Two days later, he finally left the house, and Marlene grabbed her son and ran-with only the clothes they were wearing. At the police station, an officer called Henry, who spoke to Marlene over the phone. He sounded so concerned and soothing that she asked the police to take her to his church, even though she’d never met him. Henry gave Marlene and her son a hot meal and a place to sleep-and she’d been coming to his ministry ever since.

I thought about how churches and synagogues usually build memberships. Some run schools. Some host social events. Some offer singles nights, lecture series, carnivals, and sign-up drives. Annual dues are part of the equation.

At I Am My Brother’s Keeper, there were no dues, no drives, no singles nights. Membership grew the old-fashioned way: a desperate need for God.

Still, none of this helped Henry with his heating problems or his bills. His Sunday services continued inside a plastic tent. The homeless nights were still noisy with hot air blowers, and the men kept their coats on when they lay down to sleep. Early winter continued its attack, and the snow piled up on the church’s front steps.

Although I tended to stay away from religious themes in my newspaper writing, I felt a need to expose these conditions to the readership of the Detroit Free Press. I did interviews with a few of the homeless, including a man who was once an excellent baseball player, but who’d lost all ten toes to frostbite after spending the night in an abandoned car.

I filed the stories, but something still nagged at me.

And so one night, just before Christmas, I went to Henry’s house. It was down the block from the church. He had mortgaged it for thirty thousand dollars, back when he arrived in Detroit sixteen years ago. It might not be worth that today.

The brick facade was old, a front gate was loose, and the empty lot where he’d once served food to the neighborhood was matted with snow, ice, and mud. The shed where they stored the food was still there, with netting to protect it from birds.

Henry sat on a small couch in his front room-where Cass once spent a year. He was suffering a head cold and he coughed several times. His place was tidy but poor, the paint was peeling, and the ceiling in the kitchen had partially collapsed. He seemed more pensive than usual. Maybe it was the holiday. His walls held photos of his children, but it was clear they weren’t getting a lot of Christmas presents this year.

In his drug dealing days, if Henry wanted a TV, customers would trade him one for dope. Jewelry? Designer clothes? He didn’t even need to leave his house.

I asked if he ever thought, when he entered the ministry, that one day he might be doing better than he was?

“No,” he said. “I think I was meant to work with the poor.”

Yeah, I joked, but you don’t have to imitate them.

He looked around at the crumbling house. He drew a deep breath.

“I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

How do you mean?

He lowered his eyes.

Then he said something I will never forget.

“Mitch, I am an awful person. The things I have done in my life, they can never be erased. I have broken every one of the Ten Commandments.”

Come on. Every one?

“When I was younger, in some way, yes, every one.”

Stealing? False witness? Coveting?

“Yes.”

Adultery?

“Umm-hmm.”

Murder?

“I never pulled the trigger, but I was involved enough. I could have stopped things before a life was taken. I didn’t. So I was involved in murder.”

He looked away.

“It was a cutthroat business, dog eat dog, the strong preying on the weak. In the lifestyle I was in, people were killed. It happened every day.

“I hate that person I was. I went to prison for a crime I did not do, but I did things out here that I should have gone back for. I was cowardly. I was hard. That may not be who I am now, but it’s who I was.”

He sighed. “It’s who I was.”

His chin dropped to his chest. I heard his nasal breathing, in and out.

“I deserve hell,” he whispered. “The things I’ve done, God would be justified. God is not mocked. What you sow, you reap.

“That’s why I tell my congregation, don’t put me on a pedestal. I sermonize about wanting cherries when you’re planting lemons, but I’ve planted many lemons in my life…”

His eyes were teary now.

“…and I may not have reaped all that harvest.”

I don’t understand, I said. If you think you’re going to be punished-

“Why still serve God?” He smiled weakly. “What else can I do? It’s like when everyone was turning away, and Jesus asked the apostles, ‘Will you go, too?’ And Peter said, ‘Where can I go, Lord?’

“I know what he meant. Where do you go from God? He’s everywhere.”

But, Henry, all the good you do here-

“No.” He shook his head. “You can’t work your way into heaven. Anytime you try and justify yourself with works, you disqualify yourself with works. What I do here, every day, for the rest of my life, is only my way of saying, ‘Lord, regardless of what eternity holds for me, let me give something back to you. I know it don’t even no scorecard. But let me make something of my life before I go…’”

He exhaled a long weary breath.

“‘ And then, Lord, I’m at your mercy.’”

It was late and cold and Henry’s past was all over the room. After a few silent minutes, I stood and zipped my coat. I wished him the best, and went back out into the snow.

I used to think I knew everything. I was a “smart person” who “got things done,” and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion.

But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still feel lost in it. So many people are in pain-no matter how smart or accomplished-they cry, they yearn, they hurt. But instead of looking down on things, they look up, which is where I should have been looking, too. Because when the world quiets to the sound of your own breathing, we all want the same things: comfort, love, and a peaceful heart.

Maybe the first half of his life he did worse than most, and maybe the second half he did better. But that night was the last time I questioned how much Henry Covington’s past should shadow his future. Scripture says, “Judge not.” But God had the right to, and Henry lived with that every day. It was enough.

January arrived and the calendar changed. It was 2008. Before the year was done, there would be a new U.S. President, an economic earthquake, a sinkhole of confidence, and tens of millions unemployed or without homes. Storm clouds were gathering.

Meanwhile, the Reb puttered from room to room in quiet contemplation. Having survived the Great Depression and two world wars, he was no longer thrown by headline events. He kept the outside world at bay by keeping the inside world at hand. He prayed. He chatted with God. He watched the snow out the window. And he cherished the simple rituals of his day: the prayers, the oatmeal with cereal, the grandkids, the car trips with Teela, the phone calls to old congregants.

I was visiting again on a Sunday morning. My parents had made plans to swing by later and take me to lunch before I flew back to Detroit.

Two weeks earlier, on a Saturday night, the temple had held a gathering in the Reb’s honor, commemorating his six decades of service. It was like a coming home party.

“I tell you,” the Reb said, shaking his head as if in disbelief, “there were people who hadn’t seen one another in years. And when I saw them hugging and kissing like such long lost friends-I cried. I cried. To see what we have created together. It is something incredible.”