Beautiful





I met a new friend the other day.
She changed my life.

It was a chilly, wet, dull day. Everything about the commute seemed dismal - the drizzly clouds outside, the fact that passing cars had to use their headlights at 4:30pm, the way each person sloshed onto the bus with rain-saturated clothes and footprints. I was finally comfortable in my seat towards the front of the double-long tin can and I was reading a book about Afghanistan to keep the heaviness of a long day from pulling my eyelids shut (I can sleep anywhere y'all. It's actually a problem).

After a good fifteen minutes of isolating myself in the pages of my book, I felt the Spirit stir up that unexplainable place where my soul sits in my chest.

"LOOK UP."

I didn't want to look up. I wanted to read. I wanted to look down. I really wanted to sleep...

"LOOK UP."

Fine.

I looked up.

And there she was - sitting across from me on a bench in a soggy coat, ripped tennis shoes, and dark, unwashed hair clinging with the curves of raindrop rivers to the sides of her face.

By most accounts, her outward appearance contributed to the dismal ambiance of the rest of the crowd on the bus that day. To be honest, I am ashamed to say that I felt angry when I first glanced her way. Seeing one more person embodying pain made my selfish heart sink into exhaustion.


"LOOK UP."


Fine.

Our eyes met.

A million and one stories were held in those pupils. A million and one stories were written in the deep lines that cut through her weathered face. She looked middle aged, but there was something unspoken that told me that her experiences had dominated her appearances. She really wasn't all that old at all. Really. She could've been my older sister.


Her face completely changed my perspective. 

And it was hard to look down after that. 


The night before, I had the opportunity to listen to a panel of local movers and shakers speak about tangible and compassionate ways to work against homelessness in Seattle. Each speaker took to the microphone with passion and conviction - leaning forward and speaking as compellingly and strikingly as possible. 

The last speaker stood up and approached the microphone slowly and gently. Her shoulders sank down in a long sigh and she smiled at us. 

"You all look beautiful tonight. You really do. We don't say that enough." 

This authentic soul went on from this declaration to share her own experience as a homeless neighbor in Seattle. She described the experience as living on a battlefield that she couldn't leave. She told us that resources were important, that socks were great, and that hot chocolate was welcome.  

But above else, she begged us to tell people that they are beautiful. 

"It's heavy, it's hard, and it's lonely. You are in the middle of thousands of people and you're all by yourself." 

"Look at someone in the eye and tell them 'YOU are beautiful. Yes YOU.' It is very important."

These words were more compelling than any statistic about innovative housing or meals or socks I heard that night, and they were the words that were pounding in my head on that dismal bus as the wheels sliced through the standing water on the floor of our dripping city.  


The bus breaks squealed and both me and the girl with the story filled face stepped off onto the damp sidewalk. 

"Ma'am?" I touched her shoulder. 

She turned around. 

Her eyes. They were so painful and so, SO beautiful.

"My name is Kaiti, what's yours?"

"E." 

"Could you use this coat?" 

She smiled and wrapped the coat into her arms like someone would embrace a child. 

"You are beautiful. Really." 

In that instant, this woman in front of me melted into a child - eyes sparkling, cheeks blushing, one foot tipped up behind her. She didn't have any words, she just stood there and stared at me like it was the first time anyone had ever told her those words before. 


LIKE IT WAS THE FIRST TIME ANYONE HAD EVER TOLD HER SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL. 



The interaction left me feeling completely speechless - completely grieved - completely privileged.  



How many people have never been told they were beautiful?
How many GROWN ADULTS have never been told that they are valuable? 


This problem is not isolated to the houseless. It is not isolated to the owners of soggy shoes. It is in pent houses and middle class suburbs and beneath whitened smiles and manicured nails. 

We can hand out socks. We can clothe and house and feed the masses. We can praise the accomplishments, the successes, the paychecks of others. 

But if we do not tell others the beauty that we see in their eyes, their face, their thoughts, their EXISTENCE...what have we done?


"They need a hug and they need a heart." 


Don't we all? 



Thank you E for changing my life with your beauty. 






If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 
{1 Corinthians 13:1-8}



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