Have you ever opened your eyes while underwater? Objects are blurred; colors and boundaries smeared like a toddler’s finger-paint. Sounds are elongated and slurred, muffled gurgles manipulated by the press of water. I sometimes think that every individual is, at one point in life, drowning in their own reservoir of ignorance. Perspectives are dulled by an iron veil and the oceans that separate our personal world from the others seem, at times, impregnable. Though the hurricanes may rage above our heads, we are deaf to them until at last we make a decision to surface.
Opportunity came in the elder days of summer. It was nearly mid-August, marking the beginning of the greatly anticipated youth group trip to Schenectady, New York. Every year the group joined our sister church in Dwaynesburg, renovating was to be an urban chapel of sorts, a sanctuary for Bible studies, and a refuge for searching children. It was called the Lighthouse.
I remember sitting in the car during the three-hour journey, blissfully silent, eyelids half-closed to let in the golden light. Voices like vivid stars danced around me: the chatter of these inseparable companions, each dear laugh like a song you know so well. The great body of the Grace Church youth group was a jumble of arms and legs, eyeballs and oddly coiled brain matter. Evamarie was a mismatched iris at odds with its twin, brimming with bizarre poetry and endearing whims. Olivia, her sister, possessed a reserved spirit caught at the heels by her bashfulness. I wonder if any of us really saw her truly, she hid so well in her timidity. Alex, a fervent and expressive girl, was utterly engulfed by every emotion. Our brothers were Nathanael and Sam; Josh and Jo, a dark and watchful boy who rarely spoke; and Randal. My sister and I were the newest additions, taking on and molding the characteristics of each friend. We all existed in the same sphere of life: well-situated in the suburbs of a clean and prosperous town, raised in the church and exuding the brightness of our faith in God and love for one another.
Upon our arrival at the dairy farm that was to be the temporary home for the female representatives of our group, we were clapped on the nose with the sharp tang of cow manure. My sister and I watched intently as each experienced eye lit up at the odor, the key to unbind a chest of dusty memories.
We slept in a funny little shack christened the Huck, which means “little house” in some obscure language. Probably Russian: Evamarie had a weakness for anything Russian. It was filled with dust and old cat hair, but I remember the happy reek of burnt waffles, the sweet, queer taste of cheese with strawberry jam (a newfound delicacy), and an exploded vacuum cleaner that tormented our eyes and clotted our lungs with ancient detritus. After long, dew-doused nights that breathed the gentle hum of fans, the sun would rise upon the striated, quilt-covered hills and glittering viridian trees of the countryside. Mornings of scalding, oversweet coffee, communal prayer and private contemplation gave way, in turn, to the rhythmic fall of hammers and the buzzing drill of nails. The afternoons would be covered in white dust and delicious perspiration worn like a medal of honor on our backs. Physical labor would end and finally it would come: the late afternoon.
During the summer months prior to our annual trip, the group prepared for those late afternoons, composing puppet shows and trying on words and colors like bright dresses. It was like trying to decipher a code, to speak in the way of these children so alienated from us by age and situation. Upon entering the inner city of Schenectady, it was almost as if someone had placed an invisible gate between a certain pair of oak trees, some enchanted portal to convey automobiles and passers-by to a different planet entirely. We, my friends and I, were ambassadors in a desert of sorrows, carrying before us a Light that we weren’t sure how to distribute.
The ministry included canvassing the neighborhood, knocking on each door to distribute flyers proclaiming the evening’s “Bible Club”: crafts, snacks, prayer, and puppet shows. How do you think we looked? White kids with nice hair and clothes, utterly incongruous amongst the impoverished mass of souls, of stares and bold speculation – sometimes even of outright resentment. Someone once said that poverty can’t be understood when it is viewed on a television screen or when it lies as easily ignored as a feather-wisp of cloud across town. No, it is not until it fixes you with a demon’s glare, than you converse with the fallen and watch the reflection in their eyes that you might begin to comprehend it.
The children’s eyes flash bright in my memory. They came hesitantly at first, unsure of this new intrusion. Some followed us as we canvassed, congregating around our legs. They regarded us as one might observe an exotic species of bird, much in the way I looked at them. Part of me was afraid of them, frightened of chasing them away with my rehearsed speech and obvious ignorance. I wanted to know the children so badly that I probably disgusted some of them, especially the older ones who sought the answers I didn’t have. Fortunately, most of my concealed misgivings went unfounded, for after the children studied us for awhile, a certain something must have been recognized in our faces. They began to talk, gushing stories and confidences too heavy for a child to bear; the very fount of their inner lives unlocked by the kindness in our voices, maybe, and the light, the wise and beautiful light of God.
However, some possessed no words and translated their conflicting emotions into action. Eli was a diminutive boy with pale eyes ever turned to his almost doll-like feet. He rarely raised them, and when he did they radiated caution and muted distrust. His clothes were worn and his scent was of stale urine and neglect. Shyness and dirt darkened the corners of his mouth like pencil smudges. When we began to sing songs about Father Abraham and ditties about a short man in a tree, Eli curled his slender hand around mine. The summer evening gathered and rushed then, and I noticed his fingernails, painted in fading rainbow by some ignored and restless girl. He sat upon our shoulders, waving his arms at the bleeding sky.
His sister, an infant named Piper whose mother no one had seen, had blue, birdlike eyes that gleamed like inquisitive sapphires beneath a shock of stringy orange hair. Like her brother, filth encrusted the dimples of her cheeks and the puffy skin of her eyes.
But my arm couldn’t reach the older ones, too tough and proud to join the circle of the young and resilient. They lined the outskirts of the crowd like moons in aimless orbit, drawn to something; perhaps they weren’t sure what – the spirit of unlikely hope and outlandish promise. One boy spoke about his life – rather, his imprisonment. A driving need to end my own blindness caused me to listen zealously. He desired nothing more than to leave his diseased community, being one of the few who spotted in time the bright gem of education. His only regret was for the lives he left behind him in the dust.
Thus I knelt behind the homemade screen, waving puppets and stringing bracelets for clumsy hands, uttering the words I’d rehearsed with such desperate passion. The breeze of falling twilight swayed the burdened boughs of the trees and the night settled around us. With painful reluctance, the emissaries extricated themselves from the children’s grasp and turned their backs to the seat of war. They, the destitute, had embraced our presence and our absence brought bewildered tears that trailed behind our exit.
Nightfall is onerously silent in the countryside, a black cotton mantle laden with stars. In a moment of relished solitude, I pondered each face, praying for the consummation of peace. In a way I was just as lost as they were, fumbling around in mysteries. Their tears and mine, fresh upon a shadowed cheek, were counted and held in a crystalline bottle by the same gentle hand. From the depths of my secluded corner, I gazed up at the broken heavens, trembling before their graceful might. I began to hum a whispered hymn, and ached with the intimate words.
I felt my confinement lift like fog from Schenectady mornings, and I finally understood.
It was just a puppet show. We didn’t clothe, shelter, wash or feed them. They had been denied the barest necessities of life, and yet we sang songs and offered bracelets of colored beads. My God reveals Himself in perplexing ways. Was I to believe that the passion of His gospel was embodied within the simple words of children? We ourselves could never have been adequate, but I know of One whose blood covers us all. Words are enough when He speaks through them, enough to sever the chains that bind us. Enough to free us, to lead us, to cause us to rise and go forth – to follow Him.
Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quick’ning ray;
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
~Charles Wesley, Psalms and Hymns, 1738
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