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I sit in the chapel of the Lazarus House soup kitchen where I spend the first six hours of every week day, and I stare at the words stained on the windows. “I am the vine. And you are the branches.” They are words I have heard since early Catholic grade school, but this time I look at the words and I cannot find the meaning. How am I branch? If I am a branch, then I must be growing toward the sun. But today I don’t feel the sunshine. I close my eyes and think. Images flash through my head. I see bare shelves in the basement food pantry; I see mother’s slowly combing through the thrift store with little ones in tow; and I see the three hundred people staring at the ground with slumped shoulders in a long line waiting outside of Lazarus House. I feel exhausted already, but the day has only just begun. I still need to go the Boys and Girls Club for the next six hours. I look at my hands clasped in prayer, stare at the words on the windows, set my shoulders back, and head out into the rainy weather for a trip to the other side of town. As I cross the room toward Jose, all memories of the disheartening morning are erased from my mind. I see this boy—or rather man—he is eighteen years old, sitting in the small chairs usually occupied by seven and eight year olds. He is large kid wearing a shirt emblazoned with “Dominican Pride,” and his body easily covers half the table when he writes. His eyes look wary, and he gives me a measured look. His eyes speak louder than the words I am about to hear. I see the eagerness of a boy wanting to learn, but I see the frustration of a young man whose intellectual growth is stunted by his inability to speak English. I sit down and begin to talk. In two seconds, my words are cut short. “Yo, you Dominican?” No Jose, I am not Dominican. “Oh, you Puerto Rican then” I laugh. “No again Jose.” With my brief Spanish introduction, I had won Jose’s trust and respect. Of course, he needed to test me first by calling to his friend on the other side of the room bragging about the “pretty tutor.” I responded to his comments with my best mother “don’t do that again look.” His impish grin told me that my response was enough confirmation for him. “Hola mi amor!” (hello my love!) I hear Jose’s sing-song voice as I walk into the club the next day. I walk across the room to Jose knowing that I have another long day ahead of me. Today I need to help Jose with a project, and in the next few hours, I try to describe the struggles of the 1950s from McCarthyism and Martin Luther King to Sputnik and the Space Race as I translate his book. But as I work with him, I notice he is breaking down my barriers as much as I am breaking down his barriers. He now looks at history critically acknowledging the successes of men like Dr. King, and I am slowly allowing myself to laugh at his jokes. We come from different backgrounds. He is Dominican, and I am more or less a mutt (a mixture of Irish, German, Portuguese, and Greek), but we hold certain values in common. When he pulls out pictures of his family or when he talks about his promise to himself to avoid the drugs that too often doom the Lawrence community, I can see me. We are two people both traveling in similar directions, and this direction is one I am slowly beginning to recognize. Whether or not we recognize it, we are both growing toward the sun, but this sun is one of hope. It is a hope fueled by education. So when Jose asked me, “Where you learn Spanish?” I answered “in school.” Those two words “in school” meant the difference between success and failure as we worked on his project for five days. Suddenly, school had meaning for Jose. He now understood that in school he sat next to Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, blacks, and whites thanks to Brown v. Education or that the Space Race was responsible for huge advances in science. School was an avenue to a new an understanding of his world.
I didn’t realize it until I was driving home, but suddenly; this service project had meaning for my small world too. I am the branches of a love that God encompasses and Jesus shared, and I know it is that love and hope which will sustain this branch that is growing each day closer and closer to the sun. Note: For the privacy of the students, names and certain details have been changed in this story. Also, while Lazarus House may be struggling to keep its shelves full, the Boys and Girls Club is thriving and serving a great need in the community. |
