This is the saga of Mingo Rodriguez.
And if that line sounds like the title of an old Western movie, well, this story has some of that to it.
Thirty years ago Domingo "Mingo" Rodriguez was a young migrant worker working the fields and orchards of Box Elder County. Thirty years ago I was a brash college kid in those same orchards, earning some summer bucks by helping farmers find migrant crews. Mingo and I both spent our days in the fields, though he worked much harder for an honest day's pay than I did. He also paid a higher price to find himself.
These days, Mingo Rodriguez is the Rev. Domingo Rodriguez, pastor of the "Iglesia Roca Viva" (Church of the Living Rock) in Brigham City.
These days I'm a columnist who writes about pastors and churches with original names. He still works harder than I do for an honest day's pay and still pays a higher price.
We live a few doors from each other now. On Sundays he heads east to his church, I head west to mine. We chat about the "good old days."
The story of how I got from those orchards to the Deseret News is an interesting one. But the story of Mingo Rodriguez is inspiring.
Years ago, it seems, the reverend was much less reverent. Although raised a Catholic, he pulled away from religion and taught himself to work and party hard. Each day his wife, a devout Christian, would say a prayer for him.
"One night," he says, "I came home and realized I hadn't had any fun. I wanted something more. I looked at my wife and said, 'I think your prayers have been answered.' "
Mingo abandoned his vices and went to church. But after a few weeks he grew troubled. People were telling how Jesus had changed their lives, but nobody's life seemed changed. The drinkers still drank, the fighters still fought. Nobody seemed interested in bettering themselves. Surely, he thought, behavior counted for something.
"I finally told my wife I was just going to stay home and read the Bible," he says.
Soon, other people who felt as he did found their way to his home Sunday Bible readings. Good works mattered to them as well. The group grew. In time, the members asked Mingo to be their minister.
"They noticed that I'd become a different man," he says. "And they had faith that I was a just man."
Since the group was a "Christian hybrid" that believed in both grace and works, other Christian sects steered clear of it. The group finally formed its own congregation. Rodriguez' wife suggested the name The Church of the Living Rock. Today, the little church is indeed a source of life and stability for a small band of Christians.
"Sometimes people will come in," the Rev. Rodriguez says, "but they won't like what they hear and don't come back. But that's OK. People need to be told they need to change their ways. When you come to God, you must bring your whole heart."
Mingo Rodriguez, once a harvester of crops, has become a harvester of souls.
He has worked harder for what he has than I have. He has paid a higher price than I have.
It has made him a better man than I am.
At the end of the old Western "The Professionals," Jack Palance describes life in the Mexican Revolution. But he could well be talking about Christianity. "We leave because we are disillusioned," he explains, "we come back because we are lost. We die because we are committed."
The line would fit nicely into the script for "The Saga of Mingo Rodriguez."
Palance, in fact, would make a marvelous Mingo.
E-mail: jerjohn@desnews.com