When the People Know Your Name

We walked in the Asbury neighborhood of Mason City today.  This neighborhood is North of Mason City High School and East of downtown.  This is a newer neighborhood (~20 years old)-a little bit more sprawly and open than other areas.  With a blue sky above and a warm breeze, my companion and I started with a parable from the Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello: 

The Song of the Bird

"The disciples were full of questions about God.

Said the master, 'God is the Unknown and the Unknowable.  

Every statement about [God], every answer to your questions,

is a distortion of the truth.'

The disciples were bewildered.

'Then why do you speak about [God] at all?'

'Why does the bird sing?' said the master."

                                -from The Song of the Bird

Our path took us down along S. Birch Drive, and we passed a memorial where an accident took the life of a young person last year.  The memorial shared a face, place, and a name to attach to the tragedy of which I had heard.  I took this picture looking North from there:

The beautiful day called many people out and we were greeted several times by people who knew my walking partner.  I am reminded of something United Methodist Bishop Gregory Palmer shared about the Zulu greeting sawubona.  Another source shares it like this,

The Zulu greeting, "Sawubona" means "I see you" and the response "Ngikhona" means "I am here". As always when translating from one language to another, crucial subtleties are lost. Inherent in the Zulu greeting and our grateful response, is the sense that until you saw me, I didn't exist. By recognizing me, you brought me into existence. A Zulu folk saying clarifies this, "Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu", meaning "A person is a person because of other people."  

             -Peter de Jager, The Privacy Contradiction

Part of this walking project has been an effort to connect to Mason City, IA.  Walking with someone who has lived here for a long time underscores that part of the process.  Learning the streets and seeing the people is important, but until the people "see" me, I will still be an alien in this place: a stranger, traveller, drifter, outsider; someone not from here.  Let me loop back to the parable from de Mello-God, unknown and unknowable, is like a town.  I can walk its streets, pray its ways, see its people and still be a stranger.  I can walk God's streets, pray God's ways, see God's people and still be a stranger to God until a day when God says "I see you," and I can respond, "I am here."