Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Airports or Bus Stations?

While I sit in el Central de Autobuses (the main bus station) in Monterrey, I realize just how different bus stations are from airports. Yes, they are both about transportation…even ‘international’ transportation. One is cool, modern, clean and predictable…and one is hot, aging, dirty and full of life!

When I arrive at the station to wait for the bus that would take me back to McAllen, Texas, on the border, I find a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant whose tables spill out into a large, open area where people are coming and going. A young man named José takes my order (enchiladas suizas and a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice, thank you)…and I sit back to watch the world go by.

A young lady passes—perhaps 18- or 19-years old—with her long, black hair carefully ‘fixed up’…her ‘nice’ jeans on…and a bouquet of flowers in hand…smile on her face. She walks hurriedly towards the arrival area. A mother passes…with six children in tow, all brightly scrubbed and neatly dressed in clothes that have been washed many, many times. One of the Federales (national police) walks by…and he catches my eye because I saw him the day before at another site in the city—he looks ‘hard’…pock-marked face, eyes that betray a distrust of everyone and everything, hand on his semi-automatic pistol. He walks purposefully through the crowds.

An old cowboy comes strolling through the masses…the real deal; not a pretend cowboy…because his boots are worn and dusty, his pants rumpled and stained, his leathery, cracked skin betrays years of outdoors…and in his hand he carefully cradles a small but beautiful cake—perhaps on his way to a grand-daughter’s birthday or first communion. Three businessmen in their business suits laugh loudly together, slapping each other the back…saying their good-byes as they head for different buses, headed back to their home cities. An indigenous woman passes by, and the look on her face is fierce, defiant…perhaps for all the insults and discriminations suffered in the streets day after day.

The older couple walking past, hand-in-hand, are tourists…Mexican tourists seeing their country by bus, perhaps visiting family in various cities; they walk as if there is not a care in the world. A man in his mid-40’s (looks like he’s 60 already) comes to me and asks for help getting home—he was living in Laredo, Texas, but the ‘migras’ caught him and deported him, and now he wants to go home to San Luis Potosi. I give him some money and wish God’s blessing on him as he journeys. A young lady—18? 20?—sits nearby; she is dressed in “la moda” (she is ‘in style’!)…has her make-up just so…carries a new ‘smart phone’…but the look on her face belies misery, emptiness, sadness.

After I eat, I move to the waiting area where rows of chair back up to and face each other. A man sits there across from me, maybe 34-years-old? He looks worried…his suitcase has a wheel broken off. His guitar case stands in front of him. In his lap, a boy—perhaps 4-years-old?—lies in a deep sleep, sweat running off his forehead. Over the scratchy intercom/sound system, I hear “Stranger in the Night,” instrumental, saxophone…so soothing, so amazingly out of place.

In the bus station I see “life”…life as it really is—the happy and the sad, the light and the heavy, the plenty and poverty, love and love-lost. The smells of the taco stands, the exhausts of the too many cars in a too big city hang in the air, and odors of bathed, perfumed and unbathed all mingle and merge in one place…and as I sit surrounded by this writhing sea of humanity, breathing the same air with them, I feel more alive than I have in a long, long time. Yes, give me a bus station, right here on tierra firme, anytime…over an airport.

El Central de Autobuses is become a microcosm of Monterrey, perhaps of Mexico. As I sit I realize that God has created and even now loves all of these people. And, I realize that many, all too many of this tapestry of people don’t even realize these two truths. I am reminded that we as God’s ambassadors must wade into the smelly, mixed-up, damaged, angry, hurt and wondering lives with Good News that can be an eternal ‘tipping point’ for these loved people.

I smile tentatively at the fellow with the child asleep in his arms and ask him how old his son is….

Jon, May 2012

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