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ScarsJohn 20:19-31
It seemed simple, really, something to be entered into without difficulty or confusion, an activity that connoted a few hours of focused energy, nothing more. We would shoot a video at a local food bank to illustrate the need for such service in our community. It would be an exercise meant to inform and educate our friends, families, and brothers and sisters in faith, these well-fed and good-hearted people who perhaps did not understand the irony of lack in the midst of middle-class abundance. We hoped that we might provide a little insight, a bit of perspective into this uniquely American portrait. We knew we would find need, but of course, as often is the case in the place called the Kingdom, we also found Christ.
We arrived just before 8 A.M. Though the food bank had only been opened a short while, already there were scores queued outside the expansive doors. They were moving through the roped passage way, curling around the barriers meant to direct the line in some orderly process, a disjointed and sorrowful parade of lack. Yet, this parade contained no marching bands and no glistening floats, only a steady procession of folks adorned by pre-owned clothes and hand-me-down shoes. Old and young, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, male and female, all had one common truth bringing them together for this moment – all needed the commodities within these walls, all needed food.
Their faces told a hundred different stories. Joy and sorrow, pain and elation, generosity and greed, the portraits of our condition, the nuance of our lives. And yet, in each person’s eyes, in each sideways glance or long focused stare at our cameras and microphones, our bags of equipment, and our expressions of well-practiced professional detachment, there was the expression of pain, pain of having to come to this place, pain of not having enough, pain of being one of … those people. It was a concrete expression of a quiet suffering, the reality of poverty in a society where worth is most typically measured by how well one can pay one’s bills.
Some welcomed our intrusion into this slow dance of hushed desperation. Most looked on us with apathy, apathy born from a life of being somebody’s footnote, another statistic to be measured, argued over, or dismissed. But a few looked angrily upon our presence as another proclamation of their failure, failure to make it in this place where the myth of equal opportunity claims that everyone has an unprejudiced chance for prosperity, failure at obtaining the status of being one of the clean and the upright and the beautiful, failure for not being one of the haves. They viewed us with the anger that is always born from an acknowledgment of the message they received each and every day, a knowing that due to their lack, they would always and forever be rejected by a world that refused to understand, so much so, that they even hated themselves.
And it was here, in this amalgamation or human emotion, in this depository of the human condition, where I met her. It was here where the story emerged, as is always will if one will only take the time to listen, to give one’s self over to the life of the other. She looked so delicate, so vulnerable, like a flower giving itself over to the finality of winter. Her gentle features expressed the possibility of conversation, an openness to share time and space, at least for a moment. So, I approached her. We needed to tell the story, to bring definition to the numbers and the faces and the lack, and she seemed safe, an island of serenity in an ocean of silent anguish. Perhaps, she might give us a bit of her space.
I smiled. She smiled back. Could I interview her, I asked. No, she said. Cameras made her nervous. We laughed. They do, they make me nervous, too. Well, maybe we could just talk. Yes, she said, that would be nice, just talk, like two old friends meeting in the café, a momentary respite from the outside world.
How does it feel to be here, I queried, what does it mean to you? I don’t know, this is my first time here.
Oh? Yes, her first time here. She and her husband had both worked, had good jobs. Then, there was an accident … there at the plant. Her husband missed a step. It was a long fall, a much longer recovery … a life-time of recovery. Yes, there was worker’s comp, there was long-term disability, but it was only a fraction of what had been, only a bit of that on which they had come to rely. It was manageable … at least for a while. And then, her illness. She wanted to deny it, wanted to ignore it. Cancer is hard to ignore.
She glanced up at the ceiling, a long glance, as if she was inspecting the myriad of pipes and wires and lights, as if she were contemplating nothing and everything. Her eyes returned to mine. I saw grief, acceptance, and pain. Her look enveloped me, consumed me, graced me with one moment of her reality.
So gently that it was almost imperceptible, she whispered, “In a million years, I never would have thought it would come to this. Not in a million years.” And then, “But every single day, every day when I awake, I open my eyes and give God thanks for another day of life.” She reached up and touched my arm. It was such a soft touch, lighter than a breath. Once again, a sad smile, and then she turned and slowly moved to the next food station where she might receive a box of grits or a sack of flour.
“Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe.” Do not doubt … but believe.
This evening, many of us will leave our churches, churches that are locked during the day and alarmed during the night. Many of us will retire to our homes in walled communities or those “better neighborhoods” where we will find a safe place, a secure space where we won’t be threatened by those other people. And when we put our heads on our pillows, we will once again give thanks to God that we are not touched by the fear and the pain and the lack. Without one moment of hesitation, we will offer our most reverent gratitude to this God of scars.
Do you believe because you see? “Blessed are those who have not seen but who have come to believe.”
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