It happened in a Trader Joe’s parking
lot. A not-so-by-chance meeting with Sandra,
a brokenhearted woman on a spiritual journey.
I was making a run to pick up some items for my son and daughter-in-love
after they just had a baby. I pulled
into a parking space along the right side of a nondescript sedan. The driver of that vehicle was making her way
around the back of her car to the passenger door. As she moved beside my newly positioned car
she commented about the dark, scattered clouds that loomed in quiet indecision.
“It’s going to pour,” she directed through
my window before she opened her door.
“It’s going to do something,” I returned
affably before rolling up my window and turning off the car. I couldn’t exit, though, because she was
fumbling through something on her seat.
I waited… and I waited, and I waited.
She appeared totally unaware, but I figured since we had just spoken,
she would soon realize the situation. So
I waited. After a few more minutes, she
did.
“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” she
exclaimed as she caught sight of me over her shoulder. She quickly shut the door and took a couple
steps back.
“That’s okay,” I replied as I exited my
vehicle and headed in the direction of the store. “I've been there,” I threw over my shoulder,
relating to being totally consumed in thought.
“Not where I've been,” she called behind
me. Her tone was odd. It was filled with defeat and a sadness that
deliberately fought against itself. Like
a gentle hand on my forearm, it stayed my course.
I turned around and responded
inquisitively, “Where would that be?”
“With your boyfriend telling you you’re
worthless.” She listed off a few other derogatory remarks from him, in a poor
attempt to appear un-maimed.
A bit jolted, I looked at her short
frame, wrapped in a shapeless navy sweater jacket which she filled out. Her shortly clipped auburn hair was faintly
speckled with gray, and its natural thickness held the feathered style into
place. She wore glasses with rectangular lenses that were rimless so you saw
more of her small face. “How sad that
your boyfriend must feel so bad about himself, that he’s trying to make you
feel bad about yourself,” I replied with a ‘Karyn’ response instead of the
standard, ‘oh I’m so sorry.’ I don’t
know why I say these things, and to strangers; admittedly, it is weird! In hindsight I had no idea how that response
would be the springboard for a half-hour conversation with lasting effects.
She went on to say a few disparaging
remarks about him with her broken heart peeking out from behind a forceful
dismissal of the man. I commiserated and
said, “I’ve learned that at one time or another everyone will let you
down. The only one that has never let me
down has been Jesus.” It was the truth. It was my truth and what I felt the Holy
Spirit was prompting me to say. I prayed
in my head, ‘Lord, what do you want me to say?
What does this woman need to hear?’
“Well I’m a Jewbu,” her fast-paced
speech didn’t miss a beat. The look on my face must have indicated that I would
need an explanation. “I’m Jewish, but I
started exploring the Buddhist faith,” she accommodated my confusion. “That’s a Jewbu, but Jon Stewart had a guest
on his show the other night that called himself a Buju. So I guess it can go either way. My boyfriend says I’m nuts and should forget
all about it.” With a quick inhalation and
rising excitement she explained how she would go downtown and chant with other
Buddhists. She named the statue that
they chanted by, but I can’t recall it.
My imagination drafted a picture of a gong, but I’m sure that’s not
right. While I don’t remember the name
of the object, I do clearly remember the weighty impression of needing to
respect her journey and to trust God for the rest.
Her enthusiasm continued, “Chanting
transports me spiritually. We chant
nam-myoho-renge-kyo and it’s amazing that everyone starts off on their own key
and once we all get going we are soon in harmony.”
I sliced the following into the conversation,
“That’s not unlike what I experience in worship. I especially love when we sing an a cappella
song and others begin to harmonize. It is a beautiful thing.”
Sandra confessed that she had tried
unsuccessfully to pray to Jesus in the past.
Like a baby bird waiting to be fed, she opened and closed her mouth twice
to demonstrate that nothing would come out when she tried. My heart literally hurt. To think that something could actually hold
back the name of Jesus Christ from passing across our lips was next to
devastating to me. She explained that
she grew up in the Jewish faith which was harsh to her. The upcoming weekend was Yom Kippur and she
teared up as she remembered her parents, who had passed on. “They are all gone
now,” she said with a grief that clutched more to her culture than her
beliefs. I know that feeling and I felt
her loss. Somewhere in the midst of this part of our conversation we had
introduced ourselves.
“Sandra, you only know half of the
story,” I explained, referring to the Old Testament. “Jesus came and atoned for
us all. He is the way, the truth and the
life. You are chosen.”
“Yes, I know the Jews are chosen,” she
cast that privilege aside, a bit too carelessly I thought. “But I've had people proselytizing over me
before and I just couldn’t stand it. I’m
more of a metaphysical person. I’m
thinking of moving to Oregon so I can chant outside. I hear there are great places to chant there.”
“I understand that, having come from a
New Age past,” I related. “But I still experience
God in nature too.” The conversation
took turns that I felt ill equipped for, so I just kept praying, Lord, give me
your words, as Sandra wrapped me into her spiritual story. Again I was assailed with the sense that I
needed to be respectful of where she was on her journey. So, I don’t know how it happened, and I
definitely don’t recommend it, but we were soon holding hands and chanting! Now you have to understand, I’m the person who
won’t even say ‘Namaste’ when I’m done with yoga and here I was in the parking
lot of Trader Joe’s chanting with Sandra, the Jewbu.
I think it started with me saying, “Can
I pray with you Sandra?”
“Don’t be proselytizing over me!” She emphatically
answered.
“I’m not going to proselytize over you. I just want to say a prayer,” I returned
calmly. I didn’t even know what ‘proselytizing’
meant, I just hoped that praying wasn’t it!
“If you pray, then I want to chant,” she
bartered.
After a cautious moment, I agreed. I took her hands to begin to pray, but she
started her chant instead. I listened and prayed silently for protection.
“Nam-myoho-renge-kyo,” she repeated over
and over with her full bodied voice, yet the sound fell flat like an empty echo. Maybe I was preoccupied in prayer, and maybe
she felt awkward chanting in a parking lot, but all in all it had a rote quality
to it and I suspected she felt unmoved as well.
After less than a minute she stopped, pulled her hands away and then
explained what the chant meant. “It’s a
chant for happiness and for asking for things that you want.” I’m sure she gave me a better definition than
that, but those are the two points that I pulled from her statement. I've later learned that it actually means: I devote myself to the Lotus Sutra of the
Wonderful Law, which I know for sure she never mentioned.
She swiftly began to introduce another
topic, but I thought, not so fast! “Okay
Sandra, I want something,” I insisted and recaptured her hands. What I wanted
was for her to know the hope and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. What I wanted was her heart to find its
journey’s end in his arms.
As I readied myself,
her eyes gave me a raking assessment – an up and down look which gave me the impression
she was grading the make of my clothes, rather than my intent. I must have met with her approval because we ended
up saying the chant together.
Just because the chant had no meaning to
me, doesn’t mean it didn’t evoke what it meant.
I knew the inherent danger and prayed again for protection, not wanting
to make myself spiritually vulnerable.
“It’s my turn now,” I asserted. “I want
to pray.” She didn’t have much of a choice, but she didn’t balk either. In Jesus’ name I said a short prayer that she
would come to know Him personally, experience Him deeply and know His love.
I suppose you could argue that she
tolerated me as much as I tolerated her, but we each chose to honor each other. Once we dropped hands she shifted the
conversation again, and with this unspoken cue we began to walk toward the
store. In that space of time I had
mentioned that I was visiting from Nashville, to be here for the birth of my
first grandchild. She asked if I knew of
Gruhn Guitars. A friend’s brother had
moved there in the 70’s to repair guitars and now was so successful he was in
an American Express commercial. This friend, by the way, was horribly bullied
as a child and Sandra, pointing to her red hair, was evidently bullied as a
young girl herself.
Her narrative continued down different
trails as I grabbed a shopping basket and entered the store. She said she no longer belonged to any
category. She was 60 years old and
wasn’t a grandma because she didn’t choose to have children (a big life
regret). She wasn’t married or a girlfriend anymore so she didn’t have a group
to which she belonged. She remarked that
her friends would give her a hard time if she didn’t wear designer clothes (I realized
then that this was the reason she so pointedly assessed what I was wearing). She retold a time she was in a conversation
with a couple of women and when they discovered she wasn’t a grandmother, they
abruptly ended the conversation and walked away. She blamed their political affiliation as the
reason. I interjected saying that that
wasn’t because they were either liberal or conservative, that that behavior was
just rude. She continued with her fears
that an Evangelist would be elected President, and on and on.
We were by the open refrigerators with
dairy and cheese products when she shared a story about her father, tearing up
again with his memory. “My father was in
hospice care and just before he died he called out for a Father Cooney.”
Admittedly, feeling a little fatigued
from our conversation I was confused.
“Wait, your father was Catholic?”
I thought she had said he was Jewish in a very big way.
“Of course not, he was Jewish!” she
exclaimed.
“That’s what I thought. Then why would your father be calling out for
a priest?” I wondered if there was a
piece of this story to which I might not have lent a proper ear.
“I’m sure he found his way into a church
some time in his life, like I have,” she replied somewhat flummoxed, trying to
make sense of it herself.
“Sandra!” Suddenly it clicked and I
was supernaturally alert. “It was
Jesus! He was face to face with Jesus,
that’s why he called out to the priest.”
Goosebumps did a happy dance on my arms, and I’m certain it wasn’t from
the cool air creeping out from the refrigerators.
“That’s what my brother said, ‘It’s
that Jesus thing,’” she parroted with a masculine tone of voice, then continued
saying “and he’s an atheist. I don’t
talk to my brother these days, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.”
“It’s that Jesus thing.” I went
straight back to the Jesus part. “Sandra,
that’s incredible! You just gave me goosebumps. Do you see that it’s Jesus? You have the most amazing story about Him
with your Dad. That’s incredible!”
She downplayed it, and I couldn’t
believe it. She didn’t discredit it, but
I could see that she saw it as just another thing that happened, not God
chasing after her. She couldn’t even see
that I was standing there as a result of God pursuing her too. I’d never experienced something like this
before, where a non-believer had the better testimony! How does
that happen? It took me a moment to recover
from such a big let-down, but Sandra didn’t notice, she went off on another
conversational tangent. This time it was
about the current global threats; ISIS, Ebola, etc. Her voice escalated with fear to the point
that, I believe she actually said that the world was coming to an end.
I sighed and nodded my head in agreement
that things in this world weren't hunky dory and then said that I needed to get
my son’s coconut milk ice cream. “It was
nice meeting you Sandra. I wish you the
best on your journey.”
We said good-bye weeks ago, but Sandra’s
story has lingered with me. I know Jesus
loves Sandra, our little chatter-box, but she’s blind to his passionate pursuit. Instead, she’s been embraced by Buddhists who
appeal to her metaphysical nature and, she told me, don’t care what type of
clothes she wears.
How is it we can look at the same thing
and see it differently? How is it that
she can’t see that Jesus has no categories, no political affiliation, just hope? The fact that Sandra can’t see Jesus pursuing
her breaks my heart, furthermore, what she does see and associates with Jesus
hurts me even more.
My encounter with Sandra has given me
much to ponder, but for now, I just want to
end this witness by saying that evangelizing is not a spiritual gift of mine and I don’t feel like I do it well; however,
if I’m talking about myself truthfully, Jesus is going to be part of that
conversation. Moreover, when I share my
story about Jesus’ love and deliverance, no one can ever dispute it.
Sandra is an example of how we all have hurts
and struggles. I follow a God who calls me
to share how he has impacted and healed my own hurts and struggles, so others
may know he can do the same for them. Like
the healed man in Mark 5:19-20 Jesus tells us all, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for
you, and how he has had mercy on you.” So the man went away and began to tell
in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed. I just want to encourage you to do the same…
just share
YOUR
story. That’s all Jesus asks us to do.
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