A Crazy Naked Guy and Transformation

Transform—it’s a word you often hear people use to describe their conversion experience. Phrases like “Jesus transformed my life” or “I went through a transformation” have become a part of the churchgoing lexicon—and it has gotten old.

A transformation, in the truest sense of the word, takes place when a substance or a person completely changes. Encarta’s definition states that the change is “for the better.” Interestingly, whatever (or whomever) is changing still retains the properties of the original substance—water that freezes undergoes a transformation, but the H2O molecules are still the same.

In church, however, we use the word much differently. We use the word to describe an event or an instance but forget about the permanency that the word implies. When one says that he has been “transformed into a Christian,” what is really being said is that he is “changing completely, for the better, into a little Christ.”  Suddenly the statement doesn’t ring as true, does it? To transform into a “little Christ” means that the heart has been dramatically altered into a heart that looks like Jesus’. Personally, I would have a hard time admitting that I my heart has been altered, in its entirety, to look more like the heart of Jesus, which brings me to my story…

A couple of days ago, I was sitting on my couch, watching Scrubs, and pretty excited for The Office to come on. Meanwhile, my dad was working on one of our cars. He had to check the transmission fluid, which is a pretty complicated process. First, you have to get the car on a level surface (so our driveway would not suffice) and then the engine must be warmed up for a bit. So my dad climbed into our car (which was still in the driveway) and turned it on, with every expectation of putting it into reverse and backing it into our cul-de-sac, which is fairly level.

That’s when the weirdness began. As soon as he began shifting, a pair of hands slapped down on the back of the car (and undoubtedly startling my dad).  He turned around in the seat to see what had happened, and a man came around from the back of the car. The man was completely nude. For this reason, and many more reasons that have yet to unfold, I will refer to this man from here on out as CNG, or Crazy Naked Guy.

CNG walked from the back of the car and over to the driver’s side of the car—with my dad still in it. He was pretty average in height but fairly well built (and, as we’d find out later, fairly strong). As he walked up, he held his hands over his ears and appeared to be screaming something. My dad eventually was able to understand what CNG was yelling—“I can’t hear…I can’t hear…Help me I can’t hear!!”

So with Crazy Naked Guy standing in our driveway and yelling about not being able to hear, my dad coasted the car backwards to the end of the driveway (he had work to do on the car, after all) and put the car into park.

“I can’t hear!! I can’t hear!!” yelled CNG.

A little shaken up, my dad yelled at CNG to sit down (who, strangely, complied), and then reached into his pocket for his cell phone. It wasn’t there—he’d left it charging in our kitchen. So he got out of the car, leaving the keys in the ignition with the engine running, and hustled up the driveway and into our house to grab a phone so that he could call 911. And then it hit him—he left the engine running! He grabbed a phone and, while walking back outside and dialing 911, yelled down to my brother, Jerod, and I, “Guys, I need you to come outside!!” and then walked out the door.

He came outside and was presented with a situation that he could have easily predicted. CNG had planted himself in the front seat of the car and was proceeding to drive down the driveway—I suppose I don’t need to remind you that he was naked. And sitting in the driver’s seat of our car. My dad’s first thought was to let him go—it is conventional wisdom that one shouldn’t fight back in this kind of situation. But then pride kicked in. My dad ran down the driveway and caught up to the car, which the guy was still coasting down the driveway, and opened the driver door. With the car still moving, my dad yelled, “GET OUT OF THE CAR!” Again, Crazy Naked Guy complied and got out.

“I can’t hear!! Help, I can’t hear!!” (He had obeyed commands from my dad twice, so we got the impression that his perception of deafness was incorrect.)

Throughout all of the preceding events, Jerod and I had just finished watching Scrubs and The Office was about to start. When my dad yelled at us to come outside, I stayed down for a minute or so. Jerod, ever obedient, went upstairs and outside immediately.

Jerod came outside and was met with this situation: My dad was trying to climb back into the car as it was still rolling backwards. In the midst of this, the 911 dispatch came on the phone and began asking him questions related to the nature of his emergency, so with the phone to his ear he finally was able to get the car to stop in the cul-de-sac. Crazy Naked Guy, as cooperative as ever, was sitting in our driveway, rocking back and forth, and still yelling about not being able to hear.

After taking in the situation, Jerod turned around and went inside.

He met me at the top of the stairs, and with a (gruff) “Austin, get the HECK out here,” we both walked outside. Apparently startled by our presence, CNG got up and ran over to our neighbor’s driveway. Jerod and I both yelled at him to sit down and he did. As he did this, he began yelling, “I’m from the government! The government made someone who can’t hear!” over and over. This prompted the 911 dispatch, still on the line with my dad, to ask, “Is that him? The guy who just yelled ‘I’m from the government and they made someone who can’t hear’?”

Then Jerod asked Crazy Naked Guy if he wanted us to get something for him to cover up with, and I, upon seeing a towel hanging in our garage, quickly chimed in, “Yeah, we can get you a towel or something.”

“Yeah, sure, yeah,” came the response. So Jerod went inside and grabbed a towel. CNG was still sitting on our neighbor’s driveway, screaming, when Jerod returned with the towel. Then came (arguably) the strangest time of the evening. Upon seeing Jerod, Crazy Naked Guy got up and broke into a full sprint up the neighbor’s driveway. We told him to sit down, and for the first time he didn’t listen to us. Perhaps he couldn’t hear us, as he was yelling. Still sprinting, he approached our neighbor’s front door, lowered his shoulder, and slammed into the door, breaking it from the jam. The only logical choice was for the three of us to run up the driveway after him, with my dad picking up the rear and still on the phone with 911.

We yelled our neighbor’s name as we were running up and he appeared at the top of the stairs, inside the house.

“I can’t hear!! I can’t see!!” CNG yelled as he burst into the front living room of the house.  Upon seeing the neighbor’s dog, he approached it and started petting, saying “Ah, the pony understands me. The pony understands.”

At this time, we saw three cops running toward us and directed them inside (we stayed on the driveway throughout the event). They slowly approached Crazy Naked Guy, who was then yelling about how he was going to save the world by playing the piano.  As we watched the cops enter into the house, tasers drawn, we suddenly heard him playing the grand piano that was in the front room. He was actually quite good. The three policemen were still about twenty feet away from him, trying to tell him they were going to help him, and (we couldn’t see the next events) we suddenly heard CNG shrieking loudly. It sounded like there was a small struggle, and then we heard the popping noise of a taser.

Medical response teams arrived and brought the man out onto the porch of the house and sat him on a tarp, waiting for the ambulance to come. When it arrived, they strapped him to a stretcher and wheeled him down the steep driveway and into the A-car. The whole situation lasted about an hour.

After reading a story like this, it’s undoubtedly difficult to wonder how the word transform has anything to do with these bizarre events. But as I have replayed the night countless times in my head, I was reminded of Jesus’ encounter with the naked man who lived in the tombs. The man approached Jesus, and it says in Mark that Jesus had mercy on the man and cast out his demons.  

Jesus loved the man—despite the things he was doing. Despite the demons that had caused this man to live (naked) in a cemetery, yelling unintelligible things—Jesus loved him and had mercy on him.

Instead of demons, the man we encountered had hallucinogenic drugs running through his system. There seems to be little difference between the two. But when he showed up in our driveway, mercy and love were the last things on my mind. I was a little amused, a little scared and very weirded out. But I felt no love. I felt no mercy. To be honest, I can’t imagine many Christians who would have felt those things. I think most people would have responded with a mixture of fear and contempt like we did. But I couldn’t help but think about how, if I am truly transformed, if I am a “little Christ,” then I would have felt mercy on him. I would have felt love. My actions might have been exactly the same as ours were—calling 911, getting him a towel—but instead of feeling contempt, I would feel love.

Transformation—it’s a strong word with a deep implication. That I am to be completely changed into someone who feels how God feels; I am to love as God loves. Can I really say that I love others, even the “least of these,” the way God does?

Can you?