Aliens In The Park
Today my roommates and I went searching for aliens in the park next to the tennis courts... It's not what you think. Or... Maybe it is?
***
We decided to go on a walk today, the sunlight pouring through the window this morning was a call too loud to ignore. After a breakfast of french toast and groggy morning conversation we put on our coats, pulled up our hoods, and headed off campus. We crossed a few busy streets, made beats out of the crossing-signal automated voice, and danced in the wind. It was colder than we expected but the warmth of shared laughter made that a little less important.
As we were getting closer to the park we could have either continued on the street path or cut through the grassy plain. Both my roommates, being apparently mentally synchronized, began to turn onto the grass and so I followed. Up ahead a father and his three children were playing on the brightly colored equipment.
In my own head I began to tense up, thinking we probably looked like a bunch of hoodlums walking through an area for kids in the middle of a Saturday with our hoods up.
"He's probably gonna leave as soon as we get closer." I thought to myself. "We probably look so sketchy right now." Why was I thinking that? Well, for me I have had numerous circumstances where I would be doing something innocent and yet be seen as some sort of punk. I've gotten the disproving glances from the families on the sidewalk of the suburban neighborhood when all I was trying to do was walk home from school. I've had people obnoxiously lock their door when I just wanted to put my groceries in the trunk.
I've been put in that "'troubled' black teen" category. So this time, out of habit, I assumed this father with his three little blond toddlers, would be anxious of our presence, well, of MY presence. Selfishly I felt my roommates would be accepted by him while I would not be. They would be safe with their straighter hair and European descent. It's happened before, so it will happen again, right?
"Hey, do you guys wanna find some aliens with us?" The father called out as he beckoned us closer with his hand.
I know my eyebrows shot up. I was stunned, taken aback... humbled. Two grinning girls holding those little alien toys only found in vending machines and a little brother who could only babel adorably about how he "also had aliens in his hands", came over to meet us. They told us to close our eyes, so they could hide the aliens. "Only on the equipment we'll put them", we were reassured. The game was on. With my hands covering my eyes and a huge smile on my face I couldn't help but know this was a "Jesus moment". He was teaching me something.
One, I don't know everything about everyone.
Two, everyone is not out to get me, nor sees me just by skin color or something else!
Three, I was the one placing myself in some fake box that wouldn't even exist if I would just change my mindset.
So, while we searched for little plastic aliens and made the kids giggle and laugh and jump around with joy, I was glad to be humbled. Afterwards the father thanked us and told us how cool this moment was, his sincerity was amazing.
Someday maybe, hopefully, we'll have more alien-in-the-park moments where out of no where God reminds us of the beauty in others and exposes the judgement in ourselves and mends it all the same. Someday maybe, out of moments made with vending machine toys or something else, we'll connect... just as humans, as children, and as all loved by the Father.
