Africa was not about Africa.
I find myself trying to describe the experience. It is like something gets caught in my throat--to put into words what I experienced is to describe a interlude in my life that only one who has been there could feel and completely understand. I have been here before, stripped--in the Arizona desert, in God’s holy temple, in the midst of childbirth. The similarities are striking. The settings so different. I was to become a pilgrim in a strange land. But it was not about a land. It was about a time and place. It was about going into a wilderness like Moses, like Lehi, like Christ. It was about leaving behind the world--my world as I had come to know it. It was about being devoid of earthly comforts. It was about being emotionally vulnerable. It was about being spiritually awakened in order that God might write on my heart His understanding. It was what Abba Felix spoke of, “to create a space in which obedience to truth [to God] is practiced.” This space God spoke of in addressing His Son on the morning of creation, “Let us go down, for there is space there.” There needed to be space in order for the creation. But it need not be a physical space--a wilderness solitude or vast expanse. It is in these moments, interludes of life, that I sense He is speaking similarly to me, “Let me come down. Is there space there?” For He wishes to continue His creations as He fashions within me a new heart. To enter this space, His space,opened at least two possibilities--to be hardened or hallowed by my experience. The one was the feeling that I had been robbed--robbed of clean water, safe food, warm showers (or any shower), a bed free of sand; robbed of the relationships I depended upon daily; robbed of the sights, sounds and smells that allow me to feel safe. The other was the feeling best conveyed in the words of someone I love who shared Africa, “It’s like someone has dropped thousands of golden coins at my feet and I’m scrambling to pick up as many as I can while they’re here.” But the golden coins were seen as such only because of the meaning I assigned to them. To a Mozambiquean a hundred thousand medacai was a feast, in my world it was not even a ticket to a movie. If I continued to think and feel that I had been robbed, in the hardness of my heart, I closed off to the space available to God’s loving, teaching hand. I was despondent, depressed, undone, impatient, judgmental, fearful, angry--lost in what felt a literal wilderness, for it was these thoughts and emotions that separated me and filled the space once open to love. When I felt that golden coins literally lay at my feet I was not disgusted at the garbage or the smell of human waste; I was not anxious of the food or irritated at the process to get clean water; I was not undone by the beggar on the street; I was not fearful of the children with obvious signs of disease; I was not offended by those who misunderstood us because of race or language or religion. I was richly rewarded with treasure greater than any king. I was hallowed by laughter and smiles despite pain, minute starfish on the beach, sunsets, moonrises, a sky so clear that one can see the Southern Cross this night and the next and the next after, the rhythm of children’s feet to the beat of African drums, the wonder of a physical body (my body) that so quickly adapts, conversations that have eternal meaning and consequence, embraces that seem to end too soon, eyes that meet mine and love shared with no words spoken, and this feeling that causes the back of my throat to ache and the tears come. Parker Palmer speaks of a “pain of disconnection,” and teaches that in the midst of such pain we look towards a spiritual healing. When we build on religious truths “we find that beneath the broken surface of our lives there remains--in the words of Thomas Merton--’a hidden wholeness.’” We are, Palmer teaches, recalled “to that wholeness in the midst of our torn world, [rewoven] into the community that is so threadbare . . . .” It is this hope that there can be a wholeness not just individually as we are embraced by Christ’s love but collectively as we allow others to be embraced similarly, and we recognize His divinity in us all. The irony is that we must leave Eden and walk into the wilderness, that we must enter the torn world of Africa, that we must surrender to the pain of childbirth, that we must step into God’s holy temple stripped of pride and lay on His altar all our worldly goods and desires, that we must gratefully accept His agony in Gethsemane and with “His stripes” be healed.
