It happened like clockwork every morning in the few extra minutes before school started. I would ride my yellow and blue Nishiki bike to school, park and lock it at the bike station, and then walk to our outdoor classroom pod to wait. Irene was always there, standing between our 5th-grade classroom doors with her backpack on. She held a plastic grocery bag in her hands — and the only thing that differed from day to day was the kind of candy inside.

Irene was quiet, and part of that might have been a language barrier. I don’t remember if she was new to the school — after all, it was my first year after living in Tokyo for four years. But I do remember how she struggled to find words once our conversation moved beyond “hi” or “thank you.” My family returned to the States, or “back home,” as others called it, but everything felt foreign to me. All of fifth grade felt like survival, trying to adjust to school in a place that was supposed to be familiar but wasn’t. I mostly missed what had been.

Once I arrived at school, I’d take my backpack off and sit on the concrete in the shaded area of our classroom’s pod. I’d smile at Irene, and once I smiled or said hi, she’d slowly walk towards me, holding the plastic bag open. Mostly it was full of candy. It was a mini trick-or-treat session for classmates who arrived early enough. Almost everyone took something she offered in a quiet exchange. I remember asking her where the candy came from once, and she just nodded and gestured for me to take more.

The rules of friendship and recess took some time to get used to that year. For everything that felt different from life in Tokyo, some things were universally the same. Connection still required jumping in. And like the game of Red Rover we played at recess — just because everyone else was doing it (and I hated it) — jumping in never felt gentle, safe, or kind.

I don’t remember seeing Irene at recess. I asked a friend who was in her class if she gave out candy throughout the day, and the friend said, “Yeah. She’s just trying to give candy away to get friends.” Something about the way my friend stated the obvious stunned me. It stunned me so much that I’m still thinking about it, over three decades later.

I look back after all these years, regretful. Knowing what I know now about loneliness and friendship, about being an outsider and all the things we do to try to find connection and belonging, I look back and wish I had understood more then. I wish I would’ve thought more of Irene and all she was trying to communicate and offer, instead of myself, hungry for candy and hungry to find my own sense of acceptance and belonging.

I look back now and wonder what I offered others in exchange for friendship. I wonder now, after all these years, who Irene really was.

I was a lonely kid too, that year, and many other years of my life. It took a while for me to think beyond my own longings and aches, because it took a long time for me to know that I could even acknowledge those things. If I had known to pay a little more attention to my pain, longings, and aches as a kid, maybe I would’ve been able to see hers too.

Jesus was a master at empathy and connection. In so many of His interactions and intentional storytelling, He pointed to the pain and longing of His friends and listeners to connect them not just to one another, but to those they villainized and wanted to keep marginalized.

When religious leaders brought an “adulterous woman” before Jesus, ready to stone her, Jesus gently reminded them how much they had in common with her.

When Jesus’ followers wanted to usher kids away from all the things they deemed “important” — as if kids were only an interruption– Jesus named them the most treasured in His Kingdom come.

When the woman with the alabaster jar poured everything on Jesus’ head and feet and then wiped His feet with her tears and hair, many of His friends accused the woman of being wasteful and uncivilized, and judged Jesus for associating with her at all. They didn’t know that her offering was an act of love and connection, one of beauty and worship they could learn much from.

So many didn’t understand the depth of who Jesus was, or scoffed at the upside-down Kingdom He embraced. I am prone to do the same. I think about all of this, and it reminds me of Irene, standing outside of that California classroom pod with a bag full of candy, but so much more to offer than that, and so much more that fifth-grade me failed to see.

May we be people who seek to see the way Jesus sees. May we see the treasure behind outstretched bags of candy, see beyond our own fears, and face the aches that connect us.

 

Listen to Tasha’s devotion here or wherever you stream podcasts. 

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