Buenisimo
Different times when I have attempted to speak a few words of Spanish with either American Hispanics or Spanish speakers from other countries, they have been required to exhibit incredible patience and restraint. I am one of those people for whom Sanish has always been a terribly difficult language.
Not that I’m a complete idiot. Basic things like “buenos dias” and “gracias” are within my limited abilities. The more complex thoughts and sentences, however, are beyond me.
I’m impressed by anyone speaking any language who says they are very good or excellent. Those people are a gift to us all. Some of their families have been in America since the conquistadors. Some came in last week.
All of them have faith. Like the immigrants from Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe. Like everybody from everywhere. It takes faith to make it through a day, a year or a lifetime. It takes tremendous faith in oneself and other people that life will work out when moving from one country to another.
Growing up in the Upper Midwest in the middle of the twentieth century, there were still a lot of people who were newly minted Americans from Europe. If we weren’t, then it may have been our parents or their parents who took that immense leap of faith that got them from their homeland to their new land. That was reinforced walking down the street or going to visit friends and hearing languages other than American English.
It didn’t seem to matter to people as much then because we were all in this life together. No matter what our differences, we knew that because of what our parents and grandparents had gone through in two world wars, it was up to us to carry on and carry the world forward. We might not be having an excellent day or even a good day. It didn’t matter. It was up to us to carry on and keep moving forward. We could either move forward with our world or fall behind everyone else who was moving forward. We were in this world to help make progress possible in all areas of life.
Having a good day meant keeping up with everybody else. It meant being positive. It still means that today when we need to be positive more than ever. We need the spirituality of positivity to infuse everything in our lives.
Having faith that we can have a good day makes that possible. It’s up to us to have a positive attitude. To believe and act as if, no matter what, we humans will continue to progress. We will continue to become even more of who we are supposed to be and become.
I am grateful to people having an excellent day. I am grateful to immigrants for reminding me why my ancestors purposefully floated across the Atlantic Ocean over the course of a century or more. I have made many long distance moves, but they have always been within the Lower Forty-Eight States. I even remember a time when there were only forty-eight states. By staying within the boundaries of America, I have not made the difficult, even painful choice, of leaving my native country. Granted, different regions of our country honestly do feel like different countries with their own laws, customs and traditions.
It’s a reason why, if we’re not planning to move to a different part of our own or even another country, it’s good to get out and explore. We presume to know everything there is to know about our own country. Don’t bet on it. It takes a lot of gumption to get up out of our armchairs and explore the world around us in depth. Put your spirituality on the line and get outside your front door.
Sure, we can drive across half the country in a couple days, but try finding out what happens when you stop in a small town to learn about the people and the place. How daring are we really? How great is our faith in ourselves and other people in our world?
The first time I moved half way across the United States I was terrified. What sort of an idea was this and whose was it anyway? Even though I knew that it ultimately came from my Creator, the fact was that I had always wanted to move just across the state line. For all of the times I tried to do exactly that, it never worked out. The first time I tried to move across the country, the impossibilities became accomplished facts.
I believed, like the Central American woman who recently told me she was “buenisimo” and even “optimo”, that my life would be excellent. That everything would work out better than just fine. My life will continue to be better than I could imagine.
It’s not because I had mere faith. I have experience. It’s like eating a plum from the same tree every year that you know will always be sweet and delicious. I know from a lifetime of experience that when I follow Someone else’s plan life works out. Life didn’t work out the way I planned. It never has.
Life is better.
I can say that my life is buenisimo because I learned that is the plan for me.
