Along Came a Boy

I watched him come down from the platform after a worship set, all the way to his seat.  His movements were one of a man completely comfortable in his own skin and of one who knew his place in the world.  There wasn’t an ounce of self-consciousness or hesitation.  More than that, he seemed used to having eyes on him, and was comfortable with the intensity of the spotlight. 

I had been crushing on him at this point for several weeks, and it wouldn’t be altogether amiss to say my passion for church attendance in Guatemala that summer was heightened. 

I had long ago ascertained there was no ring, no girl.  And, he was one of the few men at the church who arrived in a car.  By Guatemalan standards, he was rich.  I don’t know cars well, but it was a white mid-size sedan with tinted windows and gold accents which was far more expensive than anything I could afford.  Asking around discreetly had told us I was in love with a doctor, who just happened to also be an amazing pianist and worship leader. 

When my eyes finally left him that morning, to turn my attention back to the reason most people attend church, his head immediately turned and I felt his eyes and slow gaze on me, and he kept it there long enough to communicate the message, “Oh, I’m very aware little girl, that you have been checking me out.  I am taking notes on you too.”  Electricity ran through my body, which I’m pretty sure wasn’t the Holy Spirit.

That morning marked a shift in our “relationship” I was sure, and I had to make the most of my limited time left in the Land of Eternal Spring.

My Spanish teacher, Magaly, helped me draft a note to my beloved.  I didn’t think much could happen; I was leaving in one short week, with no plans to ever return.  But there was a driving need inside me for the boy to know my feelings; JUST IN CASE.  These overwhelming pinings that filled every waking hour had to be given voice. 

I still have a copy of the note and it intimated something to the effect of how his handsomeness and the beauty of God’s creation in him had made me happy during my stay in his fair country.  And something about birds.  (Because that makes sense.)  I’m sure I probably used the phrase “Sonríe de mi Corazon” because it was and still is one of my favorite Spanish idioms.  I can only hope my instructor had the same poetic soul that I did, though she seemed much more concerned about correct Spanish than about the very specific nuances I wanted to convey.

I talked my housemates into going for coffee and dessert at a little café right across from El Shaddai on Monday night; worship night practice.  My handsome doctor hadn’t been at church the day before, when I had planned to give him the note.  We eagerly ordered and waited patiently for their session to end.  I was jittery and hyper, knowing the meeting of all meetings; the one which would inevitably change my life forever was about to happen. 

I had not felt this “taken” with a man since I was 16, and have not been again since.  Though not love, and neither lust---the absolute press of emotion and wonder compelled me to action. 

I forgot I was awkward around boys; I forgot the ones who had broken my heart in the past.  The language barrier didn’t matter and the thousands of miles I was traveling away from him in a few short hours didn’t enter my mind.  All that mattered was the boy, and my need to connect.

I get why the phrase “He’s not that into you” was coined.  We go after the things in life we REALLY want.  Though my companions that day, one by one got tired of waiting, and left me to my fate----nothing could have deterred me from my purpose.   I had passion, and it compelled me forward, consequences be damned.

Lately?  I’ve been thinking about what is really important in life.  What is it that I need, no MUST prioritize this year as another cycle of school begins?  What is it that I’ve been pursuing already?  If we go after what we truly care about, what does my recent past show that I presently love?  Is it what I want it to be?

What things should I be pursuing that have fallen by the wayside?  And if I used to pursue them with passion, what changed in my heart?

That fateful night in La Antigua, Guatemala my boy didn’t show.  When I finally ventured into the church and inquired, no one knew where he was, or why he wasn’t where expected.  I left my perfectly penned and translated letter with a missionary friend, who promised on her life to make the delivery.

She was true to her word, and the boy and I eventually went on our first date.  TEN. YEARS. LATER.   (Another post, another day).

I looked the boy up online this morning, to see if I could find him.  He has a very distinctive name and it took all of 5 seconds.  Google is a wonderful, if evil tool. 

There is still no ring on my friend’s hand.  He still wears the look of one absolutely sure of himself, yet without pride, as only Latino men truly can.  His smile and gaze still send me to another world, and my heart still races when I see his smile.  He still has the ability to stop the traffic of my soul, like the raised baton of a conductor suspended momentarily . . .

Passion is a powerful force.  I want to turn my heart towards the right things in this season, and use passion’s power to fuel my dreams. 

---

Photo Credit:  Bread for the World from Flick'r Creative Commons:  Holy City

The God who Meets us

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"Are you looking for a place?" 

My Spanish teacher and I were walking around town, following up housing leads.  For my 2nd summer in Guatemala, I had been a bit more adventurous than my first trip.  I had lined up Spanish schools and homestays in 3 different towns, one off the beaten path.  

I was in the infamous hippie town, San Pedro La Laguna, on Guatemala's beautiful Lake Atitlan, whom Aldous Huxley termed "the most beautiful place in the world."  My homestay was not a place I felt comfortable, so I was looking for a new place to call home for the 2 weeks I'd be studying there.  My Spanish teacher was helping me.

Evidently my mission to find housing was easily discerned by the local who approached us that morning.  After a brief conversation, my teacher and I followed the chapin down a narrow path toward the lake.

For less than a 20 minute phone call home to my Mom, I could rent a cute little home 1000 feet from the lake (closest thing to heaven on this earth), and 1/4 mile from my school.  FOR 2 WEEKS.  2 WEEKS!  The things dreams are made of.  Happening.  To ME.  No.  FOR ME.

Throughout my life, there have been these moments.  These times where the God of the Universe has stooped down and offered His hand.  Times when He has shown up to do something special just because I'm His kid.  Just to let me know He still sees me, and that He is near.  

The times when I notice these favors most?  Is when I've stepped out of the boat AT HIS WORD, and am obeying something He has spoken specifically into my life.  In this case, it was the call to become fluent in Spanish.  

Obedience has it's rewards.  This God who meets us in prayer, in great worship services, in our quiet study times, in the eyes of the people we meet, also meets us AS WE GO.  As we obey.

And His rewards tend to be better than what we ask Him for.  Like a good Dad, He only gives the best gifts.

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To Love Justice

El Parque Central in Xela

They call Guatemala, “The Land of Eternal Spring,” and with it’s year-round 70 degree weather it lives up to it’s name. 

One summer, I was studying Spanish in Quetzeltenango (nicknamed Xela).  After Antigua, Xela is one of the top destinations in the country for perfecting one’s command of the language, and there are dozens of schools to choose from. 

This was my second trip to the nation, and I was there more for adventure than Spanish, but studying was a cheap way to find housing. 

I had been in town for about two weeks, and though there were many parts that felt unsafe, the walk home from school was on a main drag, and it wasn’t worrisome.

It was nearing dusk, and I was about 2 blocks from home.    I can still feel the horror in the pit of my stomach if I close my eyes.

A truck came careening down the street.  It was like a dream.  I COULD NOT figure out what I was seeing at first.  It looked like a large rag doll or scarecrow was being swung around on a pole off the bed of a pick-up.  There were a few people on the street near me and we all stopped and stiffened.  Something about the way the truck was moving, something about the scene felt unnervingly dangerous—before the realization hit.

The truck came to a stop at the corner of the street I was on.  In absolute horror, I realized the rag doll was a man.  An old, grandpa man.  The man who had been swinging him around threw him onto the street and then proceeded to jump out of the truck and beat him with the metal pole. 

None of us around did a thing.  When I realized what was happening, a desire to help washed over me, followed quickly by self-preservation, and the knowledge that a person who would beat an elderly man would just as quickly beat an American tourist.  Before I could recover from my stupor, the truck was gone.  Within a minute, a police car pulled up to the scene.

An ambulance quickly followed and a crowd gathered.  The police did not seek witnesses, or ask any of us at the scene what happened.  Thru some people in the crowd whose Spanish I could understand, it seems the man was a shopkeeper and he was dropped off in front of his shop.  It was not clear what his “crime” was or why he was attacked, but it was clear that it was business-related.

There’s no way to describe how horrific it was to see violence firsthand.  To watch someone helpless being hurt and feeling frozen and helpless is one of the worst feelings in the world.

I’d like to think that if I were to witness violence of this nature again, that I wouldn’t be frozen a second time.  I’d like to think that I would be angry enough, and love justice enough to act, even at personal cost.  That remains to be seen.

But what I do know?  What I can do? Is make a difference now.  I can love justice now.  Where I am.

I can give to the poor, I can teach my students to love what is right. I can stick up for people in the marketplace when their rights are not honored.  I can insist that parents be parents and “encourage” them towards this end within the educational system.  I can speak up for the rights of the unborn, and refuse to vote for anyone who is willing to let babies be killed.  I can give money to the homeless on corners, or go a step further and take them a meal.  I can teach my kids how to fight fair, and how to forgive.  I can serve on juries without trying to get out of them.  I can be a voice when no one else wants to be a voice.

What can you do?

We must, we must, love justice.

Illusion

La Merced

La Antigua, Guatemala

I never understood why Ana, our housemother, told us to be careful of Luis.  Nor did I understand why my friend Kim would parrot these words to me anytime he would come up in conversation.

For those of us living in the host home in Guatemala, Luis was simply “that shoeshine boy” or even “You know, that boy.”  We all knew who “that boy” was.  We passed him sitting on the stoop of La Merced every day on our way to language school.

I didn’t understand my friends’ precautions because after teaching four years in the South Bronx, no young hand-kissing, por-favor-buy-me-a-Pepsi-saying, mentally challenged teenage boy could pose a threat to me.

I loved to stop and chat with him, practicing my fledgling Spanish on him as he practiced his beginning English on me., saying carefully constructed pointed sentences such as, “HOW-ARE-YOU-MY-LOVE?” and kissing my hand, asking me to sit awhile and linger so he could read to me the sentences he had been copying and learning to read.  I never saw the harm in being near Luis.

Then, one moment in time, that will forever be landscaped in my inner eye, I saw a different Luis.  That day, as I made my way home from a café where I had sat eating my plate of papa fritas amidst a sea of stranger faces.  That day—

I saw Luis away from his usual corner.  He was standing in the middle of the street, a hugantic boulder clutched under each arm.  Across from him stood an annoying mosquito of a man who had obviously unfairly provoked him.  Luis, unsure of the growing emotion inside looked ready to pounce.

Around him a sea of people awaited his movements while the object of his wrath at times provoked him and at times attempted to pass. The boy vacillated between the choice of saving face through open aggression or backing down and staying alive, his face contorting as his body rocked back and forth considering his options.

The boy, in the eyes of the crowd, was beloved in an awkward sort of way and they stood watch over him to make sure he did not get hurt.  But to him in the intensity of the moment, the crowd was hostile—it turned him inward on himself and made him feel as though he must finish what had been started.

I too, know that feeling—that loathsome feeling of being watched, observed, and thereby judged.  Feeling all the world has stopped and awaits your movements—ready to render judgment whichever way you choose.  That turning inward on yourself which forces out of the imagination the possibility that the faces which appear so hostile might actually be friendly.

In that moment of vacillation, a stranger stepped up and gently removed the rocks from underneath Luis’s arms, pulling him gently to the side away from the gaze of the crowd.

I hope that in my moments, my strangers will rescue me the way his did him that day, removing the rocks of self-doubt from my demeanor, with which I’ll crush myself, if left alone.