For Wilshire Baptist Church
I didn’t know what the priest was saying in Spanish, but I knew where he was in the funeral mass. When he got to the homily I heard the words “adios” and “Jesus” several times, and I guessed he was offering the universal truth that we usually hear at memorial services: With Jesus, goodbye is not really goodbye at all.
I didn’t have to know what the wife was saying when she hugged us, sobbing, because grief needs no spoken language at all. And then the slide show after the service showed that joy and family are universal too as one picture after another showed a young newlywed husband, father and grandfather loving on his wife, children and grandchildren.
It was the service for our neighbor Orlando who passed away late last year after a long journey with cancer. We didn’t know him or the family well and didn’t speak the same language, but we often waved to each other from across the street. Sometimes he’d bring me coffee while I was mowing the lawn and sometimes we’d take them home-grown tomatoes or home-baked cookies. One New Year’s Eve they invited us over for their traditional pig roast — from flat snout to curly tail. We were treated as honored guests and offered a first slice off the tender flank. Hospitality is a universal language too.
The slide show after the service showed scenes from a family that had started life in Cuba but had come to America for a better chance at freedom and opportunity. Talking to Orlando’s son-in-law, we’ve learned about the small long-haul trucking company they’ve created and operated for many years with five tractors and drivers and lots of family and friends pitching in with maintenance and dispatching. Freedom and independence are universal longings planted in each of us.
While I know there are people who try to come to this country with bad things on their mind, there are many more who come just to live and love and have a life that they couldn’t have somewhere else. They worship the same God and have the same family values and live by the same rules as us. And in a generation or two, they become as American as we think we are.
Somewhere in the reading of the scripture the priest said “cabrito,” and I know enough Spanish to know he was reading from the Gospel of Matthew about separating the sheep from the goats. The context in the scripture is about how we treat each other now and the impact of that on our eternal life, but I couldn’t help but think about how we treat immigrants. I do know we need a better way — and a faster way — to process those who come to this country looking for new opportunity. We need to apply all the organizational skills and techniques we can muster to get it done. We also need plenty of humanity and patience, although those universal virtues seem to be in short supply lately.
All of this came to mind earlier this week as we were leaving the house and saw Orlando’s wife out in the sunshine raking leaves. She smiled and waved and we smiled and waved back. We hadn’t seen her in a long while, and it was good to see that she seems to be getting back to life after her season of loss. We know that her grief will ebb and flow, but we also know that raking leaves in the sunshine and waving at neighbors are universal balms for the lonely heart.