Standing Tall While Stooping Low

The company Hiromi works for had its annual picnic this past weekend. While Hiromi posed with other employees for the obligatory picture, I went inside the building to stake out a place to eat. An empty spot a third of the way down one row of tables beckoned, and, blinder-eyed as I passed them, I noticed only vaguely the man and woman who sat at the near end of that row.

While I waited, I heard the man say to the woman opposite him “Mom is coming soon.” I looked more carefully at the woman and began to get a hint of the relationship between these two people–siblings maybe, both obviously adults, the man, handsome, young, and self-assured, the woman, child-like and fearful, wanting her mother. In the short space of time before Hiromi came I heard him say several more times, “It’s OK. Mom’s coming soon.” Between times he read the magazine on the table in front of him.

A lady they both knew came along and gave the woman a hug. I heard the man explain that his companion had spotted her earlier but she “got all shy and hid her face.” The passerby’s manner was kind and interested as she talked to the childlike woman, not a whit condescending or patronizing.

After the Master of Ceremonies (The #2 man in the company’s hierarchy) made a few announcements to get the food line started, I momentarily lost track of the two people at the end of the table. And then I saw them. The woman was holding the hand of the MC as he led her to the food line. The brother was following protectively behind both of them. Ahead of them was another woman, presumably the much-longed-for mother. In that moment, I caught a glimpse of this family’s reality: success in the work world, private heartbreak, and enough acceptance of circumstances to let them be an unapologetic, compassionate, close family in a very large public gathering.

The same evening I saw another fine-looking young man saying hi to several young children he obviously knew. Then he kept repeating a single-word question that sounded like “huck?” The children’s mother urged, “Come on, give him a hug.” By turns, they both threw their arms around his knees–the only portion of his frame within their reach. He walked off smiling. I remembered him then, the now-grown-up son of one of the company’s supervisors. I had first noticed him a number of years ago when he was about twelve. His dad is fastidious about his nice truck and takes care to stay in top physical condition. I wondered how this son fit into that high-achieving family. But, for at least a few minutes that night, he was very happy.

A story my mother told me came to mind in the days since then. It happened in our church youth group when some of my younger siblings were part of it. None of them knew the story until years later.

A young man from another state came to work here in Kansas one summer. He hardly knew anyone, and for reasons not clear to me now, he felt very uncertain and inferior. He left at the end of the summer, and after more than a decade had passed, my parents visited his young family’s home on the mission field. He told them what had happened inside his heart and head that Kansas summer. “I saw that this youth group had several people who were different in unenviable ways, and I noticed that no one made fun of them or acted as though they were unwelcome. That gave me an enormous amount of hope. I knew that if those other people were accepted, I would be accepted too.” The realization was life-changing.

I am unspeakably proud of our youth group’s behavior in that long-ago time.

More recently, the adoptive mother of a child who seems to have been affected by fetal alcohol syndrome told me that when Arlyn was in our youth group, he always made a place for her daughter. Arlyn was a leader, and his kindness was contagious. The daughter felt loved and cared for. In telling me, the mother was deeply grateful, and I felt tremendous admiration for the young people involved.

Not every intimidated person will end up on a mission field if someone demonstrates enough kindness to give him hope. Not every one will be able to blend into a crowd without creating ripples. But those who show respect and love to irregular people will create the kind of gentle waves that reach across crowds of people and years of memories to stir and caress the hearts of all who take note. Stooping low and standing tall simultaneously is a hard act to follow, but I’ve seen it done, and thank God for the people who have shown us how.