AN OLD WHITE GUY LOOSE ON THE SAN DIEGO STREETS

Before I tell you about my Thanksgiving day adventure, let me tell you what happened to me two weeks prior to November 26.

The Voice from the Kitchen and I were in San Diego for a couple of days on the weekend.  We try to do this every week but it's hard to be regular at it because of the commitments that we keep making that prevent it.  So, anyway, this is the barber shop that I "frequent."   The quotation marks there are to make you notice that I use the word loosely.  I mean, I get a haircut once a month whether I need it or not. This last time, I happened to be without my internal combustion engine powered wheels, so I had to make do with the "horsepower" that the Lord gave me -- two gout impaired short legs.  Well, actually they're not THAT short.  They are long enough to reach the ground. Now what's to complain about that?

This establishment fits perfectly into the fabric of the section of San Diego, California in which we have our main residence.  It is owned and operated by a young Chaldean man. He and his "brothers" are the workforce.  They have been operating now for about three years.  The rest of the extended family are in the retail business...Two liquor stores and a general store operation, directly across the street from the barber shop.  I am one of the charter clientele of the barber shop because I am friendly with the rest of the family... I used to drink, remember?
I don't drink any more but I do buy my lottery tickets at the liquor store because they keep promising me that they have an "in" with the Man upstairs.  I believe it too.  Know why? They speak Jesus' native language, Aramaic.  If you ask them what nationality they are they always say, "I'm Chaldean. I'm Catholic."  If you talk to them long enough, you'll find out that they talk Aramaic.  

These guys (no women in this place, except the mothers of the children who are there for haircuts).  Also, no soft background music here.  This place is LOUD.  I mentioned that to them once about 2 years ago.  I said that I wondered of Jesus was loud like they are.  The owner said, "Of course He was.  How do you think He could talk to those people on the hill?"  That kind of put me in my place.  I can't help but think about a loud Virgin Mary, His sweet Mom.  You think she whispered in His ear at Cana?  At this point, I think not.  

I have more about these guys, but let me tell you about my walk home through the heart of Linda Vista.

Here I am, a white guy walking down the street in a region where there is practically no majority ethnicity/nationality.  On the way home I drop by the Chinese owned "96¢ store for some of their scented tea light sized candles.  I get out of there and after a few steps I pass the Korean Baptist church on the one side and the Vietnamese sandwich shop on the other. Then there is the Hmong car repair shop; the San Salvador jeweler; the Mexican flower stand; the little Mexican grocery store; the Chinese supermarket; the Thai restaurant; the Chinese herbalist pharmacy; the Vietnamese jewelers and haberdashers with the obligatory PHO eatery in the mix.  I can't forget the Bank of America branch in which not a single person of European decent works.  Our favorite is the Brazilian VP.  Oh, and finally there is a Rite Aid pharmacy and a McDonalds...I do know that the Mac House is all Latino and that the Rite aid has a white manager, probably from Rhode Island, Langevin.  I've never met him.  There are some Filipinos in the mix too, of course.  They have a small eatery going just off the common.  Yeah, we have a common in Linda Vista.  Not a single, solitary little white Congregationalist church to go with it though.

Getting close to my home base I pass the Methodist church.  The pastor there is a guy who was the Methodist pastor in San Mateo, Isabela, Philippines when I was there. We knew one another and had a polite relationship.  I have never seen him here because I don't spend much time in the neighborhood.  
Finally, I pass the Catholic Church, Holy Family.  The last time I was at the 10:00 AM Mass there, there were twelve white people in attendance in a full church, including the priest. He's a part time guy.  The full time pastor is Vietnamese. Nice guy too.  Young.  

Now the crowning truth.  We live at the top of a key-hole shaped cul-de-sac with 8 residences (houses).  There is one Latino from Sante Fe, New Mexico whose been living in his house for over 40 years.  Turns out that Spanish is not his strong suit.  Then,of course, there is Belle and the two Hapas that she brought into the world.  One of them is gone, so we have two full blooded Filipinos substituting for him...Belle's sister and her husband. That's all

So that's what happened to me two weeks ago.  That's a culturally rich mile.  I should do a PowerPoint show for you.  

WHO SPEAKS ARAMAIC THESE DAYS?

As I was growing older (don't forget, boys don't ever "grow up") I often wondered if Aramaic, the mother tongue of Jesus, was a language that people still talked.  Really.  I used to think of that a lot as I was going through school.  I even went to school and took three years of beginning Hebrew as a part of Bible study called exegesis.  Hebrew is a very strange language that I don't really want to "diss" on this page, but hey, there are a lot of things that you can find yourself saying about a language that has no vowels.  But, I digress.  I also have to say that Aramaic has no vowels and no verb "to be", just like Hebrew.  So I suppose that I could "diss" them both, but I won't.  Besides, I speak a language that has vowels but no verb "to be".  I makes it hard for God to say "I am" in that language.  I feel like saying, "Keeps you humble" but maybe God wouldn't like my saying that to Him.  So, anyway, back to Aramaic.  I found out that there are a lot of people  in the world who speak Aramaic.  There are many of them in San Diego.  Many of them are friends to me and Belle.  I happened to have to go to one of the stores in our neighborhood that is run by Aramaic speakers.  I walked in and one of them was in back, setting stuff on shelves and trying to get directions from the boss in front.  The loud talk (they never speak softly, these Aramaics) was going back and forth across the top of my head and all of a sudden the guy in the back says, without breaking cadence, and in very thickly accented English (a language that has vowels and the famous verb "to be") "Wah dah hell I gonna do?"  My head immediately exploded in a lava flow of humor as I pictured Peter looking at Jesus and asking him the same thing with a similar imprecation in the sentence.  Can't you see it now that I have told you?  I would take odds that Jesus would have laughed at it.  Why did the man say that in English?  Maybe they don't have a word for "Hell" in the Jesus language?  Maybe it's like the nuns at Immaculate Conception used to say, "You can't swear in French because it is such a beautiful language."  Really?  I can swear in French.  Ya wanna hear me?  But evidently you can't swear in Aramaic.  At least not in San Diego.
You see, you can find Jesus everywhere.  He still walks the earth.  Not so much in Bethsaida and Caparnaum any more, I guess, but he is sure hanging around San Diego.  It's kinda neat.  The other truth about it is that these people are all Catholic.  They are peace loving, friendly types.  They take care of one another nicely and they don't get to see the inside of the jail very much.  One of the guys who works in the liquor store that I used to frequent is a deacon.  So you can see that there are a lot of interesting things in Southern California.  One of them is that it is in San Diego that I discovered that Aramaic is a living language about 45 or 50 years ago.  Yesterday I found out that when a Chaldean who speaks Aramaic wants to use edgy language, he speaks that vulgar, pagan tongue, English.