"Love is hope. Hope is love."
I almost cried for joy. Who knew how much I needed to read those words today? Who was so kind as to take the time to leave this message of love and hope to bless strangers?
But blessing strangers is a big piece of love and hope. Earlier today, my sister Linda and I were walking towards the KeyBank near the University Plaza ( near the University of Buffalo) in Buffalo, N.Y. A slight, neat, dark-skinned man passed us going in the opposite direction. I smiled at him as he passed, and he stopped to talk to my sister, slightly behind me because she uses a cane. Linda has a warm, smiley, open face. Strangers trust her. I turned to hear the conversation.
"I am an immigrant from Africa," he began.
"Oh," I commented, "which nation in Africa?"
"Eritreia," he replied. "Can you show me where this is? The man at the motel said it was only a little way down Main Street."
He showed us a scrap of paper with the words "T Mobile" written on it.
Lin and I set off leading him; we didn't know where the T Mobile store was, but he'd shown us which direction he was to travel in, and we knew Eric at the UPS store in the University Plaza would know. Eric is a friend to everyone. I talked with our new acquaintance as we walked.
"Are you wanting to get a phone so you can talk to family in Eritreia?"
He shook his head. "No. Many are here." He fixed me with an intent look. "Do you know anything about Eritreia?"
"No," I said. "Only that it's in Africa."
I ran into the UPS, traveling ahead of my sister who was walking slowly because of her cane. (Our new acquaintance was concerned about her.)
"Eric!" I called, "we're trying to help an immigrant from Eritreia find the T Mobile store. Where is it?"
Eric looked up alertly; he helps all the University students from around the world who cluster into his store, sending and receiving mail. "Down near Walgreen's and next to Tim Horton's," he responded.
We continued our trek, and some cheerful African American ladies calling directions across the parking lot were the next to help us precision out the location of T Mobile.
Before our new acquaintance left us, he looked at us and said, "America is Heaven in this world. I will pray for you."
I touched his arm. "And I will pray for you."
Linda and I lingered a few minutes, watching his progress towards the T Mobile sign we could finally see. Wondering what his progress would be like in his new country.
When I got home later, I looked up Eritreia. Eritreia is a one-party state in Africa in which national legislative elections have been repeatedly postponed. According to Human Rights Watch, the Eritreian government's human rights record is considered among the worst in the world. Among the worst, I murmured to myself.
America is indeed Heaven in this world.
America is Love. America is Hope.
If only we could see our country through the eyes of the immigrants coming here to America! Imagine the freedom of knowing that you can walk down Main Street, looking for T Mobile, not worrying about government agents breathing down your neck, not worrying about bombs going off in your neighborhood daily, even hourly, as they do in Syria, not having to trek punishing miles daily to receive food and water as they do in Sudan.... How much Hope that freedom gives an exhausted soul, how much a promise of Love that freedom gives a famished spirit! Freedom to smile, to laugh, to read a newspaper put out by a free press. Freedom, simply, to breathe.
Freedom to talk on the street to strangers and expect to receive a smiling response, receive friendly helpful calls across a parking lot. Instead of living daily expecting a knife in the ribs or untraceable poison in your food.
So often, we look at our lives and feel as if it's the end of the world. So often we weep, thinking of loved ones ill or dying, jobs lost, relationship betrayals. Surely we have a right to feel this way. But -
We also have the freedom to experience immense gratitude for all that we have here. All that God has given America. And, God asks us to share our abundance. "The gift you have received, give as a gift."
For our immigrants, who leave behind repressive governments, famine, sporadic health care, no education perhaps, or endless war, America is Heaven in the world, where Love and Hope exist in abundance. They have already experienced the end of the world. Now, like the caterpillar who has crawled into a protective cocoon, they can emerge as butterflies. They will help rebuild the new cities where they live.
I pray for our new acquaintance, our immigrant from Eritreia, that he finds hope and love in abundance here. Most of all, I pray for our country. That we remain a government of the people, for the people, by the people. With a free press, freedom of religion, and freedom to hope, to love, to dream, to rebuild, and, above all, to powerfully reimagine justice and peace and plenty to share - for all of us, no matter where we originally come from.
A country where a stranger can always provide a blessing of prayer, of Love and Hope, for another stranger. Even - and especially - can gratefully leave the blessing written on a swathe of toilet paper in a Women's rest room: "Love is hope. Hope is love."