The Defeated Prostitute I Didn't Talk To

Across the street, two prostitutes were talking to eachother. To my left were three guys chilling on the curb, clearly drunk and still drinking. To my right was another prostitute. Looking back, I guess it was pretty dangerous for a gringo like myself to be all alone with my nice clothes and bookbag on this poorly lit street at 11:00 at night, waiting for the last bus because I didn't realize I had just mised it. I suppose I should have listened to my mama tica.

I was travelling back to San Jose after visiting my family from last year. My mama tica said I should take a taxi when I get off the 2nd bus in San Jose. The late buses are unpredictable. Also, it's really dangerous, especially in the part of downtown San Jose where my bus stop is. Yeah well, I didn't feel like paying the extra money for a taxi, so I walked the half a mile to the bus stop (like I said before, unaware that the last bus had already come). I can honestly say I've never seen so many prostitutes in my life--and the occassional transvestite. I've definitely never had that many prostitues yell at me, stroke my shoulders as they walked by, talk all sorts of vulgar to me, telling me what they could do for such and such a price. My mama tica flipped out when she found out that I had been in that part of town at night and had waited at the bus stop for 30 minutes alone before finally acquiescing to the taxi.

In retrospect, she was right and I should have been afraid. It was clearly dangerous, especially for a rich white boy. However, at the time, the whole scene depressed me too much for me to be afraid. I remember this one girl. She was on the street corner right near where I was waiting. With her heavy makeup and long hair, she was wearing black boots, a black thong, and a black bra--I'm not making this up. But unlike the other girls (and dudes...) I saw that night, she didn't say anything as I walked by; she didn't yell anything as I stood mere steps away from her; she didn't show off her body like the other girls, despite her lack of clothing. Rather, her shoulders bent in, as if she was trying to hide, and she never once looked up from her feet, so I never got to see her face. I'd give her maybe 15 years of age. I remember thinking how defeated she looked.

What would Jesus have done if he had been walking down those streets and seen those same prostitutes? I have no clue. All I know, is that I felt so hopeless. Who was doing something about this?! Where do we even begin to change all this?

Here in Costa Rica, there's a ministry called Renacer, and it's doing something about this. In a way, this ministry catches girls before they get to points like prostitution. Funcioning as a children's home, girls from ages 11-18 come and live here. Every girl is coming out of an addiction of some sort, so heavy therapy occurs. Many girls go through violent withdrawals, and most need therapy for some sort of crime commited against them in life--mostly sexual and physical abuse. Most of these girls haven't been in school in years. When they come to Renacer, they find a home, a family, and God.

Hugging one of the girls before I left, I couldn't help but notice the scars on top of scars of past ripped flesh on her forearms. I found out that Renacer found this girl in jail, at 15 years old, for having almost beaten someone to death. With an intense history of sexual abuse, this girl first came to Renacer after living on the streets and having heavy drug addictions. But the other day as I watched her sing in the choir for worship, I didn't see any of that. Yes, you can see layers of scars all over her arms, but you can't see the same defeat and brokenness she used to carry. Instead, you see a girl with such a big smile, you wonder how she can manage to sing. Instead, you see a girl that reads Bible verses to other illiterate girls during the bi-weekly chapel services. Instead, you see a girl full of joy, constantly serving; because someone has put her first in life, has believed in her, has loved her like she deserves to be loved. She's almost 18 now, and still has a few more years before she'll finish high school, but she'll finish, and then she'll go on to college. "Who knows, maybe I'll work with girls like me one day," she says.

And so I remind myself: one person at a time.

We Are Disconnected

We are disconnected.

My little brother says I don't know how to keep a girl. He walked up to me, and I could tell he had something troubling him, that he had been thinking about something heavy for a while. He said, "Keith, I'm worried about you. You keep losing your girlfriends. College is the time when you're supposed to find a wife, and you only have two more semesters left. You need to take this more seriously, Keith, or you're going to end up unmarried and unhappy for life." He's 13, and he already knows more about life than I do. He says he's not going to start dating until college, because high school dating is immature and troublesome. He also says that when he starts dating a girl, he's going to pick her right and then keep that sucker for life. I've decided to start going to him when I need relationship advice.

On Monday, a kid I met on a F.O.C.U.S. trip a couple months ago called me wanting to talk about his girlfriend, who he thought was cheating on him. I realize I probably should have just handed the phone to my little brother. But anyways, he was really upset and didn't want to lose her, but it was pretty clear she didn't hold their relationship in a position of as much priority as he did. Also, over break, I fussed at another friend of mine for being so exclusive and intense in his relationship with his girlfriend. Yes, their love sickens me, so that's part of it. The other part I just couldn't grasp was how needy my friend seemed, how being connected to this other person was necessary for their happiness.

Last night, I had a dream where I started dating my seventh grade girlfriend again. It was a crazy dream full of drama and romance, an episode more than worthy of appearing on a Spanish Soap Opera. The night before, I dreamed about my future wife. We were sitting at the table and talking. That was the extent of my dream, and I never saw her face, so if dream-wife is the same as future real-life-wife, I have no clue what she looks like. The night before that, I had another dating/marriage dream. I know, I'm asking the same question you are: what's wrong with me? To that, I answer... Well, I have no clue. I guess all of this stems from the same thing for me. I don't want to be alone in life--none of us do--so I connect myself with lots of people, dating being one of the ways to do that. What my track record tells me is that for some reason I feel separated from something or someone, and I have this deep, driving need to be in relationship. I know I've been using girl-guy/dating examples, but I think you can take sexuality out of it and it still be the same issue. I'm inadequate and incomplete alone, and I'll do anything and assume any label to surround myself with others, even if I never build any solid, lasting relationships with anyone. I would say it all boils down to belonging to someone, whether that's a wife or a father or a child, just belonging.

We are disconnected.

I feel closest to God when I'm away. I hear God's voice and see reality clearer when I'm away, away from technology, and away from electricity, and away from buildings, and away from civilization. Into the wild: that's where I find God. Over Easter break, I woke up early one morning, threw on some sneakers (I love the word "sneakers." I realize no one says this anymore, but I love it), grabbed my iPod and my Bible, and started walking. For any of you Gardner-Webbers out there, I left my suite and started walking through my woods across from Broyhill. My woods. It's where I go when I want to get away. God gave them to me. About a mile into the woods, I realized how stupid I am: I'm trying to get away from civilization and technology, and the whole time, my earplugs are in and music is blasting, and I'm checking my phone for new text messages. So I put my iPod, cell phone, and even my Bible in my bag and left it beneath a tree, walking further into the woods without my ties to the human world. (sidenote: took me forever to find that blasted bag a couple hours later. Go figure.)

It's amazing what you hear when you take your iPod out of your ears, get away from cars and buzzing and ringing and the noises of civilization. Life. You hear life. Stuff that seems small--like wind rustling leaves above your head, sticks crunching beneath your feet, birds singing, bugs clicking, water trickling--suddenly seems so real, so alive. I know that probably sounds dumb, but it's true. When that hit me, I felt like I had received some private revelation from God. Being alone with just God and nature is how it's supposed to be. I just kept walking and listening to life. I crossed some woods, a field, some small streams. I saw deer tracks and what I think are raccoon tracks. I saw lots of birds and insects. When I was crossing the field, I saw four wild turkeys. Life everywhere, and beautiful. And then... (I hope you hear the subtle change to a more ominous tone)...I saw a person. A person! These are my woods! What are people doing out here! Contaminating and polluting the beautiful world God privileged only me with! And that's what I genuinely was thinking. I was thinking that there's no way this person appreciates nature like I do. I immediately turned around and started walking out of the woods. That person ruined it for me.

On my way out, I saw a pipe leaking thick, murky liquid into one of the streams. It smelled like garbage. I guess at first I was thinking about how this world was untouched by people, which was something I liked about it. Maybe I was just looking for signs now, but I began to see evidence of people everywhere. I saw old fire pits with aluminum foil left in the ashes; I saw coke bottles, and candy wrappers, and even a freaking condom. Really? A condom? My progression of thinking throughout all of this and all of the trash I saw in those woods--trash I did not even pick up--tells me a lot. It tells me that there's some sort of gap between nature and humanity. Somewhere along the line, we lost our vision to see the innate beauty and value in nature. Somewhere along the line, we lost our responsibility to nature.

We are disconnected.

Going off of the whole nature idea, sometimes I like to think of myself as living by the Tao of Emerson and Thoreau. However, I'm clearly not a transcendentalist or a Romantic--as much as I'd like to think I am--, and the second I realize I'm not that, I label myself with this. When this falls through, I label myself with another that. Christian. Universalist. Universalist-Christian. Republican. Socialist. Democrat. Feminist. Student. Teacher. Role model. Friend. Boyfriend. Leader. Follower... I like labeling a lot. I mean, it's all about power, right? If you can label something, if you can name a thing, then you have power over it. With a label, a thing becomes suddenly less intimidating and dominant, more easily controlled and manipulated. I hate that I like labels.

I especially hate that I so often feel the need to label myself. What that tells me is that I'm not comfortable just being. Being what? Exactly. I feel like I have to be something and then prove it. I have to be a _____ (fill in political, religious, social affiliation or whatever), then prove it, then prove why my label is better than yours. I can't just be; I have to be _____ (fill in the blank). Just being "Keith" is not enough. Hell, I don't even know what that means. When I reflect, I see my desire to label myself as evidence that I feel apart from something, something I should belong to. I have some need driving me to connect and belong and associate with something, someone other than myself. Just being? Not enough.

We are disconnected.