Thirteen years ago I met Badger on the steps of Westminster Cathedral. He was lying in a sleeping bag on a mattress of flattened cardboard boxes.
My day was not how I had imagined. Four days of meetings with theologians in Canterbury and my heart was set on meandering slowly through the streets of London before flying back to Belfast. Instead I woke up with an ear infection, a high temperature and an overwhelming longing to stay in bed.
Finding a place to lie down and warm up was the only thing I could think of and I had a notion that I might be able to curl up on a bench in the Cathedral for a while.
My day was not how I had imagined. Four days of meetings with theologians in Canterbury and my heart was set on meandering slowly through the streets of London before flying back to Belfast. Instead I woke up with an ear infection, a high temperature and an overwhelming longing to stay in bed.
Finding a place to lie down and warm up was the only thing I could think of and I had a notion that I might be able to curl up on a bench in the Cathedral for a while.
On any other day I might not even have seen Badger lying there. At best I would have glanced in his direction, thrown some loose change into the bowl beside him and kept right on going.
That day I stopped and gazed, almost longingly, at his sleeping bag!
What he F**k are you staring at? he asked, sitting up.
"I've a bad pain in my ear" I told him "and I'm looking at your sleeping bag because I'd give anything to lie down and sleep for a while" I'm going to find a bench in the church"
"You can sit down here if you want" he said, budging over to let me sit on a patch of his cardboard. "My name is Paul. My friends call me ‘Badger’.
"O.K. Badger, I replied as I sat down beside him, I'm Maria and I'm pleased to meet you"...
That's, more or less, how the conversation started. Badger found a home in my heart that day and the story he told has been at work in me ever since.
By the age of 16 Badger was already an addict, homeless, drinking and using whatever he could get his hands on to help him survive.
Somewhere along the way he met a girl. They were good together. They had a baby and they named him Paul after his father. Badger called him P.J. "The 'J' is for Junior" he told me. They had to get clean so that they could keep him.
His girl did O.K. on a methadone programme but Badger couldn’t do it. Not long after the baby was born he found himself back on the streets. "That was 9 years ago", he said and he hadn’t seen his son since. He thought about him often and wondered what he was like now.
I hadn’t expected him to have a child. It was easy for me to see Badger as ‘some mother’s son’ but I wasn't prepared for him to be ‘some son’s father’.
“Badger, I asked, "if by some miracle, you could see P.J. again, what's the one thing you'd want to say to him"?
“If I saw Paul Junior, he answered, I'd tell him that "there must be a God”. I'd want him to know that.
Somewhere along the way he met a girl. They were good together. They had a baby and they named him Paul after his father. Badger called him P.J. "The 'J' is for Junior" he told me. They had to get clean so that they could keep him.
His girl did O.K. on a methadone programme but Badger couldn’t do it. Not long after the baby was born he found himself back on the streets. "That was 9 years ago", he said and he hadn’t seen his son since. He thought about him often and wondered what he was like now.
I hadn’t expected him to have a child. It was easy for me to see Badger as ‘some mother’s son’ but I wasn't prepared for him to be ‘some son’s father’.
“Badger, I asked, "if by some miracle, you could see P.J. again, what's the one thing you'd want to say to him"?
“If I saw Paul Junior, he answered, I'd tell him that "there must be a God”. I'd want him to know that.
“After my girl threw me out” he said, “I moved from hostel to hostel. Things were just getting worse and worse. One day I was so out of it I wandered into the road and a lorry knocked me down. The next thing I remember was waking up in hospital. I was dreaming that I saw 666 flashing in front of me. I told a nurse. She laughed and said that 666 was the sign of the devil and that maybe he had come to get me. I laughed too but inside in the middle of me I thought that she might be right. I sometimes felt there must be something bad in me.
After I went back on the streets I completely lost it. I kept thinking of the 666 and I stopped caring about anything except trying to get rid of the bad in me. Sometimes I hit my head so hard against the wall I knocked myself out. Sometimes I hit out at others so that they would punch me back. I was out of control and I was barred from every hostel and shelter in the city.
After I went back on the streets I completely lost it. I kept thinking of the 666 and I stopped caring about anything except trying to get rid of the bad in me. Sometimes I hit my head so hard against the wall I knocked myself out. Sometimes I hit out at others so that they would punch me back. I was out of control and I was barred from every hostel and shelter in the city.
NO ONE WANTED TO KNOW ME AND I WANTED NO ONE
After that I felt like there was nowhere for me to go, no one to talk to and I was even afraid to finish myself off because I thought that I'd end up in Hell. Then one day I decided to go the holiest place in England to see if God could save me. I hitched down from 'up North'. Hardly anyone picked me up so I walked most of the way.
I got here in the end and I dropped to my knees right over there in the square. Looking straight at this church and I said - God, if you are there you have to help me please.
I got here in the end and I dropped to my knees right over there in the square. Looking straight at this church and I said - God, if you are there you have to help me please.
GOD, IF YOU ARE THERE, YOU HAVE TO HELP ME PLEASE
"That was a few months ago now", he said. "After that day things started to get better. At first I stopped drinking in the mornings. Everyday I have my first drink a little bit later and now I don’t start until the afternoon. I still do drugs but I've stopped shooting up. I know that some day I’ll get off the drink and the drugs altogether. It might take a long time but I know I will. I don’t see the 666 any more because I have God looking out for me now. I come here everyday and I also have a bed in the shelter around the corner whenever I need it. I have friends in the streets who look out for me too.
So you see there has to be a God. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. Maybe one day I will see my son again and maybe I won’t. But, Maria, if you ever meet him you tell him from me that “Badger said there must be a God”.
So you see there has to be a God. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. Maybe one day I will see my son again and maybe I won’t. But, Maria, if you ever meet him you tell him from me that “Badger said there must be a God”.
BADGER SAID THERE MUST BE A GOD
Badger and I haven't met since then though I think about him often and wonder if he's still there, an unlikely prophet, on the steps of the 'holiest place in England"
Utterly lost, he went in search of hope. Fom the depths of despair he called out to a God he didn’t fully believe in. Then he waited and watched for the smallest sign that God had heard him. He saw and believed.
In the moments when I find myself impatient and unbelieving Badger often comes to mind, budging over on his cardboard bed to make room for me again; reminding me over and over to look for the miracles hidden in the small moments and to trust in the slow work of Love.
As for Paul Junior. I have no idea if our paths will ever cross. I'd love to think that he and his father were somehow reunited. Meanwhile, I'll keep telling Badger's story and trusting that one day P.J. will know that 'there must be a God' just because his father told him so!
Utterly lost, he went in search of hope. Fom the depths of despair he called out to a God he didn’t fully believe in. Then he waited and watched for the smallest sign that God had heard him. He saw and believed.
In the moments when I find myself impatient and unbelieving Badger often comes to mind, budging over on his cardboard bed to make room for me again; reminding me over and over to look for the miracles hidden in the small moments and to trust in the slow work of Love.
As for Paul Junior. I have no idea if our paths will ever cross. I'd love to think that he and his father were somehow reunited. Meanwhile, I'll keep telling Badger's story and trusting that one day P.J. will know that 'there must be a God' just because his father told him so!