False Start

I'm nervous to write here.
I'm anxious that anything I say from my cozy kitchen (jazz music humming behind me, coffee steaming beside me) will sound like horse shit beside all the stories from "Africa". (I have no explanation for those quotation marks. I just really wanted to use them. They just embody my conflict.)

A number of things seems less noble or noteworthy now that I am home, the least of which, I swear like a trucker.

I feel like once I start writing again I will just start rambling about nonsense and drivel thereby making this safe place, this honest place, a lame tabloid.

Oh yeah, and I'm in love.

I feel as though this new reality of my state of being has forced me to surrender my sarcastic and critical tone. I fear it makes me less interesting. I've got stars in my eyes where once there was discernment; I have a vague, dreamy look in lieu of purpose. Not that this is bad. I'm in love for crying out loud, not leprous! I'm just not really sure what to do with it.

I'm not sure where to start with an update, or if anyone is even interested in that. Is there anyone even? What a strange idea to project ones very heart and mind into the anonymity of cyber space and hope that strangers will take care not to damage or abuse you when you're vulnerable and bear.

What is God teaching me? That he is good.

Presently I am in the throes of negotiating a return trip.
There's something disturbingly cyclical about the time frame. I should be back right around the same time I left last year. It's funny but it's comforting to know that nearly a year separates me from the moment of impact that broke my heart. I'm eager to get back to the heat and the mystery to figure out what I've learned, how I've grown, and what's changed.

Mostly, I am eager to live out a story that matters, to have a life that is in fact life and not awaiting death. I want to live in a place of expectancy and hope. I want to be part of something that matters, the Kingdom of God really. I just hope this path is leading there.

So, I've been sleeping a lot.
10 hours a night usually. Unless I can sleep in. Then more.

I've been cracking the spines of new books; smelling the delicious scent of fresh ideas; drinking in the wisdom of fine thinkers, philosophers and poets.

I've been writing music which basically amounts to a pitiful culmination of weak melodies and cliche lyrics that I sing at top volume with my impotent accomplice, my guitar.

Occasionally I wail on my djambe.

Often I sit in the morning sun by the big bay window overlooking the cul-de-sac and meditate, or nap, or dream.

Almost daily I am meeting with and talking to people who love Jesus and see him waving Hope and a Future in their faces.

Often, I cry: sometimes with, usually without, reasonable explanation. At the insurance company. In my car. While playing the piano. When I read something beautiful.

Most days I avoid mounds of paperwork and pending phone conversations. I spend hours psyching myself up or out and then give up and bake cakes.

And all of this, all of this amounts to one thing: waiting. I am waiting.
I wish I could say I was waiting patiently on the Lord. I wish I could say I was being brave and courageous. Mostly I am just waiting. Actually, always, except for moments when I forget, I am waiting.

But today, I feel like enough is enough.

Injustice hounds me like a ravenous beast, devouring bits of hope and leaving a wake of despair. I see too much that is too much and I want to DO something already.

Today I hear that heartbeat again.

I heard it in the desperate plea for partners and people of compassion to unify to build transitional housing for addicts and their children. It was less than an hour later that I ran into a social worker who informed me that one of my girls is an addict herself, at the tender age of 13. After lunch, to pick up the tone, I went to a funeral for a man whose story and situation so closely echoed my dad's I felt like I was living an out-of-body experience. And for desert, la piece de resistance, I listened to a representative of International Justice Mission telling me about the millions, yes millions!, of children living and working in the sex trade.

How long, o lord, will you stand so far off?
Or, how long will you allow me to stand so far off?

Waiting.
Waiting.
Tiring of waiting.
Still waiting.

Tha-thump.
It drums on.

Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.

The heart beat is pumping, pumping, pumping.

Tha-thump.
Tha-thump.

I hear this beat, blood surging through every vein. It is quietly, gently, rhythmically calling me back.

George was here. In Saskatoon. All weekend. Need I say more?

George, the father of the Hands at Work family, has a way of making the story of injustice tangible. It hangs in the air like a moving picture. I can smell it. I can taste it. I can feel the warm breath of air on my cheek. If I just stretch out my hand I could brush those kids again. If I just knelt down I would be right back on the hard, red earth.

There is no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.

My chanting doesn't work. This is not a fairytale!

I am living in a mystery and it would seem that the joke is on me. The only one in the dark about my own life is me! What is the next step? I call over the :Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump! It's a fever pitch hammering in my ears! The tha-thump reminding me of His heart which beats for justice! The pounding drum of compassion drawing me into action. In moments of frustration I am screaming: WHAT!? What do you want me to do? I am willing!

But it's unclear. I calm down. Lulled by the beat.
Just the beat. The beat. Of justice. Propelling me deeper into the father's throne room. Deeper. Toward the surging waters of his justice. Deeper. Into the the very ventricles of his heart. Where a plan awaits. Deeper.

too dry, tonight

I stopped writing here thinking the abrupt end to my trip signified the abrupt end to this journey. I realize the journey persists in a way that this mystical space in time cannot limit. I am never at the end. I am never where I am going, even in the moments when I am still, but I am always on the way. My journey to Africa is not what I thought: neither noble nor meaningless; neither selfless nor selfish. It was the beginning to an entirely different journey that I did not realize I would embark on: Grief.
My homesickness for Africa is both irrational and palpable. How can six weeks in a person's life substitute the balance of 25 years for the safety it offered? Yet, somehow, it holds a power that is neither real nor imagined. I experienced something there that was real. But I could only bring home a piece of that reality and every day it loses a little more of its life.
Tonight, like many other nights in the past two months, I sit with nostalgia and memories. I am wishing senselessly for a return to the last week in Africa when I had not yet uncovered the truth which would then overshadow the next months perhaps years, of my life. Those weeks, those precious days, so far away, when my dad was still alive. And even though I wasn't with him, he still existed.
I miss him terribly tonight.
And I miss the way I never had to miss him when he was alive.
I miss the blissful ignorance of those days before his death when I didn't have to worry that he would soon be gone.
Yes, Africa was not about Africa, for me. Africa, was about me. Perhaps Africa just wasn't as fragile as I anticipated. Perhaps it is I who am fragile. I who must be handled with care. It seems I went to Africa to learn that God loves me so that I could come home and face Grief with companionship. It seems the good people of Africa showed the grace with which a person can accept suffering, the joy that avails to those who wait patiently on the Lord.
Presently I am living elsewhere. I am not in the world, per se, I am just witnessing it. I am playing my drum and reading the Word and falling asleep in the afternoon. I am baking cakes and crying and writing a book. I am eating and dreaming and hoping and laughing. And I'm not sure where this goes.
Suffice to say, I am never anywhere but always on the way.

People, people everywhere

I have been avoiding people today.
Not overtly.
It’s not like I’m ducking into doorways or dark alleys anytime I sense someone approaching. I’ve just been going places where I suspect they will not be, then I act surprised when they aren’t, and secretly I am very relieved.
It’s not that I’m peopled out. I’m not.
I just don’t have anything visible to do today, and it’s difficult to be around people doing visible things when you appear to be doing nothing.
I had some invisible things to do. I had to read a book for no apparent reason. I didn’t even know myself why I had to read this book until I read the chapter that I had to read. Then it all became clear.
After I found a secret spot under a tree, where I was pretending to be available if someone needed me, I read the chapter in the book I felt compelled to read and discovered that God is blessing me with people. I laughed and thanked God for people. Ironically it took some solitude to realize the biggest blessing in my life these days is people. Don Miller writes some beautiful things about community in his book Blue Like Jazz. It took his words to finally realize what I was experiencing.
I suspected Africa would teach me something about community. I just thought it would be African community. I pictured lots of African women in long skirts and singing. As it turns out, it’s mostly white South Africans, some Americans, a ton of Canadians, and the odd Zimbabwean. These are the people I actually live with. But live doesn’t fully convey the enormity of the role they play. We see each other every day, we work all day together, and then we spend every evening together. We pray and eat and worship and talk and argue and sing and play together; they are my only company Monday to Monday, 24 hours a day. They are everywhere! In my house, in my field of vision, sitting at my table, washing dishes in my sink, using my tub, occupying my toilet. They are always around. And I thought I would freak out.
And I did.
And no one went away.
And then I realized the miracle of community: the whole world does not revolve around me. They sense my irritation at times, but they keep living their lives and when I come around, I discover the most amazing thing, they love me.
I’ve never experienced this before. This is really the church!

The dark

The dark is so mysterious – all the creatures and dangers lurking within its shadowy cloak – that I keep my eyes peeled.
It makes no difference. Blink, black. Blink, black. Only black.
It might explain why I nearly toppled over when I looked up.
My unseeing eyes were trained on the invisible path through the bush. My senses were heightened to anticipate the slightest shift on the trail or rustle in the grass. It never occurred to me to look up before. Way up. And when I did, my previously blind eyes suddenly saw. There they were, like millions of little gems, a tapestry of stars. It was the kind of spectacle that unwittingly drew a gasp from between my gaping lips. All I could do was stagger backward, hoping my stumbling feet would not catch a tree root or a wandering snake. But even if they did, the view would have been even better lying helplessly on my back.
To think, He knows them all by name.
And this is how beauty keeps creeping into my life. I am just wandering around, minding my own business when suddenly I am confronted by something so marvelous I not only can’t find words, I find I’m staggering backward, trying to get the whole picture.

The dark is indeed so mysterious – all the disease and dangers lurking after hours – that I keep my eyes peeled.
It makes no difference. Blink, despair. Blink, despair. Only despair.
It might explain why I nearly toppled over when he spoke up, my new friend Zachariah.
My faithless eyes were trained on the invisible path through the bush. My senses were heightened to anticipate a solution, any solution to ward of the despair. How DO you let this happen, Lord? All these orphans! It never occurred to me to look up before.
My new friend, Zachs, speaks with compassion in his eyes. He speaks for the gogos and the mages, the brave women of Africa who are humbly bringing the kingdom of God.
“She may not have money or a nice car or a big house – so no one wants to hear her at church. But to that dying man she visits, as she washes his body, as she sings to him, as she hears his story and asks, “Do you know how much Jesus loves you?” she heals his heart. She is the hands of Jesus.”
It’s not about food. It’s not about education. It’s not about AIDS.
To think, He knows them all by name. Every man who lies dying in his hut right now. Every little girl who in this moment just became an orphan.
All I could do was stagger backward, hoping my stumbling feet would not catch a tree root or a wandering snake. But even if they did, the view would have been even better lying helplessly on my back. It might have foreshadowed how humbled I need to be.
And this is how beauty keeps creeping into my life. I am just wandering around, minding my own business when suddenly I am confronted by something so marvelous I not only can’t find words, I find I’m staggering backward, trying to get the whole picture.

Did you know Africans volunteer exponentially more time than any other people in the world?
Did you know the women who do the actually caring for orphans for Hands have been known to carry food parcels to children, when they and their families have themselves not eaten for days?
Did you know that God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise?
I just found this out.

give yourselves a pat on the back...

Undoubtedly the highlight of my week is when orientation is done before 2pm and I get to go to the After School program in Masoyi.
I keep forgetting I’m a teacher. I keep forgetting I was made for the nuances of sentence structure and the fine tuning of essays. I momentarily lose sight of the simple joy of conveying the perfection of multiplication; the tidy little way it always works, always divides, always fits together in a logical sort of way. And so, it’s obvious that the little classroom with a whiteboard is the one safe haven where I feel, if only fleetingly, like I know what to do.
Yesterday I got to go to afterschool.
It begins, as many things in Africa, with a song.
The kids look at their shoes, smiling sheepishly while Lacey badgers them to start a song. No one takes the bait. We wait. Finally, Olga just starts. There is nothing timid about the powerful tune bursting from this shy girl. It fills the room with this melody so captivating that it makes my arm hair stand on end. The boys chime in with loud, deep, harmony that causes tears to spring voluntarily to my eyes. They sing, the floor shakes, and I cry. What else is new?
“Who wants to pray?” Lacey asks. Without hesitation, “Pastor Themba” steps up and with his ridiculously handsome face lifted toward heaven, begins. All I understand is Baba and Amen, but whatever falls between those two words sounds just like poetry. Whatever he says has got to be a sweet, sweet sound: it’s a grown up orphan boy calling out to his only father. It breaks your heart when you think about it, but in the moment it's so pure and full of joy that you get swept along with it.
I decided, after looking at Andisa’s homework, that it’s always fun to learn about percentages and fractions. I begin by drawing my little 100’s graph on the board. The classroom, despite the number of students and the stifling heat, is entirely silent, not a peep. They watch. They pay attention; they very, very timidly raise their hands when asked if anyone has ever seen a % before.
As the little lesson progresses, I find I am spending more time loudly and shameless praising the kids than I am teaching math. But it’s well worth it. The students get a little livelier; the smiles get a little broader. The hands are lifted a little higher and more confidently. Before you know it, we’re all “oooohing” and “ahhhing” at my graphs and patting ourselves on the back exclaiming, “We are so smart!” Before long they are all laughing and shouting out answers.
These are not tricks reserved for Africa. This is just how I like to teach. At home, my students roll their eyes and chuckle. Everyone likes to be praised but at home they can’t openly welcome it – that’s really not cool. It’s an entirely differing thing here. The kids are BEAMING. It’s one thing to say beaming, it’s another thing entirely to look out into a sea of beautiful black faces with strings and strings of the biggest, whitest teeth sparkling back at you. When I set them to work and sarcastically offered my help or a pat on the back, one kid raised his hand for a pat! It was only then that I remembered who they were. Orphans. They have no one to pat their backs. No one who shamelessly praises them or kisses their cheeks with a ridiculous and embarrassing regularity.
I am surprised how quickly things start to feel "normal". I keep forgetting who I am and who these kids are. In the moments I remember I'm not over the heartache; I cry all the time. The tears, however, are now mostly reserved for stories and pictures that convey the beauty of these people. Like a blushing girl who’s figured out 10% of R330. Or a teenage orphan calling out to our Father in heaven. How privileged am I to find myself in their family. How privileged am I to pat the back of my little brother in Christ and tell him, loudly and brazenly, “You are so smart!” It makes me wonder if I have ever said anything else worth saying.