rasgado abajo de las paredes
This is my new favorite website. I used it to come up with the subject line for this post, which (according to the site) means "tearing down the walls".Tonight at church someone gave me a pie and a coffee cake, I guess to take to work with me tomorrow. I accepted the food, even though I knew that no one at my office needs anything more to eat. For some reason, I felt like I should take it. When I got home, I knew why.
As I was getting out of my car, I looked across the street and saw that the windows in the house across from me were all lit up. Instantly I knew why I had taken those pastries.
I went into the house, dropped my stuff off, and fed my dogs ... then I ignored the doubts that were rising, grabbed the pie and cake and started across the street. Please understand that I have never actually met these particular neighbors. I have shared smiles and waves with a Hispanic man who I believe lives in that house, but these exchanges have always taken place across the safety of a street and/or sidewalk. I have never known his name, and we have never much got past the joking "Tenga un buen día" from me and the "Have a good day" from him.
As I stumbled up the dark path to the porch, I felt a moment of nervousness but I pushed on and soon found myself on the porch of complete strangers. I could hear people talking in Spanish, and I could see the flicker of a tv as I knocked on the door. Soon a girl probably around 20 answered and said "hey", so I asked if she spoke English. She said yes, and I admit - I breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, I had run to my computer before heading over, and I had looked up several different phrases and repeated them to myself several times. But it seemed that all of those phrases had slipped away during the 40 second walk from my door to theirs.
They were eating dinner, and they invited me to join them. I politely declined, and offered them my food gifts. Every single person at the table got up and hugged me, and I learned that Chaco is the name of the man I had been waving to and laughing with for several months now. His wife's name is Rena, and their daughter Brisada and her little son Daniel live there too. The incredibly strange thing was the immediate comfort I felt with these near-strangers with whom I couldn't communicate very well. They humored me as I tried to speak only in Spanish to them, and they made me feel appreciated and welcome the moment I stepped in the door. I learned that they came here from Mexico six years ago, and that they like to go to the beach. Ok, so we didn't get into a very deep conversation, but we knocked a hole through a wall that was there before.
I cannot describe how beautiful and precious were the smiles on the faces of these four individuals. There is a realness there, there is a story behind each of those smiles. I have a feeling that each of those people, even little 1.5 year old Daniel, knows things about life that I will never, ever know. Because of that, I want to honor them and somehow learn and glean from them. There is so much I want to know about them, and I want to somehow tell Chaco that there were some mornings when his smile and his "Good mornin'" in broken English were the bright spot in my day. But for tonight, we hugged and learned each others' names, and I believe we started something that has nothing to do with language or with cultures or with the color of our skin.
This morning I heard a sermon that reminded me of how Jesus was constantly living his life for other people, especially the people that society overlooked. I used to live my life that way, and I don't know when I stopped. There are people all around us who we walk by and don't even see. We are surrounded by souls who are heading somewhere, and each of us, at any given moment, has the opportunity to interact with these people. What could possibly be more important than experiencing the privilege of connecting with another human being? How can we be so busy that we miss those moments that we will never be able to recapture? How can we live 20 feet from people and not even know their names?
My new friends told me to come back again for dinner sometime, and I can't wait to do so. I will definitely be studying my Spanish dictionary before then, but I have a feeling that even if I were to go knowing nothing more than I did tonight ... God would somehow translate the warmth and the smiles and the hugs into truth and love and Him.
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