caught in the current

When I first started working here, I was so surprised by the colors. Every hallway has a specific color, so that if you're familiar enough with the building, you can know where you are just by seeing the colors and patterns on the walls, or the floor. Part of being a children's hospital, I suppose. Today I was standing in a yellow hallway, which is on the surgery floor, and got on the elevator to go down.


At the last moment, a tall man in blue scrubs stepped across the path of the closing door - a moment of excitement, of tension that dissipated as soon as he'd made it in. We waited, each in our own world. The elevator went down, picked up another passenger. The big man greeted him, but I didn't even look. The doors closed. The elevator kept moving down. When the doors opened again and we went to exit, the big man stopped himself, bent gracefully forward and said, "After you." Embarrassed, I complied. He reached the door to the public area of the hospital before I did, and once again gracefully opened the door.


"Thank you!" I said, startled into speech, now even more embarrassed even though I'd meant it, even though I'd wanted him to feel seen and appreciated. Why was I making meaningful contact with a stranger in the hallway? "I'm southern," he said with a smile in his voice, "sorry." Now that I'd started talking, my voice seemed to keep going without me. "You are!" I affirmed. And then, suddenly, we were in a conversation. "Where are you from?" "Not this country! Spain." I said, lagging behind him, hoping the interaction would end, still not comfortable saying my thoughts out loud. He continued the conversational thread, the words sticking us together in a way my body language couldn't fix. I gave up and caught up with him.


I learned he was from a smaller city nearby, we swapped complaints about traffic, and he asked what my job at the hospital was. "Interpreter," I told him. "My name's Earnest," he said, offering to shake hands. I shook and said, "Nice to meet you," forgetting my own name, as I recently have been. So he followed up. "What's yours?" I told him, and we parted ways at the gift shop, as he explained he was on a mission to get some chocolate.


I kept walking in the same direction we'd been going, still riding the current of that walking chit-chat, gradually slowing down and coming back to myself.


And this is what it's like to be an introvert. At least, it happens a lot that your environment overwhelms and sweeps you up without your permission, and it's uncomfortable. For some people, an interaction like I just described wouldn't faze them at all. On the contrary, it would be an enjoyable part of a normal day to chit chat with many people as they go about their daily business.


And I won't say I didn't enjoy talking to Earnest, because I definitely felt happy afterward, but it required all the resources of my attention and energy to connect with him in that 1-2 minute span, plus some emotional management because I felt so many different things. Which is fine when you're not overtaxed, or trying to think about something else, but can be grueling if you are. It's a difficult balance. People often think that introverts don't like being around people, but that's not the case. Everyone needs people. But finding a good balance between connecting with people and not allowing yourself to be too overwhelmed is challenging, and something I find isn't often understood or supported by the world around us.


So anyway. I wanted to reflect on that feeling of being swept up in a bit of small talk with a stranger, and then coming back to earth again. I do appreciate his being willing to connect.


Happy Thursday, y'all!

riches and freedom

"If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time.

But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together"

- Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s

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Yesterday was a very normal Tuesday. I was in one of the neighborhood clinics, following the peds MD around to visit her majority Spanish-speaking patients. In the middle of a visit, one of the other MDs popped her head in to ask when we'd be done, since they had a meeting at noon.
"And they made some beans for lunch, they're in the back, if you want some." she said before her head disappeared behind the door.

Come lunchtime, I made my way back into the breakroom. When I rounded the corner I saw, to my amazement, not one, but two crock pots sitting on the tiny green counter, walled in by cabinets and lockers, crammed into the tiny space along with  a refrigerator, water cooler, and a table and chairs. A few of the RNs and other staff were hanging out, or passing through. I made my way to the refrigerator to get my lunch out, but after a minute, I got up my courage and dared to ask. "Can I have some too?" "Of course you can!" came the reply, "This is an equal opportunity lunch!" So I got a styrofoam cupful of pinto beans 'n pork and sat myself down at the table with a couple of the RNs. 

After a few minutes I learned that one of the employees, Ms. E, had made those beans, and brought them to clinic for all the staff to share. Not only that; knowing that one of the staff didn't eat pork for religious reasons,  she had made a second, smaller crock pot full of beans with chicken. I asked if there were some sort of occasion, and learned that no, Ms. E just cooks sometimes. I was floored. 

After a while, Ms. E herself came in and sat down with us. She turned out to be getting on into her 6th decade of life, with beautiful, smooth, dark-chocolate colored skin, and, as she described it, cooking gave her something to do when she got home. 

So for the rest of my lunch, I sat with her and the two other nurses and mostly just listened. The conversation meandered from cooking, to grandparents, to naming children, with lots of laughter and good humor in between. I joined in when I could, and tried to listen with my whole heart, because I was delighted to be welcomed into such comfortable table conversation with people so different from me. It was like being in a different country, in the best way.
In the end we all thanked Ms E for lunch, and said our goodbyes before going back to work.
  

Since then, I keep telling people about Ms. E's generosity, because I cannot get over it. She routinely spends her money and time buying and making food, so she can bring it to share with her coworkers, because she wants to?! Who does that?? What a beautiful way to love! What an excess of generosity, coming from just exactly who she is!

And I keep thinking about that and my experience around the table with her and the other nurses, because in America right now, we are struggling. We are struggling to get over this divide we've created between different people groups. Our culture, our system right now makes people despair of being treated fairly, makes people fear for their lives, exacerbates people's poverty. But the thing is that in creating this divide, we've hurt both sides - the oppressed and the privileged. 

Privilege is not unharmed by this dynamic of systematic oppression. Our culture right now prevents amazing people - like Ms. E and the nurses I sat with - from flourishing, and the rest of us miss out. Even if those women aren't specifically targeted, the divide we've created between their culture and white culture impoverishes us all. We silence them, and criminalize them, and we lose. We lose the richness our life could have if we helped our compatriots to flourish, instead of perpetuating a world where they and their families struggle, on some level, for every basic dignity.

I understand - better than many - how hard it can be when two cultures collide, and have to figure out how to relate to one another and respect one another. But I want to live in a country where we at least try to give dignity and space to the different cultures we contain. I work mostly with the hispanic/latino population in my city, and there is also a large African American population, as well as South East Asian and Korean populations. What would it look like for America to truly be the "melting pot" we learn about in American History? What kind of Beloved Community might we see?

introductions

So here's the thing. I've followed Jesus for a long time.

When I was a kid, my parents were missionaries, meaning they were people who decided that they felt like God was asking them to pick up their lives and go somewhere else to help people there follow him. So they went to seminary, which is where you can study the Bible and Christian theology really in depth. They met there, and married, and had me, had my sister, and then, finally, moved to a different country. Their goal there was to help existing churches start new churches with new people who wanted to follow Jesus too. So that is the family I was born into.

As you can imagine, I heard a lot about God growing up. And since my parents are really smart people who went to seminary, I learned a lot of theology growing up, too, and learned that what you hear in church isn't necessarily true, but God always is. And my parents taught me that he's given us what we need to get to know him, and so you have to study and pray, and listen to other people who know him, so you can learn about him for yourself. With an invitation like that, and parents living what they preached, why wouldn't I go try to get to know God? So like I said, I follow Jesus.

And as I read, and prayed, and listened to people who'd been following the God longer than I had, something mysterious happened. I began to learn things, not from the teachers, not from the preachers or the books, but from the inside. And I didn't really notice it until I would then learn those same things from the teachers and the preachers - later. And as I read and looked for God on my own time, I felt protected. I felt love that resonated deep inside me. Some people say that when they start following Jesus, they experience peace, but for me, it was protection and love.

Eventually I put two and two together and figured out that I had, for years, been experiencing what Jesus was talking about when he said the Holy Spirit would be our teacher, and a spring of fresh, living water inside of us, and what Paul means when he talks about the Holy Spirit being in us. Those were things I'd read, but they then took on new meaning.

But I didn't figure that out for a long time, not until I'd been in college for a while. See, I didn't stop wanting to follow Jesus when I left my family because I'd accepted this connection with God for myself a long time ago, and it didn't depend on them. It was the root that nourished my life and kept me safe in the dizzying vortex of change. And as I followed Jesus into college, he sent someone to tell me what he was going to do. I was at a normal gathering of people from my church who were praying for each other, and as we prayed, the girl praying for me started telling me that God was showing her he was about to deepen and grow what I knew of him, beyond what I'd ever imagined. And in the next 3 years of my life, that is exactly what happened. And in that process I learned that the protection and love I'd felt growing up, and the things I'd learned on my own, were moments I could point to and say, "God was with me there." I had, as a child who'd decided to accept the invitation to try and get to know God, actually begun to get to know him. Not from a book, or a teacher, but in my real life.

That is my story. The story of my life. I hope I make space sometime to talk about what this relationship with God, through Jesus and the Holy Spirit is like, because so far I've only told you how I realized that that is, in fact, what was going on. Often it's still hard to realize and remember that God is living and active in my life, because he's not a visible, physical presence to us. But I wanted to write about it, because there's one funny feature about this relationship: it's easy to miss. Somehow, even though you might think regular interactions with the God of the universe might be remarkable, they slip from my memory ever so quickly, and it's not until I try to tell someone something about my week that I realize God's been doing something. So I want to tell the stories, so that hopefully I can mark them better, and maybe other people can benefit from hearing them.

This is my introduction.

I've followed Jesus for a long time. And to my surprise, it's the most real thing I've ever committed to.

verbal relationship

Tonight was amazing. I've been meaning to write again, knowing that people have said over and over again over the years that I have a way with words. People have said, "I'd read a book if you wrote it." Honestly, I haven't been reading many books lately, and my writing really isn't what it used to be. But I think (I hope) that when you have a way with words, it doesn't just vanish like smoke because you get out of practice. As proof, I present evidence in the form of emotional eloquence: when emotion hits, my words paint pictures and make rhythms without much intent.

One thing hasn't changed, and that is, the central place of words in my life. I've been realizing that there are some people to whom words mean the world. For whom words are the building blocks of reality, and everything else is supporting evidence. I am one of those people. Unless I'm careful, I'll listen to your words and not watch your actions or your facial expressions. Other people, though, are different. For them, words can be hard to put together; or maybe they don't mean much, because to such people they don't stand up to the picture actions or patterns paint.

But because I am so verbally inclined, and further, verbally trained, words have taken a central place in my life. I grew up with four languages in my brain, five if you count the one highschool brought into my life. So I was always known for the languages I knew. My languages are as much a part of me as my extended family, and being asked which ones I speak and how many is like being asked "who's your momma and daddy?". Going to college was a respite from being defined by how many languages I knew, just as much as it was a break from being my parents' daughter.

But now, having graduated and started my adult life, I've come back to my languages, my verbal virtuosity and versatility and made it into a livelihood. As an interpreter in the medical field, I code-switch every few phrases, trying to find the closest equivalent as fast as you can blink, doing my best to match register and context. This has led to unexpected difficulties. For one, it's made my many languages so readily available to me all the time, that it's sometimes hard to stick to just one. I'll be talking to you and suddenly throw in some German, because I couldn't think of the right English words. Another thing is that at work, the words are never my words. After a long day, it can be a relief just to say my own opinion.

I guess what I'm saying is, this: words have been my entertainment, my self-expression, my family heritage, my teachers, the focus of my studies, my information portal, and now my bread-winners. I'm surprised to note how much their functions in my life have changed - still central, always central, but not the same.

So, why was today amazing? Because I got to witness two breathtaking artists, and listen to the words they put together out of their hearts, and because they reminded me that I, too, need to write.
This may be a rusty piece, but it's good to be trying (at least trying) to write again.