A wrong turn leads to understanding and love

While my family and I were on vacation in Arizona, we made one of the best mistakes I've ever been fortunate enough to make: we took a wrong turn on the Hopi Indian Reservation.

I had hoped to take an official tour of the Hopi village, where the people live in homes thousands of years old. Instead, while frantically driving through the reservation trying to find the place closing in 10 minutes that gave these official tours, we became lost and ended up in the wrong village. It was in this village where we met a Hopi man named Johnny, one of the most sincere and hospitable people I have ever met.

When Johnny offered to give us a tour of his village, my dad was instantly and enthusiastically on board. As we climbed out of our car, despite the adventurous spirit I like to think I have, I was a little annoyed with my dad's sense of trust: We had no idea where we were or who these people were, and we were leaving our car with nice things in it to follow this man somewhere for an indefinite amount of time. These people were different from me in so many ways -- in geography, in ancestry, in socioeconomic status, in religion; my heart was hard and I was uneasy, skeptical and afraid. I asked God to transform my fear and show me how similar these people were to me.

Johnny and his 9-year-old nephew walked with us through their village, telling us about how they live as Hopi Indians. He invited us into his home and introduced us to his mom, the type of strong woman who keeps children in line even when guests are over, who probably gives the best hugs and who never questioned what four white strangers were doing standing in her living room that was so clean I would've eaten off the floor of it. She was making bread from the flour her granddaughters had ground just a few days before in their coming-of-age ceremony and welcomed us into her home by breaking it in four and giving us some to eat. Communion.

Johnny said he'd like to read us an essay he'd written in high school about being Hopi. As I sat on the floor of Johnny's porch listening to his eloquent, poetic words about living in harmony with the earth and all people, I knew it was an answer to my prayer. I don't think it was a coincidence that Johnny, too, is a writer, the very way I feel I have been created to worship my God. We were able to talk about what writing means to us, and I was able to see how Johnny's words of unity, great reverence and respect for the earth and every person are manifested in his honest, humble and open demeanor.

We never were able to tour the village with the thousands-of-years-old homes. What we did receive, though, was a gift from God that is what life is all about: we were able to connect and share life with people, letting the separation and illusion of difference be transformed by understanding and love.

Mia Pohlman is a Perryville, Mo., native studying at Truman State University. She loves performing, God and the color purple -- not necessarily in that order.