The gentle-looking man who got into the dental clinic cab after me was, by voice, clearly not British, but also not American. 🤔… Our driver was a sweet friendly woman who unfortunately had scores of bumps on her face and skin. Surely a bad fate for most women, I thought.
It turned out that the polite, soft spoken man was Canadian, and the woman driver was from Mexico City. I was keeping to myself… and as they spoke, she praised chattingnigly with him all of the great variety of free cultural activities there – compared to “only beach, cenotes, and the Plaza of the Americas in Cancun” – but said she could no longer live in such a busy, also dangerous, city and her having found “her place” in Cancun for 20 years of her life.
Somehow related to the Canadian’s recounting the good fortune of his retirement with his wife and their life,… being “blessed by God” came up. Both of them discussed quite sincerely, casually, certainly, how God, “the Lord”, takes care of those who were good and sincere in their dependence on him. The final words on this from the woman were somewhat: be good to the Lord of the Lord will be good to you.
Here was a good Canadian man, and a single, perhaps lonely, but gregarious 50-year-old Mexican women, discussing prices and inflation after Covid, and then their both agreeing on the theology of the Lord and how he is good to those who are good to others and believe in him.
Even if there is no “Lord”, and the natural atheists are somehow right – if only in an indifference of superior, invisible powers to daily personal life – how important to so many people is imagining, believing, surely needing, their life to be cared for personally .
Stephen Lapeyrouse . . . Notes Dropped Along the Way 