A Y.A.H.O.O. reflection: on the way to Mexico.

As we drove down to Tecate, Mexico to build three simple houses through Amor Ministries, I wrote these thoughts:

“I’m seriously wondering how wet it will be down there in Mexico. All through California it’s been raining. I brought a rain poncho, a jacket and hat, but this will be serious. Mud-caked shoes, soaked jeans, chilled fingers. But think ~ the people who we are going to help are living in cardboard shacks—makeshift huts with mud flooring. They are shivering even as I travel south—warm and comfortable as soft music lulls me in-and-out of sleep and reflective moments.

For four days I’ll shiver and stink, gripe of the mud and hammer nails into swollen wooden planks, but maybe I’ll get to leave behind a roof that won’t leak, a floor that won’t squish underfoot, and windows that will leave the weather outside for a happy family. ~ At the next rainstorm brown eyes beneath a mop of black hair will peer outside and those eyes will twinkle.

Some of the saints of old probably would have entered into this whole experience with relish and sublime delight all the while mud would run in rivulets down their forearms and drip off their elbows. With sandals sunk deep into the muck around them they’d hoist the boards onto their shoulders like the beams of puny crosses and embrace the feel of the wood as a sweet imitation and participation in the crucifixion of their Lord and Savior. For to these saints Jesus is truly Lord and Savior, not one without the other. With every nail they’d hammer they’d hear the nails that pierced their Lord’s wrists and the sound of the metal on metal would be the very utterance of Love Divine.
That’s how the saints would receive this commission: with arms of Love. How will I enter into this mission? If mud be dried to dust, or dust be soaked to mud, will either matter? If my fingers be slit by slivers or the rain makes me shiver will it matter? Will I be able to encourage the teen that saws next to me, and laugh with the grown-up across from me? Or will my thoughts be wrapped up about me, my comfort, my pleasure and my needs?
Oh, Lord, help me to remember the saints of old, and welcome this time as they would."