eternal moments

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Eternal Moments: Learning to Receive

Igor was relating the parable of the Good Samaritan to us. To be honest, I was wondering throughout the whole time why he was painstakingly telling us all the details of this parable. Surely he must know that this is a well-known parable and we are well aware of this story. After all, I am a minister and that should count for something. Igor knows this. We even did a bible study together on this story. Now he was recounting the parable to us as if we never heard it before. Then, it occurred to me. Maybe, just maybe, I should just listen and stop whatever I was doing mentally. He wants to tell us something important and the Good Samaritan is central to it. It is his story and I have to put my ego aside and listen as if it was the first time I heard this parable. After all, it is the first time ever hearing it from Igor. He believes that he has something new to bring to the table.

He called us a few days ago and wanted to meet with us. At first, I thought something was wrong. Unfortunately, my mind is prone to pessimism. We haven’t heard from him for a while and we tend to take comfort in the no news is good news mindset. However, we know that this is not always the case. This is why hearing Igor’s voice on the phone, I got a little nervous. Igor is living with his aunt presently. He is reconciled with his aunt after fifteen years. His mother was murdered trying to protect this very aunt. Despite his mother’s sacrifice for their sibling, Igor and his aunt were never on good terms. We are not sure why. However, whatever the problem was between them, it got resolved. She accepted her nephew into her household.
He had been living in the streets for 13 years prior to this. At the age of 20, he decided that he did not want to be homeless anymore. It took a lot of courage on his part to leave everything behind. Both parents were dead. His brother was shot by the police in a robbery attempt. The only family he had known since he was seven was the other teens and children in the streets. He was loved by them too. However, Igor knew that this adopted street family was volatile. It did not have the foundation for something more concrete and lasting. He wanted something better and durable for his life. He yearned for peace and fulfillment. He knew that it required sacrifice and determination. He was willing to make the former but it was hard to be determined and persevere to reach his goal on his own and alone in this world. It was at this time when God brought us together.

Igor took the initiative. He approached us first. He asked how many languages we spoke and expressed an interested in languages. This was really just his attempt to connect with us. We naturally grabbed this opening and offered to teach him English; something he accepted enthusiastically. We started meeting with him regularly for English lessons. We took him to a public library which was ironically situated in the square where they slept. However, he would have never entered this place on his own. It was such an irony. He was so close to place filled with all kinds of information and knowledge that he was interested in knowing and yet his low self-esteem was the only obstacle that prevented him from entering its doors. Even with us, he was just comfortable sitting outside on the benches of the library to learn basic English conversations.

Our lessons usually ended with long conversations about life in general. Needless to say, our friendship got stronger as Igor found the courage to confide in us. Igor even commented once that he never had friends who were like parents to him. This was three years ago. Here we are today, sitting with this young man who had been to the Juvenile detention at least ten times since he was eight relating the story about the Good Samaritan. A few years ago, he would have been talking about drugs and crime and today he is interested in sharing about God. He has been going to church twice a week and is actively involved in the youth program. His greatest struggle has been finding a job. He hasn’t held a steady job since he left the streets. All the jobs available want someone with experience. Igor has only dealt with crime most of his life. Money was never an issue for him when he lived in the streets. Nowadays, he can barely pay the bus fare to visit us. However, he wanted to see us. It has been months since we last spoke. Recently, he started a woodworking course. He received some financial aid from a church to pay for his bus fare to and fro from this course. He managed to save some of this money and use it to visit us. It was important for him to be with us now. It was important for us to listen to what he has to say even though I knew the story by heart.

Finally he got to the moment when the Good Samaritan appeared in the story. Igor went on to explain that Samaritans were considered outcasts and yet it did not hinder this particular one from helping a man who despised him. He concluded that God uses people whom we least expect. Then he said that we were the good Samaritans in his life. He never expected people like us to appear in his life and God used us to bring him hope and peace in a moment when he thought that he was just abandoned for dead. This was the insight that Igor wanted to bring to this story. He continued to say that the other teens and children did not see what God was doing through us. He doesn’t know why he felt something different and decided to take the step to approach us. He hopes that one day his adopted street family will see what he saw in us.

Mary and I responded with silence. I was humbled by what he said and at the same time, I was a little embarrassed and ashamed of myself. My mind was obsessed with our knowledge of the biblical stories and I almost missed a wonderful gift this young man was giving me. He thought that it was important was us to know that he understood our presence in his life. He was giving us a Christmas present. Igor reiterated that one day God will reward us for the time and energy we put into our relationship with him. Mary said that waiting wasn’t necessary, we have already received it. She is right. Igor is our reward. We don’t need anything else. He is our eternal Christmas gift from God.

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Things Overlooked

“If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones. But if you are dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities.”-Luke 16:10

The cancer was killing her. The doctors said that it was just a question of days. I was the designated son to spend the night at her bedside. As the painkillers wore off, she opened her eyes and looked at me intently. Then she asked if I remembered the days when she would wait with me at the school bus stop. She smiled before I could give her an answer and then went back to sleep. She passed away a few days later. This was almost twenty five years ago. Her last thoughts were on what we would consider the most mundane things of being a mother. She waited with me for the school bus everyday when I was a little lad. I am not sure if she ever thought then that this would be one of her final memories before her passing.

I was taught in seminary that we should do the small things first in parish life. The small things were visiting the members in their homes, hospital visitation, funerals and weddings. If we would do these things, then we are paying the “rent” to our respective church. Then we could be free to do greater things. We divide our lives between mundane things and great achievements. This is not something peculiar in religious circles. It is the way the world functions. It is not enough to be just a mother. We have to show to the world that our children are future Einsteins. It is not enough to just play the guitar, we have to strive to be the best. It seems like nothing has value in itself unless it is aiming for a higher goal. If we are great, then we are successful. This may not be bad but it is not necessarily good either. In our obsession for the so-called great things of life, we might overlook things that really matter. These are things that we remember and cherish when everything is said and done.

It had been a while since we saw Isabela. We met her in the streets about a year ago. She was unusually reserved for a homeless teen. Most of the teens and children are usually open to any adult attention but not Isabela. She stood and watched us from afar for a week or so before approaching us. The first thing she asked for was a blank piece of paper. She wanted to draw. She sat next to us and drew quietly. She never said a word to us but she wanted to be near us. The next day she shared a little bit more about herself. Her story is not different from the other teenage girls. She was placed in a state orphanage where she spent most of her teenage years. She ran away to the streets before she turned eighteen because they were going to send her back to her home. Isabela is a very private and she did not elaborate on the circumstances that placed her in the orphanage. We are realizing that it is not necessary for us to know everything about their past. There is nothing we can do to change it. God has placed this young girl in our lives in the here and now. We don’t need to probe into her past to know her. We can spend time with her and allow her to share whatever she wants. We saw Isabela almost everyday for a week or so and then she decided to move to another area. It was outside the area where we worked.

The children are nomadic, moving around several areas in the city before returning to the center where we work. Occasionally we venture out to these areas to look for them. By chance, we saw Isabela again after about six months. We went for a walk and we ran into her. She was genuinely happy to see us and gave us a hug. Then among the wide array of subjects she spoke about, she mentioned something curious. She asked Mary if she remembered doing her nails for her. This was one of her fondest memories of our short time together. I had bought her a nice book and we did other things with her but she remembers something as mundane as painting her nails with Mary. I am not offended that she did not remember the book which took us a while to find. I thought that it was a big thing. I even wrote about it in one of my blog posts last year. However, her fondest memory was doing nails with Mary. She does not remember the book. It was one time event. Mary did her nails frequently. She did it because she wanted something to do with the girls. Sometimes things we think of as mundane are the very things that have an eternal impact in our lives. Perhaps the eternal shines through mundane things and not in great and grandiose events.

I would never write anything about playing a game of checkers with the children. It would seem boring. Nothing usually happens in these games. I have also overlooked the fact that everyday when I see the children in the streets, the first thing they want to know is if I had brought checkers with me. They lose all the time and they know when I let them win and they get upset. For them, it is not a question of winning or losing. They want to play checkers with me. They want Mary to do their nails. Even the boys ask her to file their nails. Everyday they want us to do the most mundane things with them. We do these in hopes of achieving something greater. Perhaps, we are missing out on the great things by overlooking these so-called mundane activities.

Before we left Isabela that day, she reminded us of her birthday. I wrote it down so that I wouldn’t forget it. We thought about getting a her small cake, but decided to get a small kit of manicure products. On the day itself, Isabela was happy to see us. She received the gift happily but she said that she did not really want us to give her anything. She just wanted to see us on her birthday. She wanted to be remembered. She asked if we brought some paper. We sat down and drew together for two hours. This is how she wanted to spend her birthday; doing something simple but at the same time doing it with people she knows who care for her. This is why mundane things are important.

We want to achieve great things for our ego but we do mundane things because of love.

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