Butt-bumping on the bus

MISSIONER NEWSLETTER – Summer 2025

Sarah Bueter, El Salvador

A bus stuck in a traffic jam for hours.

I am on the bus.
It is hot.
It is very hot.
I am on the bus, roasting as if in an oven, standing squashed in the corridor between many other harried passengers.
It is very, very hot.
Sweat drips down my back.
A clammy arm grazes mine.
Whenever the bus lurches forward, a stranger’s rear-end bumps me.
Bump. Bump. Bump.

I am in the church pew on a Sunday.
It is still hot.
The wooden bench is long, but the four of us are clumped together on but one half, so compacted that our shoulders unnecessarily stick to one another.

In the United States, U.S. Americans react to public spaces like water molecules and diffuse evenly throughout. According to our U.S. American sense of space, we tend to seek maximum distance between one another.

Ned Crouch notes in his book, Mexicans and Americans: Cracking the Cultural Code:

“Whereas we Americans draw circles around the individuals, Mexicans draw circles around the group…[.] There is a strong correlation between sense of space and behavior. We Americans have a definite sense of individual space and we carry a protective shell around our individuality. Our sense of individuality goes with us wherever we go. We act independently, whereas Mexicans see themselves as part of a group. …Typically, we see ourselves as discrete individuals operating within the group, whereas Mexicans are the group.”

Most of the world is closer to the Mexicans in this regard. El Salvador included.

Unlike U.S. Americans who prefer to spread out, Salvadorans tend to congregate.

The Salvadoran countryside offers a moment of breath and beauty—a stark contrast to the dense, sweltering city streets where daily lessons in patience unfold.

I feel my U.S. American sense of space acutely in the bus, the pickup truck, the chuch pew, or the store. When standing bumper to bumper in a line, a woman’s purse brushes harmlessly–but constantly–into my bum.

How easy it is for these minor grievances to escalate: Whose shopping cart is nudging my back? Who is breathing down my neck? Why are our sticky, sweaty elbows touching? For Pete’s sake, won’t all these people just give me some space??

Instead of cultural humility, irritation rises up!

Reflecting on anger, the Zen Buddhist tradition recounts a story about a monk who decides to meditate alone:

“He takes a boat and goes to the middle of the lake, closes his eyes and begins to meditate.

After a few hours of unperturbed silence, he suddenly feels the blow of another boat hitting him. With his eyes still closed, he feels his anger rising and, when he opens his eyes, he is ready to shout at the boatman who dared to disturb his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, saw that it was an empty boat, not tied up, floating in the middle of the lake, bumping him.

At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization and understands that anger is within him.”

Thich Nhat Hanh explains:

“At first you think that your anger has been caused by the one outside… that something he said or did caused your anger. You don’t know that the main cause of your anger is the seed of anger in you.”

These encounters with cultural difference teach us lessons in humility, but they also serve to teach us about the anger inside of us. When we do not know how to deal with our anger, it can spill over into others and harm them, for example, as resentment at the innocent bus passengers.

Resentment toward others does not dispel anger, as Malachy McCourt said:

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

It only hurts me more.

When we choose to be mindful, we can recognize our anger or irritation and embrace it tenderly. Then it doesn’t spill into others and cause harm. Nor does it fester and hurt our self. We will not blame others. Embracing our anger means accepting that anger is inside of us, implies the liberating experience of understanding and forgiving ourselves.

Pope Francis illuminated us in this:

“We need to learn to pray over our past history, to accept ourselves, to learn how to live with our limitations, and even to forgive ourselves, in order to have this same attitude towards others” (Amoris Laetitia, 107).

Once we see our own self with compassion and understanding, then we can look at another person, not with resentment, but with compassion, and realize that she might be suffering, too. Maybe this cramped, hot bus is uncomfortable for her, too. Maybe she is suffering, and I do not wish for her to be suffering.

Lines and buses! Space and heat. How I am being constantly shaped by such elemental forces. With enough high compression, perhaps all this will combust–a spark of patience and humor.

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I also invite you to walk with me as a “COMPANION IN MISSION.” Companions in Mission are friends and generous donors who give financial gifts on a regular (usually monthly) basis. For more information, visit Become a Companion in Mission. Thank you so much for your generosity!