The Sounds of Iran

I just got back from the Green Bean (one of my favorite haunts) where I was doing some reading for my trip to Haiti in a few days. I ended up sitting in one of the comfy chairs near the tea cup fire place next to a man who had sat down in the Green Bean to warm up on this wet and chilly Northwest spring day. He needed to talk, and in many ways so did I. Especailly after the horrific happenings at Virginia Tech two days ago, I am more convinced that America's problem is not flimsy security, or poor gun control laws, but the perpetuation of a society that prides the individual so much that it leaves us thirsty for more, for a community, and desperately lonley when we figure out that there isn't anything more. Mishrdad was from Iran. Facinating to me that an Iranian male would sit and talk with me, but he was lonley and had a story to tell. He was so interested in my trip to Haiti and seemed to understand the country better than most Americans I've tried to explain it to. He started talking about Iran and America. Both countries have seemed to over look him and both countries have offered little to his needs. One thing I learned for sure about Mishrdad's life was that his father was a hard worker, he made sure that I understood that. He had a deep respect for how hard and how long his father had worked to support themselves so that they were not dependant on the Iranian government. I didn't quite understand what brought Mishrdad to America and what left him on the streets or what brought him to the Green Bean today, but it was nice to fade in and out of conversation with him between paragraphs of my book. It was wonderful to share a meal and a cup of coffee with him although both of us hungry for different reasons. At this moment, the verse "what you do unto the least of these you do unto me." became real. It became with a blue beany and a full beard. This man would have given anything to get back to his family in Iran, but because he couldn't find a job, he there was little hope of getting back to his country. He continually asked me if I had enough money to get back from Haiti. I assured him that I would be fine. Speaking from personal experience, I apprecieated his concern more than he knows. How freaky would it be to be stuck in a country where there are few opportunities for you and many people who have a false oppion on your people, or only see you for your government... I've learned something very valuable today that I would have previously preached yet hardly practiced... if you truely listen, you put yourself in a very vulnerable place. If you truely see the injustices that are perpetuated even by things we might see as good and normal, you put yourself in a place of responsibility... Listening is the most freeing act I have ever experienced. Yes, I head to Haiti in less than a week where I am certian that I will learn more than I expect, but it is here in my own front yard, in my own beloved coffee shops that I find just as much need to be heard. My passions are international- God knows that- and today I made a trip to Iran.