Marlene

a short haircut full of gray and hardship, maybe protruding just a tad over her ears. wrinkled, warm skin.

Marlene.

for the last three years, I’ve said hi to this woman every day when tapping in for my dining meals. for the last three years, I’ve tried to speak to her in broken Spanish with the remnants of my high school education.

for the last three years, she’s replied in earnest. for the last three years, she’s always smiled and given me support.

last week, she hugged me for the very first time, stopping me just as I was about to exit the dining hall for the last time.

she told me to enjoy my summer.

what’s that large structure clearly visible at the Ministry of Magic? oh, yeah, wizards and high-ranking members of society standing proudly over those of the lower classes, who are so tiredly holding them up with nothing but uncovered hands, which, on a surface level, might seem just fine, but, on a much deeper level, bear years of calluses buried in flesh and bone. you wonder why those higher members of society deserve to stomp on those below them.

are they truly below them? what’s magic add to a person’s intrinsic value? we’re all made in the image of God. maybe in JK Rowling’s world, that means nothing.

I see God in Marlene. from the way she tells me, gracias a dios, to the way she so effortlessly treks through the tiresome journey that is a semester of the coming and going of hundreds of MIT students every night. some of us are dead from our work. some of us, frustrated at other things, take it out on her. some of us, unsure if we’re going to be okay, pretend to smile back at her.

we’re all walking on the edge of a cliff, but she seems to be hovering in the air right by the cliff with us. she doesn’t break character. she smiles every day, despite whatever’s going on in her own life, the life-threatening surgeries she’s probably had to endure during those weeks when we missed her.

in many ways, I see You, Lord. You are everywhere, from the janitors who smile at me when I thank them for their work to the biologists who aren’t afraid to reconcile their belief in You with the tangible logic given to them by training. You are not limited to class, to race, to profession.

You are everywhere.