Today is the winter solstice, the darkest 24-hour period of the year, where night settles in, hunkers down, and exerts it's stubborn refusal to be shooed away. It is dark. And our immediate reaction is to turn on all of the lights and hide from all that scares us out there in the long and terrifying night.
This has been a year of extreme darkness in many respects for me personally. Great loss compounded upon great loss resulted in heart-heavy weeping in the middle of long and fearful nights. I have longed for the light of day this year, but the nights only became longer as the year stretched on. I ached for that sunny, solar religion where everything would be just fine if I only prayed enough, if I just said the right penance and attended enough feel-good, Sunday worship services. "There's always a silver lining," or "keep you chin up" were the cliched phrases of well-intentioned parishioners. But grief is not like that. Things aren't always just fine in the end. It was only dark, and the grotesquely bright sunshine of the Sunday, solar experience made my grief feel like a circus and sucked the legitimacy out of my pain.
Friday! It's almost Friday, ya'all!! Eeek! This Friday I'll pick up my hiker's backpack, into which I've packed my little life, tent and all, and head back to Mozambique for some serious camping adventures. Yeah, that's right...CAMPING. IN MOZAMBIQUE. OMG. What's the purpose of this craziness, you ask?
Manchester UMC, in it's total awesomeness, funded a primary school in the middle of the bush at their partner church, Mabumbuza UMC. The building was recently completed and we are going to both dedicate the building and engage in conversations with the Bishop of Mozambique, the leaders of the Mabumbuza community, and government officials about the next steps in increasing access to primary education in the country. Because of the great travel required to Mabumbuza, camping is sort of our only option in achieving our goal of spending significant time with the community...showers are overrated anyway, right?
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” -Rev. Howard Thurman
I talk a lot about how hard I work and how this job is a lot to keep on top of and how I'm exhausted a lot of the time with all the travel...and all of this is true. But when it gets down to brass tacks, mostly, I do this job because it's SO MUCH FUN!! Like, I really super-duper love it. And it makes me so very happy. It's where I shine.
I believe in the work of the Mozambique Initiative with all my heart. Not just because it's my job and I'm paid to say that. And not because, in theory, it sounds like a great idea to help people who are poor in the remotest parts of Sub-Saharan Africa (although it does) ...but because what we do WORKS. What we do is actually impacting lives and changing communities. And not just in a temporary, band-aid-on-a-gaping-wound kind of way, but like, really, truly, helping communities to become healthy and self-sustaining. You see, our ministry is HOLISTIC and LONGITUDINAL. It looks not just at the individual, but at the health of the entire community. And instead of expecting a one-time gift before getting the hell outta dodge so that God doesn't acidentally call us to Africa or something crazy like that ...we actually expect engagement in partnership with our brothers and sisters in committed, long-term relationships. And it turns out that long-term, holistic investment in people and their communities actually changes stuff!! Here's is a perfect example of why it works and what I'm talking about from my last trip:
I saw a video a month or so ago showcasing one of my favorite filmmakers, Salomon Ligthelm. In this beautifully-shot short narrative, Salomon talks about his experience as a filmmaker in the secular world, and how the talents he's been given is not for himself, but for others. The point of creating, building, making, is not for the artist, but to serve everyone else. That is something I must continually remember when shooting, editing, directing, etc. Any gifts God has given me is not for myself, but for other people. It is a surrendering of those gifts. Salomon would ask it, "Have you surrendered yourself to the Great Abyss?"
Here's a selfie taken just one day ago. I snapped this pic in the midst of a mini crisis that I was having as I observed in the mirror the newly developing crows feet around my eyes as I prepared to go out for the evening. One more year passing. A few more wrinkles. Sigh. But in this moment, I opted not to let vanity get the best of me, but to turn it around...I realized in this moment (captured here by my iPhone) that the lines forming, ever so faintly, at the corners of my eyes and around the edges of my mouth are facial records of all of those unforgettable experiences that have found themselves lining up to be counted on my skin. The deep belly laughs that have danced their way across my face over the years. The countless times I've furrowed my brow to think deeply about an issue that I needed to wrap my mind around in new ways, the kisses of the sun on those warm and rare days when this landlocked, Midwestern girl gets lucky enough to be caught up in the beauty of a sandy beach. These lines are my personal road map available for all to see. These are the visible impact of the roads I've traveled.
