Here’s how people walk down the street in Los Angeles: head slightly down and moving at an agitated pace with a blank stare that stops just short of a frown. Almost every biped on an LA street sends a nonverbal message that says, “I know exactly where I’m going, what I’m doing, and I can kill you with my bare hands.”
Yes, I do this too. I might be in a silly, magnanimous mood, but a strolling down a busy sidewalk will turn me into Christopher Walken. Then one day the preposterous occurred: someone smiled at me.
That might not sound so ridiculous in some places. I grew up in Kentucky and lived in North Carolina for a few years, where a smile from a passing stranger was all but expected. But here’s the ugly truth about all those countenances that beamed back at me in the Bluegrass and Tar Heel states: they were white. Like me. The guy who smiled at me was not white. He was also a few years older and clad in garments that would have nothing to do with my closet.
I was so surprised that I didn’t smile back right away. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I think people with different pigmentation than mine aren’t friendly. It’s just that nobody smiles at each other on this street. The fact that we looked different made the contrast to my typical experience even greater. I couldn’t understand why this guy was grinning at me like he was glad to see me, glad that we were sharing the sidewalk. My first thought was that he was mentally ill, even though I had no evidence of that and I’m a freakin’ psychologist. I’d gone so deep into my shell that I thought someone had to be crazy to smile at me.
At last I got it together and smiled back. Out of guilt over my slow reaction, I even threw in a “How’s it going?”
“Great!” he responded. “How are you?”
“Awesome,” I responded. Yes, I said that most hyperbolic and banal of SoCal expressions. Only this time it was true.
I felt both stupid and delighted. I felt dumb for being surprised at the kindness of a stranger. I was delighted that this man had cracked my “don’t screw with me” facade and brought Steve back to life. Actually, he did much more than that; he summoned God to the ground.
Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer said that God manifests in the connection between two people. He argues that our relationship with God isn’t always top-down, with one individual praying to the heavens. Bonhoeffer said that God shows up in relationships. In this case, all God needed was a smile.
Through unexpected kindness, God can reach into the depths of who we are. For example, I pride myself on having theological, philosophical, and political ideas that stand against any form of prejudice. I believe God loves all people and that I should do the same. That’s what I believe, but how we feel and behave often differs from what we think. God can bridge that disconnect. Despite what I believe, there’s residual prejudice in my heart. I’m sometimes wary of people who don’t look like me. Hell, I’m sometimes afraid of people who look exactly like me. Prejudice can extend to anybody when protection takes priority over love. Through that man’s smile, God broke through my defenses. He shoved the ideals and beliefs in my head down into my heart.
After that, a multicultural tooth festival ensued. There are half a dozen ethnicities at any given moment on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. I smiled at all of them. Most people reacted as I had. They looked at me like I was freak, paused, and then smiled wide. To my delight, some people had no guard up at all. They warmly greeted me without hesitation. God was spilling out all over the place.
