The first Advent Sunday is only a week away. If you haven't done so already now is the time to start preparing for this special time of putting flesh on Christ. Today, in our Quaker meeting house, I shared a story I wrote about a personal experience I had with the Incarnation of Christ to help transition us into the Advent season. I'm sharing it with you all below.
Enjoy!
Kristen
A Window
By Kristen S. Sandoz
It was a dry, hot, African day. I was headed to a birthday party with my
African friends in the up-country of Kenya.
I knew I wouldn’t feel comfortable wearing my Levis so I put on the only
skirt I had and a coordinating blue T-shirt.
I gave it a second thought and decided to don a necklace with a praying
hands pendant, hoping I could dress up my humble outfit with one of the few
pieces of jewelry I had brought. There
wasn’t much improvement but I had tried.
Once
we reached Nairobi we made a transportation exchange in one of the worst parts
of town, from a small cramped stinky bus to an even smaller, more cramped and
stinky mini-van. Out of protection for
the white person, my friends insisted I enter the van first. I fumbled to the back and sat next to an open
window, thankful that I would have some relief from the smell of African body
odor by breathing the smell of exhaust.
The
van started moving into traffic. I watched
the craziness of this city’s life from the safety of my window. A businessman in his pressed, yet
uncoordinated, suit walked down the street with an air of importance. As he walked, absorbed in his own world of
comfort, he passed a crippled man crawling on his deformed knees.
My
attention was drawn toward a row of women wearing brightly colored African
kongas tied around their waists like skirts.
Sayings of the wise imprinted on these kongas hugged their swaying
behinds as they bent over their fruit neatly stacked on the sidewalks. Children were everywhere. Some tugged shyly on their mothers’ kongas,
others ran around looking for a handout and others, coupled to their mothers’
backs with a konga, contentedly chewed on mango pits.
Among
all these claimed children there were the unclaimed ones, the street boys. At this time in 1996 some 150,000 of them roamed
the streets of Nairobi. They were wild
boys ages 4 to 18. If you’d seen one
street boy you’d seen them all. Their
clothing was held together only by the crusty layers of dirt formed by roaming
through garbage heaps while looking for food.
Their feet were callused over as if they had one thick piece of
rhinoceros hide glued to the bottom.
Then there was that “look.” The eyes of a street boy revealed all, a
yellow glazed disassociated look caused by sniffing gasoline and glue. This was the coping mechanism used by these
boys to survive the hard, deprived life they lead. There was more though, a cruelty, a
rebellion, a desperation, a wisdom of sorts.
It was chilling to look in the eyes of a street boy. It was like a window into their heart and it
exposed too much.
My
journey through this city continued. The
van entered a jammed intersection. I saw
three of these mongrel street boys playing in the meridian. I was proud of myself that I had spied them
before they spied me. It did not take
long, however, for them to all hone in on my white face sitting in the open
window. Immediately one of the older
boys got up and meandered toward my van as if I wouldn’t realize he was
coming. “Yeah right!” I thought. “I know
you’re going to ask me for money. I am
glad I don’t have anything to give you!”
I crossed my arms and kept watching him with a new defiant
intensity. It was mutual stand off as he
came to my open window and walked along side of it just staring at me. “What is this boy doing?” I thought. “Why
isn’t he saying anything?”
It
was one of those moments that as you’re thinking the question it answers itself
with a leap of your heart that suddenly makes everything clear. “My necklace, this boy wants my
necklace!” I was surprised that I knew
the answer to my question. I fought the
instinctual urge to put my hand over my pendant and protect it from what could
inevitably happen. I stayed calm. I wanted to see if this boy would really steal
from me while I was looking him straight in the eyes. Sure he could steal from people who didn’t
realize it, but was he lost enough to steal from someone who knew?
From
the margin of my vision I saw his grimy teenaged hand slowly come through the
window and latch onto my praying hands pendant.
His oddly colored orange eyes never blinked once as he swiftly relieved
me of my burden. He stopped and I
continued to watch him, my hand finally losing its control and drifting to the
spot that once showcased a meaningless possession. As my van eased away I wanted to yell
something to him. “Jesus loves you
anyway!” or “I’ll pray for you!” But
nothing came. I was too mad, too awe struck by the brazen ability of this boy
to steal from me! Who was he that he
could do that and still sleep at night?
I hoped that no one in the van had noticed what had taken place. Surely they would not understand that I was
trying to teach this boy a lesson!
That
night I had a dream. I dream a lot, but this
dream was different. I was standing in
heaven and there staring at me with the most familiar pair of oddly colored
orange eyes was Jesus Christ. He was
framed in a window and sitting on his throne wearing nothing but an African
konga and my praying hands necklace. I
was shocked, “How did Jesus get my pendant?”
Noticing the confused look on my face Christ spoke to me gently, saying,
“Kristen, I have given you many things.
But, when I asked you for one small, little thing, you wouldn’t give it
to me. I had to take it.”
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