If anyone knows anything about Zimbabwe then you will know that queuing (standing in line) is very much a part of everyday existence. We queue for basic essentials, for bread, milk, water, the bank, medical treatment, groceries, fuel. We do not argue, we simply get on with it because we have been programmed, conditioned to do so, it is part of Zimbabwean culture.
Queues are to be respected, they are anthropomorphic, they have a life of their very own. They chatter, they laugh, get angry and fight, and most importantly tell stories about life. They have all the time in the world and can go for hours on end.
Such was the queue I found myself in one arid afternoon. The month was October, nicknamed “Suicide Month” in Zimbabwe on account of the dry, blistering heat present that time of year. I was down to the bone on the fuel supplies I had stockpiled to tide me over through the shortages. I probably would get no more than 5 miles on what was in my gas tank so I had no choice other than to wait in line.
I had already been in the queue for three hours, the going painfully slow for who knows what reason. Someone willing to bribe a fuel attendant can always slip in ahead of others; it happens constantly, it is the way of things.
I was prepared. I had copious amounts of drinking water, a delectable stash of sandwiches, good music, and a book. I was reading Arundhati Roy’s “A God of Small Things.” Life was dandy enough.
I decided to give my eyes a rest and leant back in my seat. I had not long closed them when I heard a gentle tapping on my slightly opened window.
A teenage boy with ebony skin and a gruesomely disfigured face was staring at me. I gasped, partly startled, partly repulsed. He was painfully thin, his face a distorted mass of lumpy scar tissue that lent to his countenance a disturbingly unnatural look, a caricature from a dark abyss. He had no lips. His teeth, arrestingly white, were barred open in a garish smile. He greeted me in a respectful and traditional way. “Maneheru (good afternoon), Ma’am may I have something to eat?”
He eyed my sandwich box. I wound down the window, and handed it over, careful not to let our fingers touch in the exchange. His face formed an expression of delight. As he reached out his hand to touch me, my body went cold, and I recoiled in horror pulling my shoulder and entire self away from the window.
“Don’t be scared,” he said softly, “I just wanted to say thank you.” His words were chopped off as the window shut. I had pressed the autowinder to cut him off.
To this day, the look that flashed across his face haunts my soul. It was a look of pain and rejection. A look that said, “I am not a monster, I am not my face, please see me!”
He dropped his head but not before those dark pools of agony bored right through me. He turned and walked away as if the entire world was upon his shoulders.
In an instant an image of a bloodied cross flashed to the forefront of my mind. I held my head trying to block it. “Oh Jesus,” I whispered, “What have I done?”
Romans 25:40 screamed out at me. “The King will reply, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did [or did not do] for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did [or did not do] for me.”
I turned to look out of the window trying to find that solitary dejected figure, but he had vanished. I scrambled out of my car, searching frantically for him, but he had indeed disappeared. A deep, sinking feeling engulfed me as I sat reflecting on my reaction.
I might as well have taken a dagger and stuck it into his heart for all the pain I had caused. The more I thought of him, the more a visceral sense of his yearning to feel the skin of humanity against his became clear. He reached out in gratitude; I rejected him with disgust and derision.
I would revisit that shopping precinct over and over in the days that followed searching for Shadrach, the name I gave him in my mind, because like the three Hebrew boys in Babylon, he had come through a fire (albeit scathed). I prayed that God would throw him into my path just one more time.
He’d left a scar on my heart, minutiae compared to his. His was a life sentence, defining him an untouchable, a life in which people reacted to him daily just as I had, recoiling from him, excluding him from the circle of love.
I was tortured by imaginations of what a life of constant rejection and isolation must be for him. How could I truly love God if I couldn’t extend kindness and compassion to another? What manner of person was I, where would love for my neighbor be found up in my ivory tower of Christianity? “Please God, one more chance.”
You know, sweating is not a bad thing, sometimes it is only through the sweat of reflection, and introspection that we learn true humility. Three months passed before I saw Shadrach again. I thank God for a second opportunity to embrace him, to hug him, tell him how sorry I was for my abhorrent behavior and show him how much he mattered beyond his scars.
Thank you Shadrach for a life-changing lesson, for showing me the embodiment of Christ in the scars I have come to see as beautiful, as representative of life and victory.
Please God, daily “May I see more clearly my filters, blind spots, biases, so that I might recognize goodness, truth and beauty beyond them.” Amen
Vanessa Williams is a 3rd-year Master of Divinity student at the HMS Richards Divinity School at La Sierra University. She comes from Zimbabwe and feels called to engage her passion and love for helping marginalized communities, particularly women.