The Faceless Man

The Faceless Man’s Story

I was driving West on Colfax right before Simms Street, and I looked to my right.

Sitting at the bus stop, a man had what could have been all of his belongings with him.

That’s a common enough sight to see on Colfax in Lakewood so that didn’t really bother me. By then, I was used to seeing the homeless.

I was homeless myself, but I had a job and a car to live in. So, it was a different kind of homeless. Some call it urban van life.

Sometimes I left the city though.

Anyway, the presumably homeless man turned his head and I saw something else.

In that flash of a moment, I saw that the man did not have a face.

No eyes.

No mouth.

No nose.

I just kept driving and shoved it under, thinking I was seeing things. Or not seeing things.

But as I drove past and onward, I had to admit to myself what I had seen, nothing.

But I didn’t know what it was or what it meant.

For now and forever, the faceless man is a memory I can’t shake.

He haunted me and inspired me to words, and his existence motivated me to action.

For the faceless man…

THE FACELESS MAN, by Alan Soltys

There is so much behind his eyes, but he has none.

He seeks no shade nor averts his gaze from the sun.

His hunger pains are great to the point of ceaseless rage.

But his mouth is gone away and so he accepts his fate.

He can’t see the flowers or know their smell.

What hell, what hell, what absolute hell.

His journey through life is uncommonly unphased.

Circumstance stalks him, and like chalk, he’s erased.

Can something be done?

Is there hope for this son whose mother and father are gone?

“He can endure,” they say. “He can push on.”

But how and with what and how long?

It is wrong. It is wrong. It is absolute wrong.

Out of place. Out of form. Out of shape.

Adrift in time, an empty glass lost in space.

The man who has no face.

The man that has no face.

Is he a “that” or a “who”?

Well show him what are you.

And give him grace, give him grace. give him absolute grace.

The man without his face.

Bertrand Russell said, “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

Jonathan Haidt said, “The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction or destruction.”

I don’t know about you…

I can think of nothing else better than working alongside motivated and passionate people who are ready to put their “faces” on and be seen for who they really are.

You can reveal the truth of your greatness by just being who you are. It’s rare and ideal. And that’s what makes it so necessary.

I am asking for people to reveal what is possible through human cooperation.

Without a vision, the people perish.

Your vision can’t remain hidden.

No vision is meant to be held onto and kept from other people’s knowledge.

Vision is given to be revealed in reality.

No matter how BIG the vision is, if it is given to you, it is yours to reveal.

And vision, in order to be seen, needs people. Cooperation is the only necessity left to mankind to manifest.

The favor I am asking for is for you to send someone the link to this post.

If you know someone who feels unseen and lost in this world, that great one needs to reveal.

It is that faceless man or woman who could go to the grave without ever having accomplished what they are sent here to do.

It takes the weak things of the world to confound the strong.

It takes the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

We don’t know who we entertain, ever.

The crosses we are meant to carry lead us to a brighter future…today…now.

Be encouraged.