Fool's Gold

Psalm 14 and 53 both say, “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” So what does the term “fool” actually mean? Does it mean innocently ignorant or just pain idiotic? Online sites provided me with the following:

Fool: a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding
Fool: a weak-minded or idiotic person
Fool: a person who lacks judgment or sense
Fool: a silly or stupid person

I prefer to define “fool” as someone who lacks understanding, or who is perhaps weak-minded, but only because of the lack of knowledge or insight. And if that’s my definition, I’ve met some pretty foolish people lately. Again, not stupid or idiotic, just ignorant of Truth because they have not been taught any better. It's like a child looking for treasure and when the come upon iron or copper pyrites, they jump for joy...because those "pyrites" are sometimes mistaken for golden treasures.

While in Spain with my interns, I encourage each of them to never sit together on public transportation. Perhaps I’m a bit strict in this, but I firmly believe that if we throw ourselves into the culture and language, God will open our ears, loosen our tongues, and bless us with conversation, as basic as it may be, and opportunity to sow some spiritual seeds. If nothing else, the interns grow comfortable in their shoes as foreigners and learn to quickly rely on the Spaniards for language learning. As the leader of the group, I must set the example, right? And so I strive to do just that. It doesn’t always happen, nor do I always follow the Spirit’s prompting, but on one occasion, a relationship was established. Here’s my story of “C”:

I thought to myself, “What in the world do I say to this girl?” I made up something to ask her…something about a particular tourist attraction in downtown Granada and she started explaining to me how to purchase tickets and such and the conversation progressed from there. “Where are you from…” to “How long will you be in Spain…” to questions about education, culture, and life in general. After 30 minutes on the bus, I asked her what her name was. I’ll refer to her as “C”. We quickly exchanged e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers. She rang the bell on the bus and hopped off at the next stop…

I waited 2 days and decided to be proactive in seeking her out. She immediately responded to my email and reciprocated the fact that it was wonderful meeting on the bus and that we should indeed partake of some strong Spanish coffee together. The next day, we met and sat for almost 2 hours over coffee and donuts. (She had NEVER had a donut, by the way. She LOVED them!) We talked about our families in our home countries and our perspective of the Spanish family as we are both foreigners here. We dug a little deeper…in our best Spanglish.

“C” is a 25 year-old French girl who has resided in Spain for 10 months now. She is a Spanish and Music major who is paying her way by being a nanny in the home of Spaniards. Her first language is obviously French, followed by English, and then Spanish. Her parents are divorced and she detests her father and brothers. Her father was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease and she admitted that even if he were to get very ill that she would have to carefully consider whether or not she would care for him and if she did, it would most likely be financially and not personally. She is, however, very close with her mother.

At the age of 21, “C” mentioned going through a “storm” and that is when something quite “mystical” happened. She denied the existence of God until that moment, therefore having lived the first 21 years of her life as an atheist. I am still unsure of what that storm was, but I will admit being grateful for it. It caused her to search for God. And so we dug a little deeper…

I asked “C” if her parents had any influence on her religious decisions and she said that it has been just within the past year that her mother has verbally expressed being Catholic, though she has never attended Mass or church events that “C” can remember from growing up. I’ll assume then that her parents have had very little to zero impact on her spiritually.

So four years have passed since “C” began her search and within the past 5 weeks she has settled on a religion that she says is “rude” yet “beautiful”. She said her frustration, however is that the Koran she is reading is in Spanish, her third language, and not in French. Yes, I said the Koran. She considers herself to be a Muslim woman. She admits seeing nothing wrong with the oppression of women in the religion and also feels that those who live out their faith in militant and violent ways are not living out their religion properly. She does not want people assuming she is a terrorist or that she encourages such behavior.

As we left the coffee shop and donut crumbles behind, my heart began to feel as if it weighed a few tons. She asked about me and I briefly mentioned being a Christian, which of course she chose to relate to the Catholic church. She thought it was very odd that I did not believe in Evolution nor of the teachings of Darwin. She did recall that Darwin denied his theories and admitted to Divine Design before his death, but she thought it was absurd that he would do such a thing after having provided “a way” to believe. And yes, she does think she evolved from a monkey.

We stood on a street corner and said farewell. I invited her to help teach English at an English camp that my team will help facilitate next week. She seemed very interested and even mentioned that two of the children that she lived with would probably be interested in attending. However, I have yet to hear from “C” since we last met. Almost a week has passed. I wonder if that was the last time I was to be used in her life. Makes me think and wonder why God would put her in my path and then allow her to disappear back into her dark world of contemplation.

Perhaps the seed was just for me to plant. Perhaps someone else has been chosen to water that seed. And of course, it’s God that will infuse some Miracle Grow…

Pray for “C” today.