Invitation to Confession

Now is the time when we bring our own stories before God.

After a long and groggy trip filled with sort-of-sleep and many bags of chips and beef jerky, I arrived at the casa with my fellow mission trippers ready to give back, to make a difference, to be an active member of a “People for Others at the Casa Hogar San Jose!”  Despite the warmth pouring from every crevice of the casa and despite all of my “readiness,” the newness and the difference weighed heavy.  I was assaulted with all of the change, the lack of home and amenities, personal space, food and understanding.  The assigned room was dark, webby, musty and the half wall separating my wife and I from our roommates made me feel exposed and hushed.  I would not unpack.  At dinner, my anxiety was compounded when I had to deny the food of love prepared for us because of my dairy allergy with not a bit of Spanish to carry my gratitude or grace.  As I ate my fruit, I felt worlds apart as the Spanish flew around me in circles and I wondered how I’d make it through the week and even considered convincing my wife that we leave now, find a hotel, and never go back to first church, move if we had to, just because I was going to starve in my isolation, in mi comidas, in my meal-cycle of hurting others.

And the point here is that I had that option.  I could have left.  I had the choice.  All of us Mission Trippers had the power of Choice. And this power, for me, soon became a real limitation in my People for Others agenda.

My giving back and difference making were measured out by my comfort levels and augmented with my privilege, with my power of choice.  If I was hungry, needed a coffee or wanted safe drinking water, I could choose to go to the kiosko down the street and buy it.  If I was bored or overwhelmed or tired I could choose to retreat to my room for a quick break.  If I was frustrated with the language barrier and impatient with trying to understand and communicate with others, I could choose to simply say, “lo siento, no hablo espanol.”  If I felt that a child was more well-adjusted than another, I could choose to give him or her less attention.  If I felt a real need to define my Casa experience with my roommates, I could choose to stay and talk rather than to go and help Marta pick up the ninos pequenos from Kinder.  If there was a dicey piece of meat in my sopa, I could choose to deceptively trash it.  I could choose tacos over vespers, cute and adorable kids over sick or clingy ones, and the seat by the door for an easy exit, just in case.

And, I could choose to avoid the unpleasantness and discomfort of watching a humble boy with cerebral palsy be fed his lunch.  I could choose to avoid confronting the unfamiliar, the disabled, the anti-me, avoid confronting the drool and food particles that spilled out of his mouth and down his chin, avoid confronting the coughing and sputtering as he tried to swallow the mushy mixture, and avoid confronting his body physically, his small and warped bones, his crippled hands, his rolling, flopping head when he needed to be hoisted or re-adjusted into a sitting position.  I could choose to sit at a different table and say Buenos Dios, Gonzalo, from afar.  And I did make these choices.  Almost every single day I chose me over the Other far too often.

One night, 4-year old Maria was in my lap and she was talking to me about her Mama and I couldn’t understand anything, but I could feel that the depth of her missingness for her mom was profound and painful and screaming and I felt so helpless in her hurt.  I tried to distract her by complimenting her outfit because, well, pantalones and bonita are easy go-to words for me and so I said, “Me gusta tu pantalones, Los pantalones estan muy bonita.”  And she quickly and matter-of-factly corrected me with, “Estos no son mis pantalones.”  Which means, “These are not my pants.” And I absolutely heart sanked for her and felt shame at my shallowness in my conception of the loss these children experience.  When these babies come to the casa, as Maria did for the first time just a week or two before we arrived, they aren’t just packed up and stripped of their parents, their mama’s, but they are literally stripped of their own clothing.  They are in pants that don’t button, shoes that fall off, or camisetas that would violate our privileged norms: a boy in a red shirt that says, “girls rule.” Their entire identities – who they are, what they wear, who their family is, what they eat, where they sleep, every core component of their life as they understand it is snuffed out.  And they have no choice.  They can’t say, heck with all this, I am out of here, give me back my mom, give me back my pants.  They do not have the power of choice.

Assurance of Grace

While my week at the Casa is marked with a number of choices I made for me over the Other, it is also marked with all of the choices I made for the Other, over me.  And these choices, the choice I made, and my fellow mission trippers made, to be a People for Others, extended, if even just the teeniest tiniest amount, a little bit of that Power of Choice to the ninos and to the staff.  The ninos had the choice to seek affection and attention from double the adultos, the choice to color, to blow bubbles, to make gimp bracelets, to be read to, to get pushed on a swing, to float in a giant raft, to swing from a rope, to sing with and to strum a guitar, to play UNO, to be jazzed by a magic trick, to make art, to learn something new, and to be told, over and over again, Muy Bien, Fantastico, Perfecto, Bravo.  And, the Maestros had the choice to step back and recharge as we stepped in, the choice to share in the usually singular moments of pain or pleasure every parent or caregiver experiences, and the choice to feel the appreciation from us, the acknowledgement from us, that their heart work is hard work, demanding work that is not for the weary, work that is worth it because it is God’s work.

And regardless of or in light of all the choices I made or didn’t make throughout my week at the casa, there is one choice that I was finally able to make.  On the very last day with the ninos, I made the choice to sit with Gonzalo at lunch, to touch his forehead, his face, to wipe clean his chin, to sing in his ear, to upright his body, to hold his hand, to lay all of my withheld affections around him.  I made the choice to comfort a humble boy named Gonzalo.

Invitation to Offering

We invite you now to make a choice.  A choice that weighs your privilege against an Others’.  A choice that begets choice for the Other.  A choice that furthers our collective mission to be a “People for Others.”  And if you can’t make that choice today, do not fault yourself, as another choice awaits you somewhere else, not far from here.  The Offering will now be received.