Broken Dishes And Barack

By Author: Roger Wright
Total Articles: 12
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Broken Dishes and the Voice of God

Barack Obama, alone, leaned against the wall in the kitchen corridor underneath the Hotel Allegro in Chicago and looked at his watch.
Next to him, a bus cart jammed with dirty breakfast dishes waiting to be washed. In the dining room above, his introduction was winding down, and in 90 seconds, he'd get a running start for the stairs and go bounding up two at a time to spring into the good sized room for one last stop on this campaign.
As Barack Obama stood alone; the smoke filled, back room, cigar chomping, nod and a wink echoes of generations of Chicago politicians, their chuckling, knowing spirits too rooted in the downtown loop to ever leave, despite the candidates that came and went, paused for one eternal moment and all took a look.
Later that night, all these generations of dark and shaded political men knew, Barack Obama would be up in front of a room 10 times the size of the one in the Allegro. He would be thanking everyone. And owing no one. So they paused for one quick glance.
Santiago Cruz, 52 years old and smiling like the Columbian sunshine ...
... even when he thought himself alone, carrying a grey, plastic tub of dirty coffee cups and saucers, didn't notice Barack Obama on the other side of the bus cart of dishes. Swinging his grey tub up over his head to plunk it down on the top of the cart, Santiago looked to his right and saw the quiet Obama smiling. In the space of a second, Santiago wiped his hands on his pants and took Obama's outstretched hand. And as Barack leaned in towards the man to shake, he bumped his shoulder hard into the cart, spilling all he dishes stacked on the top on to the floor, shattering in a million pieces and at the same time sending a jarring shooting pain all through Obama's shoulder, a pain so sharp he winced and bowed his head.
And as he winced in pain without one real clear thought at all, Obama instinctively got to his knees to begin picking up the shattered dishes. Santiago Cruz, still stunned by the crash, stood for a moment and looked down at the man on his knees picking up the dishes. Joining him then on the floor to do the same, Santiago heard the applause from the dining room upstairs and the beep of the other man's cell phone going off at the very same time. Santiago Cruz and Barack Obama, both kneeling on the floor, their faces a foot apart, looked straight at each other and another kind of recognition registered on Santiago's face. Where he had been smiling before, where Santiago ALWAYS smiled, the smile took on a deeper tone. Something changed in that smile---and there was a tone of sadness in that smile, then hope flickered for just a moment and his eyes lit up to a new brightness and he said "OBAMA! OBAMA OBAMA!"
Barack Obama's smile reflected the other man's own and while the applause got louder upstairs and turned into a stomping of the feet that drummed into the very foundation of the old political rooms so hard that even the ghosts of all those old dealmakers kept watching. And what they saw was Barack Obama and Santiago Cruz picking up the pieces of the shattered breakfast dishes until the job was done.
This Wednesday morning it looks as though the world might be looking at those of us in the United States with a head shaking bafflement. Just WHAT were these American's THINKING! Or more precisely, just what were JUST under one half of them thinking.
The story that came first on the radio was of the Oklahoma senators who want to simply ban ALL abortions. Then they want to make sure that no one who is gay or an unwed mother be allowed to teach in a public school. That compassion stands missing from the national ethic is a given. The forecast calls for a lot of broken dishes on the floor.
But in the dark morning of such a demoralizing loss-here on Lincoln Avenue in Chicago--praying not for easy lives: but instead for the strength to meet what life brings: I found myself somehow in line for coffee and newspapers at the exact same time as Greg. Don't remember what we said. Really doesn't matter. What does matter is that there we both were, two guys from the same church home--matter of fact the same church home that was ALSO the SAME denomination of Barack Obama. . . . .there we were in the very same line at the very same time. Both of us in that line ready to help pick up the broken dishes.
Very same line at the very same time. As if it was a message: that God is still speaking.
Speaking.
Speaking.


About the Author Roger Wright can be found on the salon.com blog CHURCH FOOD CHICAGO