Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Cold, clear, and calm
SAINT MARY, THE BUDDHIST
Consider this picture:
A man is waiting at the counter at the local post office for the clerk to bring him a package. A girl is standing nearby, staring at him. A round, brown-skinned face – black hair in long braids. In southeast Utah, she could be Navajo, Hopi, Apache, Mexican, Spanish – or an inter-marriage mix of any of those ethnic communities.
The man thinks he knows why she is staring.
He looks a little like Santa Claus.
Red wool coat, white hair, and beard, smiling face – could be him.
(But it’s just me.)
The girl follows him out into the atrium of the post office.
Before he can go on out the door, she catches his hand in hers.
“Excuse me, may I talk to you in private?”
What?
“I know you are not Santa Claus. I don’t believe in Santa Claus. But my mother does.”
What?
“Just this morning she said it’s Christmas time again and she knew what she wanted Santa to bring her. See, my father is a Navy helicopter pilot somewhere on a ship at sea. He can’t tell us where or when he will return. My mother says that all she wants is for Santa to bring my father home for Christmas.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Well, you look like you might have a connection to Santa, and if you do, tell him to bring my father home.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will,” she said, kissed my hand, and said she had to go to the shop next door to get some hot chocolate for her mom.
And off she went, leaving me with a heavy responsibility.
Just then her mother came out the door and told me the rest of the story.
The girl was left as a newborn in a cardboard box on the doorstep of a Korean Catholic orphanage. An American Catholic adoption agency made the arrangements, and the child, named Mary, was brought back to live in Phoenix. She’s twelve now, and since her parents are white, she has been told her adoption story over the years.
“She’s also very intelligent, and has researched her Korean heritage at length, and concluded that she is not a Catholic, but a Buddhist. She has learned to speak Korean at a language school. Still, she respects our faith and even goes to mass with us.”
“Part of Mary’s understanding of Buddhism is that she has an obligation to those who have been kind to her to repay their generosity. When our priest asked for volunteers for service to others during the Christmas season, Mary offered to visit old people who had no family. Since she was adopted, she would adopt senior citizens as her grandparents. So, every week she goes to the senior center and visits those that are bedridden.
She holds the hands of the old people. She sings Christmas carols to them – in Korean. They call her St. Mary, the Buddhist.”
“Mary says she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus or Jesus. But the senior citizens believe in Mary.”
And so do I.