A View from Below

by Anna McRay

I have had two very unique and troubling experiences in the past couple of days. The first encounter was on Sunday. Those of us who are taking the lab for our Biology class (and a few others) met our teacher downtown to serve breakfast to the homeless. Dr. Hatcher, our teacher, and other members of his church do this the second Sunday of every month. When we arrived, Dr. Hatcher told us that our job was to walk around the neighborhood, look for people who appeared to be homeless and tell them, "Hay desayuno en la posta. There is breakfast in the posta." Rachel, Seth and I set out on our quest. 

The first man we came upon was sleeping so soundly that we did not want to disturb him. The second person we saw was a middle aged woman. She was very sweet and expressed her thanks, but told us that she was not in good health (I think. Our Spanish isn't superb.) and did not wish to come. Then we came upon Andres. He was clearly intoxicated and was not fully aware of his surroundings. We told him about breakfast, but he did not seem to be interested. He started talking to us, very animatedly, apparently telling us a story about something (again, our lack of fluency in Spanish was frustr...fascinating). He kept pointing out something about the building next to us and chuckling. He seemed to think that we should be very interested in what he was showing us. Then he started talking about his "madre" (mother). That is the only part that any of us were able to understand. In the middle of a sentence, Andres paused, gazed at the ground below us, and began to weep. Even the amount of alcohol he had consumed the night before was not strong enough to make him forget his pain. He was unable to stop the stream of tears or even to speak. We were also speechless. Even if we could speak his language well, I do not think we would have known what to say. Seth did the only thing we could do-he reached out and put his hand on Andres' shoulder. I can only hope that we did a good thing by listening to his story and sharing his pain for a brief moment, even if we understood neither.

The second encounter happened just this morning. Our whole group (all 27 of us) was sitting in El Parque Forestal having our version of "chapel." As we were wrapping up our time together, we began to notice an interesting situation occurring just a few yards away from us. A police car pulled up and three officers began taping off a small section of grass in between a few trees. I had noticed a sleeping bag and some belongings over there when we had first arrived. Sadly, I had not thought much of it because it is common to see people sleeping in public parks-in Chile and at home in the States. However, when the police showed up, sectioned off that part of the park, and put a blanket over the body, we realized what was happening. It seemed as if that individual had recently passed away. Maybe even while we were sitting there. With no one around to support him or her. Again, I was left speechless.

I do not have words at this time to fully process these experiences. I know that they both broke my heart. I know that these are exactly the kind of people with whom Jesus would have spent his time. If he had been in the area on Sunday, I probably would have ignorantly told him that there was breakfast available in the posta. He would have been friends with Andres. He would have been there for the person in the park. And he calls me to do the same. These are the faces and the bodies of the "least of these," who see the world from below. As a follower of Christ, I am compelled to see the world from their perspective and to join them in their suffering. And yet, in both these circumstances, I felt helpless to do anything.