Humanizing God

Here is a small essay I wrote.

It’s philosophical in nature, because it looks at big themes like the world, human beings and God.

It looks at how I see them. 

The title for the essay is “Humanizing God.”

These two terms seem to contradict each other until we remember that the early church had an easier time believing that Jesus was fully divine than that Jesus was fully human. 

We have a hard time believing Jesus was fully human, too.

This effects the way we ‘see’ the world and how we ‘be’ in the world. 

Do we live our lives in ways that say to people like the blind beggar Bartimaeus in the gospels, “Lose heart! Stay where you are! God doesn’t see you!”

Or do we live our lives in ways that say, “Take heart! Get up! God sees you!”

And I see you, too.

Who am I?

I often look at myself in the mirror and ask, "Who are you?" 

I see myself standing in a small village in western Mali on the border with Guinea.

I’m gently holding the burned arm of the toddler of my friends Sirima and Madu.

The child's name is Papa, and some scalding hot sauce in an iron pot straight from the cooking fire spilled on his little arm, bubbling the skin and bringing the anguish of a second degree burn.

With the simplest of elements - water, soap, cotton, scissors, gauze, bandages, Neosporin and a kiss - I share simple kindness to assuage the deep pain of my small friend.

Sirima holds Papa. 

I wash his arm with the soap and water. 

Madu cuts away the damaged, dangling skin with the scissors. 

I coat the gauze with the Neosporin and carefully press it against the wound. 

Madu wraps the bandage around the gauze. 

Together, with hope, Sirima, Madu and I help and heal Papa as humbly as we can.

I lean down to Papa's tiny, suffering, human face.

My nose gently brushes his nose. 

I tenderly press my lips to a tear rolling down his chubby cheek. 

I taste the salt of his tears. 

"N b'i fe," I whisper.

That means, "I love you." 

I do.

In that moment. I am a missionary, planting and nurturing hope, tasting the salt in the tears of the world. 

That’s what missionaries do. 

That’s who missionaries are. 

I also see myself working in a small classroom in the Berea community on the western side of Greenville County in the upstate of South Carolina.

I’m sitting beside 10 year old Geraldine on the carpet in the reading area.

I’m talking with her about a wonderful book she’s reading, Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy, by Karen Foxlee. 

“Oh Mr. Barton,” she says with a giggle, “I’m just like Ophelia in the story because she’s a curious kind of kid and I’m a curious kind of kid because I want to know everything about everything.”

She becomes serious. 

“But she’s a nervous kind of kid, too, because she’s had a hard life and I’ve kind of had a hard life, too.” 

I look into her earthy brown eyes and think about the ground from which she came, for she came here from the farms and fields of Guatemala with her family. 

For the first time, I notice the faintest of dark circles around her eyes, the slightest of a downward turn at the corners of her mouth, and a hint of tiredness and sadness that should not often be found on a 10-year-olds face.

“Geraldine,” I ask, “What’s your life like?” 

She tells me her story. 

“I share a room with my Mom, my aunt, my sister, and my two younger cousins,” she begins, “And my family works really, really hard.”

As she talks with me about the book and about her life, a tiny tear appears in the corner of her eye. 

I wonder if it comes from giggles or from sadness. 

I catch the tear in my hand as it rolls off her cheek.

“See how I caught your tear?” I ask. 

“As your teacher, I’m here to catch your happiness and your sadness, Geraldine. 

I’m here to help you learn everything about everything so you can be anything you want to be. 

I’m here.”

That’s what teachers do.

That’s who teachers are.

And I see myself writing at my old wooden farm table by the window in my kitchen.

With a calloused hand and a caring heart, I’m holding the world in my pen.

As a writer, I look for beauty in the plain, genius in the simple, wonder in the ordinary and courage in the human each and every moment of each and every day. 

I write because I believe the human face will always overcome the heel of a boot, the way it did on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, the way it does today.

That’s what writers do.

That’s who writers are.

So, these three things that I am - missionary, teacher and writer - are soil, sunlight and water. 

They help me grow a more human world for everyone, and help me grow to be simply human myself.