men talk to me about holiness, I know they’ve been hearing me. I praised God in my heart when Starr told me, in words that first appeared to be bonkers, how he successfully practiced holiness for an extended (for him) period of time.
“What went wrong, though?” I asked.
“You know, the usual. I actually decided to celebrate my success. Drank too much.”
Starr had legal troubles. He was cold one night so he busted into an old shuttle bus and went to sleep. Cameras alerted the owner, then the cops alerted Starr by dragging him out with no clothes on.
Look, I have no idea why a homeless man would sleep naked. A woman also complained when she saw him changing his underwear in a storefront. As far as I know, he’s not a perv, but that’s two nudie events in a matter of days. Just saying.
“Dude! I almost forgot to tell you!”
Starr jumped up, lit a cigarette, exhaled.
“Guess who I just had dinner with.”
“Tell me.”
“Josh *** Brolin.”
He drew from his cigarette, holding up the wait finger. Then he exhaled and said,
“Josh *** Brolin. He’s my absolute hero of all time, bro. Ever since The Goonies.”
Here are some things you should know:
Starr looks exactly like Josh Brolin, and has since The Goonies, and everyone knows it. Only Starr is taller than Brolin now.
“Josh Brolin is short, bro. I didn’t realize that.”
Also, the city is Santa Barbara. Not only can you see celebrities on the regular, but Brolin lives in Montecito.
What happened was a reverse stalk.
Brolin was in a restaurant and saw Starr walk by outside, then chased him down. They met, Brolin bought him dinner, they hugged.
Brolin’s been sober since 2013, and I’m certain he appreciates the blessing in meeting his twin, fallen Starr, to remind him of where he’d been.
Now recognizing Starr, I saw him every day. Sometimes he sat with me in the dining hall at the homeless mission. I prayed with him most mornings and evenings.
After dinner one night, I heard Starr tell a couple other guys, “What we need around here are some good fights.”
Homelessness is a messy mission field.
Starr did get a football scholarship, but nothing really worked out for football. He got a back injury, probably drank too much…
But the guy still dwells on his football stardom, doesn’t he. Starr also dwells on his past ability to recover from injury all on his own. He’s proved that he needs help now, but he’s not loving the help offered in Jesus. We choose what we love. That’s a simple fact that an astonishingly huge proportion of people don’t appreciate.
After Starr spent that whole day being Jesus – you better believe his description of obedience means he was being Jesus, who was and will be again God’s word in the flesh – he decided to reward himself with way too many brewskies.
This self-rewarding business is evil.
One morning before breakfast at the mission, I saw Starr limping. Hadn’t seen him in weeks.
“Got into a fight.”
They had fought in the courtyard we were standing in. There’s only one place to sit, and that’s on a bench around an olive tree. It has razor-sharp corners, turns out.
“I could see all the bones in my knee, bro. Blood everywhere, gushing.”
We prayed together. He assured me that he had this. He might even get his wife back, who knows, he said.
I haven’t seen Starr after that day.
Homelessness is a messy mission field.