What Beauty.

We have begun teaching. In both of my classes and both of Meredith’s we spent the majority of the first class getting to know our students and doing typical “first day stuff.” We talked about our syllabi, our final projects, our hopes for the classes that we are teaching, and gave general introductions to our different courses. (The photo is of one of my classrooms.)

The most profound moment for me was tonight as I was listening to Meredith teach. Meredith and I are attending each other’s classes so that we can help if we get into a Spanish mental block (which happens more often than one would think), so that we can offer suggestions of other ways to approach a tema (theme/topic), and frankly, so that we can learn from each other. This partnership has been wonderful, and the moment of beauty was something I was able to observe because I did have to think about what I was going to say next. I was able to be a listener—something that I think we fail to do often in our daily hurried lives.

Meredith’s class at one of the seminaries is about Diakonia—the life of service. After the basic introductions and syllabus discussion, we participated in a dinámica (game to help with learning). The basic notion of the game is to pass out little sheets of paper and have everyone write their name on their sheet. Then they pass the papers back in (with only their name written on them), the leader mixes up the papers and redistributes them so that everyone receives a sheet with a different person’s name written on it. The student then writes on the paper something that they want for the other person to do. For example, “sing your favorite song,” “recite a poem,” “dance around the room,” “act like a monkey.” Ultimately, each person has to do what they wrote down, not what they were assigned to do. This embodies the notion of “doing unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but in the context of service, Meredith taught us that it breaks down the “us” and “them” barriers… reminding us that we are all “Hijos de Dios” (Children of God).

Gladys, a women in Mere’s class, is about 70 years old…the oldest in the class by a good 45 years. She goes to our church and has a spirit so kind that one cannot help but feel at ease around her. She wrote on the paper she received during the dinamica an instruction for her classmate to sing a song of praise aloud to all of us. When it came time for Gladys to do the action she had assigned her friend, she struggled to come up with something to sing, and appeared a little bit flustered. Without missing a beat (literally… no pun intended), the members of the class began helping her sing the song, and before we knew it, we were all singing. This, my friends, was a moment in which, without any doubt in my mind, the Spirit of God was present in our little classroom. The words we sang were:

Tú has venido a la orilla
no has buscado ni a sabios ni a ricos
tan sólo quieres que yo te siga.
Coro: Señor, me has mirado a lost ojos
sonriendo has dicho mi nombre,
en la arena he djado mi barca,
junto a ti buscaré otro mar.

Lord, you have come to the lakeshore
looking neither for wealthy nor wise ones.
You only asked me to follow humbly.
Refrain: O Lord, with your eyes you have searched me,
kindly smiling, have spoken my name.
Now my boat's left on the shoreline behind me;
by your side I will seek other seas.

It was beautiful.