The WordPress/JetPack writing prompt for today is:
f the salary was the same, what job would you be doing right now and why?

This isn’t my story, but I was a witness to its beginning and end, and I did learn from it.

I grew up in a house without any particular religion or faith. As an example, Christmas was all about family, thoughtful gifts, and a sense of wonder. Jesus didn’t make an appearance in our observance of the holiday. I never understood how religion had a role in a modern society.

This is relevant to the story, I swear, and this isn’t a “How I became a Christian” story. Not at all.

In middle school in Hamilton, a city about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Toronto, we all, boys and girls, were dealing with puberty and all its fun surprises. In Grade 7, one of the girls, who had always been pretty, suddenly developed curves and an impressive chest. She became stunning.

I just want to say, I do remember her name, but I’m not going to use it, calling her “Sara” from here on out.

I guess Sara’s sudden change drew a lot of unwanted attention, especially from adult men. Something bad happened to Sara. I didn’t know what at the time, but as an adult, I can fill in the blanks with educated guesses. Sara had fallen in with a “modeling scout,” and was gone.

Her parents were going nuts trying to find her. We all were asked to keep an eye out for her. It was an odd experience for a 12-year-old boy to go through, seeing his community lurch around trying to rectify a problem, get this girl home.

Sara, meanwhile was going through some traumatic events and ended up living homeless on the streets of Toronto. On Yonge Street, opposite the old Sam the Record Man shop, it wasn’t unusual to see young homeless people hanging around. Someone reported seeing Sara there.

But her parents couldn’t find her, and neither could the police.

Then a teen homeless shelter run by one of the local churches reported her as staying with them.

Another thing that wasn’t uncommon on Yonge Street at that time was youthful preachers handing out tracts, looking to save souls if not bodies. Sara clicked with one of them, enough to trust him to take her to the shelter (which must have been a hell of a lot of trust, or simply tired resignation).

Our class was informed that Sara would be rejoining us, and that we were to be very, very nice to her. When she did rejoin us, she wasn’t the lively fun person she had been. Now, I’d say she was processing PTSD. Back then, it just looked like grief.

Not long after, Sara transferred to another school. Again, we weren’t privy to the reasons for this. So there were rumours: she was pregnant, she was dying, she’d run away again…

For me, the takeaway was that someone had used religion (or, more kindly, their faith) to create a path of trust, to rescue a lost soul. And their church had built the infrastructure to help the most vulnerable people around us.

That was the first time I saw religion as having any value in society, beyond (as I saw it then) being some ancient, decrepit social club that shouldn’t exist anymore.