All you need is love! Long before the Beatles made their hit song there was the greatest of all commandments – the commandment to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself. All you need is love – this is how Jesus summed up all the commandments – this is what Paul affirms as he writes to the Romans. Just as God loves us we are to love one another.Sounds pretty straightforward but the truth of the matter is – love is hard to do. Love asks us to be vulnerable, trusting enough to risk exposing our inner self. Love asks us to forgive – to look beyond our wounds and hurts. Love asks us to be hospitable – accepting even when we disagree. If love is to be the essence of the church community then we had better have ways of handling disputes and disagreement when they arise. In other words – we need to learn how to practice love.

No problem – right? Churches are supposed to be places that perfectly model love and deal with conflict so that we can learn and 

In the front courtyard of the Hopital St. Croix in Leogane, Haiti, there is a small patch of grass with three coconut palms towering over it. On the grass sits a chair.

On first arriving in Haiti, I glanced at this chair in disgust. It is a tall and ugly chair, crudely constructed of what appears to be scrap wood and painted in the unflattering turquoise of the main hospital building. In general, this chair appears to be completely unsafe and is unpleasant to look at.

Knowing that David and Jeanne Paige were familiar with the compound from their previous visits to Leogane, I mentioned this chair to them. They told me that this throne had formerly been located across the street and had been moved into the courtyard when its proprietor had landed a security position within the hospital clinic.

On my next visit to the courtyard, I found this chair occupied by a very tall and very thin man who introduced himself as Woody. With a sweeping gesture over the grass under the coconut palms, he welcomed me to his “plage” or beach. I chuckled in my head at this idea, Woody in his lifeguard chair keeping watch over his plage in the middle of what amounts to the hospital parking lot.

Over the rest of my time in Leogane I formed an unlikely friendship with Woody on his beach. Through a combination of bits of Creole, French and English, translator apps and photos on my smartphone I got to know a little about Woody’s life; and he got to know a little about mine. We talked about our families, and we chased stray chickens. The other team members would await updates on Woody, and I would find myself checking out the window to see if he was out sitting in his chair. 

Preparing to depart for the airport, we gathered in the courtyard in front of the plage. There sat the empty chair. I took one last long look at it and smiled. It is a beautiful chair, carefully constructed by hand and fully functional. It is an interesting chair with an interesting story and an even more interesting occupant. Woody and his chair remain one of my fondest recollections of my time in Leogane.