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Nate Henn

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A vison, a dream, a poem.

I’ve been battling self-contempt this Lenten season with feasting.

Humans have a spectrum of methods for the sinful evasion of the totality of God’s love and mercy. We are relentlessly sinful and inconsolably ashamed. God is relentlessly merciful and gracious. I am at times so committed to God’s perfect justice that I submit my life to it entirely, relishing the burden it puts on me for holy living that I cannot achieve. I chasten myself with much guilt, ardor and enthusiasm because I love punishing myself. It is the way I cope with my condition of being alienated from God.

The problem is, this is not God’s plan for my reaction to the condition of being alienated from God. God’s plan is to draw me to a joyful and sweetly sorrowful repentance driven by His goodness that is so total it is defeating. Surrender is his goal, not punishment.

“Just admit how awesome I am!!! Come on look at me I am so awesome!”

This is what He is about.

We, on the other hand, can get much more complicated with things. Let's examine.

People are two things:
dignity and depravity.

Dignity is the part of you that is created in the image of God. Dignity is the part of you that it is sinful to punish. Dignity is the part of you that God desperately desires to save from spiraling into death and oblivion and meaninglessness. It is this part of you that He has redeemed as belonging to Him by the sacrifice of His son. Your dignity need not be assailed for your wrongdoings because it has been transformed into something that pleases God if it is covered by the blood of Christ. Things that reflect your dignity as a human created for the purposes of God are things like: a desire for relationship and intimacy with others, the longing to see life count or matter, the desire to matter to someone else.

Depravity is that part of you that is growing like a vine around a washing machine left in the backyard. The vine causes the parts to deform or break or work incorrectly, making the machine unable to fulfill its purpose. When a part of you becomes broken by the force of the vine, that doesn’t mean that this part of you becomes the vine itself. It just means that it is broken. A mailbox broken by a baseball bat does not make the mailbox a baseball bat. It makes it broken.

God has awesome plans for broken things. It is his intention to miraculously restore all parts of his creatures back to wholeness and dignity. It is God’s intention to clear away the vines and heal absolutely all of his creation that has been touched by depravity.

We are self-punishers because our hearts are opposed to God's grace and redemption. We would sooner destroy the parts of ourselves that have been touched by death than trust in God's healing.


A Vision


God and I share a home. The home is infested with roaches. The infestation has become bleak. Entire walls and cabinets are rotting out. Roaches are coming out of the drains in the shower. They fall through the ceiling onto the bed at night. God has promised me over and over again that He’s going to fix the house.

Yeah right. I mean look at this crap.

So on a Saturday morning I get my sleeves rolled up and I put my boots on and I get some tunes on the stereo going real loud and I am gonna get this place PURIFIED for sure. I start ripping out our sinks and I start knocking in our ceiling and I start making a burn pile out of our kitchen.

God comes back from walking the dog and He bellows from the open front door, “HONEY! What are you doing to our house?”

And I say angrily, “A lot more than you’ve been doing around here Mr. Restoration! I’m ripping this crap out so you’ll finally fix it like you keep saying!”

“I did say that I was going to restore you. And I am restoring you absolutely. You are so precious to me. Restoration has no conditions or requirements. You don’t have to resort to threats and self-destruction. You aren’t hopeless and you aren’t a burn pile. You’re MINE and I’m already restoring you. Here I am...with you."

He grows silent. The dust is settling.

"Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” He whispers.

And now I’m crying and I’ve dropped the sledge hammer and the drywall dust is getting pasty on my face from the tears and the snot. I’m sitting on the floor and a nail is digging into my knee and I’m gasping as I try to get some words out.

“I’m….s….s….”

There’s a long pause and He kneels down next to me and looks me in my downcast eyes and pulls my hair out of my face the way my mother used to do.

“But what about all of those times I told you that our house was falling apart and you didn’t do anything even though I was getting sick?”

“Well dear…..I did try. I called the exterminator. You remember what happened?”
“I locked him out and I yelled at him……bec…ause…”
“Because you said he was killing your pets. You made a big scene and threw his clipboard in the yard.”
“yeah. Well he was a jerk about it ….”
“He was doing his job, honey.” He says with a mixed laugh that makes me laugh too.

"Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for OUR vines have tender grapes."
Song 2:15

It really is comedic. I go to great lengths to undermine God’s good work in my life. In view of His heroic efforts and sweeping acts of devotion, I seem childish and short-sighted a lot of the time.

Punishing ourselves for our wrongdoings is like ripping out our own hearts because they feel shame.

And God is the enemy of whatever or whoever goes ripping through the hearts of his creatures….even if that means it’s the creature itself. Our shame can be fierce. We can deprive ourselves of the joy of being alive and violently demand justice in our spirits without claiming mercy. Love can be fiercer. It does not tolerate anything in the beloved that injures its dignity. That’s why it feels like God is not on our side sometimes…because he’s killing our pet enemies. The problem is not whose side God is on. He’s relentlessly on YOUR side. The question is, Are YOU on your own side? Do you even have the ability to see clearly which side IS your side?

We all want to be pleased by God. We don’t want to worship Him.

How is God going to please you if you are taking enemies as friends and accusing Him of unfaithfulness? He’s not going to please you. You can’t be pleased. He’s going to love you fiercely and be faithful to the soul that He put inside you by destroying the enemy and restoring your joy in His faithfulness. And then you will sincerely worship Him in authentic joy.


A Dream

I am sitting upright in bed at night in my bedroom. There is another person in the room with me, sitting in a chair against the wall to my right. There is a window off to the left on the opposite wall. The room is silent and dark.
We hear a bird begin to sing faintly outside the window. He is staring at me now, the person, watching me listen to the bird, watching as I begin to smile at its song, so clear and shrill in the darkness. He watches as a look of desire for that sweet little bird comes over my face and the song becomes more full of longing. Longing for me. The bird is longing for me.
I look nervously at him, aware that he thinks my smile is dangerous and that our silent vigil will be upset by it.
The bird’s song comes closer and grows louder, more joyful and urgent. I pretend not to hear it so that I can move non-chalantly about the room, rustling papers on my desk, picking up this and that, so as not to arouse suspicion of the truth: I must fling open the windows and see that bird, because that bird is my God.
My back is to the man in the room as I pretend to be busy with something at the desk. He says in a slow voice,
“You know He doesn’t really want you. It’s nothing. There is no bird out there. If you open that blind, He’ll fly away. You’ll scare Him if you try.”
I wonder if he’s right, nervously. I rustle and fumble more urgently now, trying to keep myself from flinging open the window and singing back to that sweet little bird, afraid I might do it.
It is as if he can read my mind because he begins shouting at the top of his lungs that the bird doesn’t want me, that I’ll scare Him away.
The closer I get to the window, the louder he screams. He's reached a suffocating volume and intensity when I finally send all the papers on my desk flying and I yank open the blinds and the curtain and turn with violent anticipation my face to the window.
There is Jesus the songbird, a small, fragile and joyful thing, tapping His tiny beak on the glass, singing wildly in celebration at seeing my face.

"O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; For your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely."
Song 2:14

The enemy shouts as I reach to open the window to let the bird in.
“Don’t do it!!!” He is so afraid.
With a great rush of air the window is opened and I stand with face upturned, arms flung wide. Jesus the songbird floods the room, flying in circles frantically, the walls ablaze with yellow joy, the air filled with hopeful worship and the enemy vanquished, invisible, silent and gone.



A Poem

Doppleganger

Snow white, lemon bright,
Masquerading angel of light.
I’m your glaring justice
Shining in the rear view mirror.
You’re my fleshly counterpart
Running off the road

Who will win this war?
When the battle hymns
And the burning cities
Swell to a boiling roar
Who will win this war?

I am keeping you
Safe as a shameful secret
A curdled cream
A recurring dream
I’m counting on you
Never waking up

Who will win this war?
When the battle hymns
And the burning cities
Swell to a boiling roar
Who will win this war?

And when Jesus the songbird
Sings in your ear
Coming with light,
Drawing so near,
Banging my drum
And shouting my jeer
I’ll expire in the heat
Of grace conquering fear.


I wrote this poem before I had the dream.

* * *
A vision, a dream, a poem.

Letting God be Outrageously Gracious

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

Ecclesiastes 1 : 2-7

Go, eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a joyful heart, for it is now that God favors what you do.
Always be clothed in white, and always anoint your head with oil. Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

This lent, I am feasting instead of fasting. Fasting would be so much easier because my heart favors justice and not grace. If God told me, Lindsey, wear rags and starve in the street. I would do it, because it feels right. And this is because my heart opposes the God who made it. I prefer punishment over grace. Because the world is not fair and I feel like it's my fault that I have so much, that I'm being poisoned by wealth.

But I'm not being poisoned by wealth. I'm poisoned by my direct opposition to God's scandalous grace in blessing me...and I oppose this grace every time I fast from something because I'm motivated by shame. And so, instead of fasting out of my shame, which would be easy because I have so much shame and guilt lying around.....I am going to feast out of my gratitude for the blessings of my life. which is hard because I'd like to punish myself for enjoying them.

What ludicrousness! I punish myself for the things God has given me like food and clothing and clean water and a home and an education and coffee and milk and chocolate because I believe I'm contributing to the unequal distribution of wealth on this earth? How did I come to believe that it was my responsibility to eradicate poverty with my denial of the body? I think I started doing this sort of thing because it made me look and feel wise and religious.

"Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow.

Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: "Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!"? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."

Colossians 2:16-23

In the same way that Paul was pointing out that those who cling to the regulations of the law have lost touch with Christ, I feel that in my clinging to regulations for holiness in my own lifestyle, I lost touch with the grater reality of the freedom offered to me in Christ.

It's kind of embarassing to think that in my self denial, I was only indulging my fleshly desire to oppose God's grace. I thought I was living righteously because God had revealed to me some special point of view about wealth and the empire and Christ's kingdom coming through his people building a new model for living. But I was only building my own kingdom where I earned God's favor and the right to participate in His redemption and resurrection if I lived a life of self denail. i thought the grace people always confronted me with when they disagreed with my style of living was a cheap grace that didn't require anything of me or cost me anything.....that when Jesus said he didn't know people because they hadn't fed the hungry, that would certainly be me if I didn't get out there with my burritos and prove that I believed God and wanted to obey him....but now I see that God's grace causes you to lose your life because in your joy, you simply misplace it. And that he prepares the good works in advance for you to do, to engage you in a unique service that will be a blessing to both you and to those you serve, not just leaving you to the task of creating your own masterpiece of self sacrifice and service so you could be worth in the end. I always felt that I had to engineer a life that reflected soundly a set of intellectual beliefs I was fond of. Which took a great deal of energy.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Ephesians 2:8-10

I think something about that sort of grace...where you really were free...scared me because I thought it was too good a deal on my end. it was too gracious. it was so gracious it didn't change your life....

but i was wrong.

I am an old shoe. I am a vegetable.

So I've been getting really down on myself lately for struggling so much with carrying on in life. And then I just have to remind myself to sit down and describe things plainly.

I've just started two new jobs. It is my last semester of college, and a full one. I have the responsibility of being independently disciplined for one of my three studio classes, the most studio classes I've ever taken at once. I am now in the process of applying to and deciding on where to go to midwifery school, which is a huge decision. I've just taken on the responsibility of a new ministry. My entire immediate family has moved relatively recently. I've just quit smoking.

I am also grieving a tossed salad of various other assorted upsetting things which feels like a toxic soup sloshing around in my stomach as I run as fast as I can trying to keep up with and cope with all of the above.

Virtually everything in my life has turned over and nothing seems familiar. I have a new phone number. I have a different car. I have different clothes, my hair is a different color. I'm trying new foods, new music, new media in my artwork.

It's like waiting tables, when you've been in a groove for about an hour of serving people you recognize. You might even know their names. Then, all of a sudden they all cash out and then there are these new people and they're ordering new food and you're all stirred up and flustered again.

I had just gotten used to Jim and Nancy and their Teriyaki and the Katsu Don and now here comes this new group ordering up all this sushi and now they want salad and refills and they have names like Jeff and Mary Kathryn......I just don't know how they expect me to go on with names like that!

I have to remember that I need to be merciful with myself here, considering the description of my situation. Otherwise, I'll just hide in my room and not let anyone help me or even know I'm struggling and then I'll just go numb like a vegetable or a worn out shoe, all crumpled and foot shaped and frayed and hollow...and smelly.

I'm trying to let people in. I need people. I need you. Help me. Care about me.

I'm an old shoe. I'm a vegetable. I need love and mercy from the body of Christ.

Freedom

Father of all, we pray to you for those we love, but see no longer: Grant them your peace; let light perpetual shine upon them; and, in your loving wisdom and almighty power, work in them the good purpose of your perfect will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Grant, O Lord, to all who are bereaved the spirit of faith and courage, that they may have strength to meet the days to come with steadfastness and patience; not sorrowing as those without hope, but in thankful remembrance of your great goodness, and in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those they love. And this we ask in the Name of Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.



O God, who on the holy mount didst reveal to chosen witnesses thy well-beloved Son, wonderfully transfigured, in raiment white and glistening; Mercifully grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may by faith behold the King in his beauty; who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without end. Amen.

because there are things happening in this world that we can't see, and if we get hung up on the startling sights here below, we miss the things happening above.

Because God is Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is FREEDOM.

and freedom feels like freedom..it doesn't feel like righteousness or vindication or shame or grief. it feels like freedom.

It's Advent. Put the Cheez-its down.

Since Advent is the season of waiting, I'm doing a lot of learning about my needs. And since I've been learning about my needs, I've also been learning about waiting. What are my needs? Why am I ashamed of them?

I think part of the reason that many people (okay me) find themselves feeling ashamed of their legitimate needs is that people (the conventional need-satisfier) do not do a very good job of meeting each other's needs for many reasons. We're selfish, impatient little creatures with short fuses, so when someone has a need, it is often second nature to deny it. We meet our own needs first or in leiu of meeting another's. We invalidate other's valid needs because it is simply more convenient to convince someone that they don't need something than it is to meet their need.
Naturally, in order to survive, many of us (okay me) come to ignore our needs. I tend to continue on for a very long time in a situation where my needs have been invalidated and not met, with the false hope that the person with the power to meet that need will notice my suffering and have a change of heart.
The Big Surprise: They don't.
Many of us have simply turned off the need feeling switch, hoping the need will get the picture and move somewhere far, far away. You can guess how this works out.

Let's just say that my own personal relationship to my needs is a bit tricky. But now that I've gotten to the point where my needs have held me hostage, forcing me to admit they exist, I've made some progress. I've been playing the waiting game with God, asking Him for things I need like a good nights sleep, the ability to feed myself all month long, the skills to relearn how to cook for myself in a balanced, healthy way, enough money to pay my utility bill, the desire to forgive, the gift of compassion, hope, love. As I've been doing this, thinking about what it is I need, and asking God for those things, I've been shocked by His response. He's giving me things I wasn't even sure were needs, things I thought I was just responsible for mustering up.

The moment I mention maybe wanting some ideas or some options for healthy, balanced, non-emotional eating, Jesus is right there in the form of my friend Lisa on the telephone rattling off 101 healthy cook-at-home options for under $5. God uses people. God LOVES using people. Especially to meet people's needs. Because just like God, we love meeting needs too. When we aren't busy being selfish or convincing others they don't have needs, you must admit it feels really awesome to really help someone. It does not feel awesome to be selfish. God LOVES serving us and He LOVES it when we serve each other because everyone wins.

I think this concept can be really clearly illustrated by Walt Disney. In Beauty and the Beast, there's this scene where Belle says she's a "little hungry." The entire castle party then goes into this very enthusiastic and showy parade of options for her dining pleasure expressing their immense joy to serve her.
"Life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving!" they say, sadly.
They used to be flabby fat and lazy...but she walked in and...well you know the rest.
If you haven't seen this, you need to.

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h3Cvs1caeA

An excerpt from John Piper's book "Desiring God" really got me thinking on this (as did my insistent needs)

"God aims to exalt Himself by working for those who wait for Him. Prayer is the essential activity of waiting for God--acknowledging our helplessness and His power, calling upon Him for help, seeking His counsel. Since His purpose in the world is to be exalted for His mercy, it is evident why prayer is so often commanded by God. Prayer is the antidote for the disease of self-confidence, which opposes God's goal of getting glory by working for those who wait for Him.
"The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him" (2 Chronicles 16:9). God is not looking for people to work for Him, so much as He is looking for people who will let Him work for them. The gospel is not a help-wanted ad. Neither is the call to Christian service. On the contrary, the gospel commands us to give up and hang out a help-wanted sign (this is the basic meaning of prayer). Then the gospel promises that God will work for us if we do. He will not surrender the glory of being the Giver."

Well it turns out God is interested in whether or not I get a good night's sleep. It turns out that He's interested in how busy I am this week. He doesn't look down from up there and say..."Welp, you wouldn't be so busy if you just slowed down." Nope. He's not like that. He says, "Here. This will help you slow down. Just don't worry about this thing here. Let it go." God cares about what I cook for dinner and how much it costs. This is amazing. No one has ever cared about my life this much. This stuff doesn't matter to anyone but me.

Well, that's because "anyone" has never been JESUS.

God wants to meet our needs so badly if we'll ask Him. He wants to be the giver of good things in our lives. REALLY good things. Sometimes really good things take a while, so we have to wait to receive them if we want to receive them at all.

So it's no wonder if we're sitting on the couch scarfing cheez-its that Jesus is saying--"Hey! Quit that!"--if He's making filet mignon and lobster tail in the next room. But we don't believe He is because it's in the "next room," so we we're scarfing the cheez-its, yelling with our mouths full on the couch, "PROVE IT!"

What's Jesus supposed to do? By the time the lobster tail and the filet mignon are ready, you'll be in bed and full of cheez-its, Jesus will be eating dinner by Himself, and you won't trust Him any more than you did before you were full of cheez-its. All because it takes five seconds to open a box of cheez-its and hours to cook filet mignon and lobster tail.

So put the cheez-its down.
And wait for the lobster tail.

The Whole Story

http://www.vimeo.com/7786740

for everyone who has wondered what the whole story has been, and for everyone who was a part of it....and still wondered what the whole story had been.

well, here's the whole story.

Flannery Oconnor: unapologetic, faithful

Barry Moser, Valley of Dry Bones


In an essay titled, "The Fiction Writer and His Country", Flannery Oconnor addresses the concern of literary critics that American novelists do not accurately represent the "joy of life" in a country which is "enjoying an unparalleled prosperity", which is "the strongest nation in the world", and which "has almost produced a classless society."

She responds in such a way that encourages me not only as a Christian, but as a Christian artist, especially in a cultural climate hostile to Christianity, at Florida State and in the United States at large.

Christian artists have the inconvenient responsibility of conveying a need for redemption to an audience convinced of a reality where such redemption is not only an insult, but an unnecessary fairy tale. The belief in the depravity of man and his desperate need for redemption is a make-believe cop-out of living life in the here and now, a crutch for the weak, instead of hope for every soul with the curse and blessing of being confronted with the reality of his soul: needy.

Flannery says:

"Redemption is meaningless unless there is cause for it in the actual life we live, and for the last few centuries there has been operating in our culture the secular belief that there is no such cause.
The novelists with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, they you have to make your vision apparent by shock--to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures."

Christian artists are often accused of having a view of the world so dark that it is dishonest. Each artist faces this accusation singularly, with no other conscience but his own.

"It may well be asked, however, why so much of our literature is apparently lacking in a sense of spiritual purpose and in the joy of life, and if stories lacking such are actually credible. The only conscience I have to examine in this matter is my own, and when I look at stories I have written I find that they are, for the most part, about people who are poor, who are afflicted in both mind and body, who have little--or at best a distorted--sense of spiritual purpose, and whose actions do not apparently give the reader a great assurance of the joy of life.
Yet how is this? For I am no disbeliever in spiritual purpose and no vague believer. I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means that for me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and what I see in the world I see in its relation to that. I don't think that this is a position that can be taken halfway or one that is particularly easy in these time to make transparent in fiction."

She is right about that. This is not a position that can be taken halfway or one that is particularly easy.

The Burning and The Blessing

While I was in Uganda, I wrote about the tattoo of the tarot card that I have on my shoulder. If you haven't read that, you should go back and read that first, because this is part II of that story.

* * *

A couple of weeks ago, I got a wild hair and decided to obsessively clean.

This began, innocently enough, with the trunk of art supplies in my closet. But then it started spreading. First to the shelves in my closet, then to my desk, then to my bookshelf and before I knew it, half my stuff was in the hallway and I was rearranging the furniture. The bed was turned this way, the chair was on the bed, dust was flying and I thought......

Hey, this feels pretty good.

The closet was, by far the biggest challenge because that is the place I throw things when I try to forget about them. I unearthed all sorts of memories, crawling out from under things. It was very emotional.

And then I really found a chunk of something.

There were my tarot cards, hiding in a little bread pan, in the corner of the bottom of the trunk, curled up in a ball whispering to each other, "If you don't move, she can't see you."

Well I saw them, and I picked them up and I just looked at them for a minute. The thoughts began to dawn on me. Why do I still have these? Why haven't I destroyed them by now? I destroyed the eight of swords, why haven't I destroyed the rest of them?
Well, I didn't really know so I just set them down on my bedside table and kept cleaning, but now that they were out in the open, their presence was really bothering me. My eye kept being drawn back to the place where they sat, staring at me. I heard God whispering.

"You know, we still haven't talked about this."

The last year and a half has been a stormy affair between God and I. We've fought and we've struggled and fought some more and cried and there have been a few times when I've tried to kill him. It's been hard.

But God is faithful. He's more faithful than I am and he's kept his promises to me, even when I turned my back on him.

Somehow, in all of this Storm, the fact that I had engaged in the consulting of spirits and divination had slipped to the bottom of the closet, unaddressed. I'm not exactly sure how this happened, but as I continued to be drawn back to the cards, sitting on my bedside table, I knew there was a reckoning about to happen. I had been struggling with whether or not the tarot was actually evil, since I thought I had seen a lot of good come from tarot, but as I thought about this, the conversation between God and I surpassed the tarot and became much more serious.

We started talking about baptism.

When a person is baptized, they renounce evil and all of the spiritual forces that rebel against God and corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. They turn to Jesus Christ and promise to put their whole trust in his grace and love. They promise to obey him.

I made those promises eight years ago when I was baptized in the Methodist church, but a lot has happened since then.

I turned my back on God and not my face, and I went my own way. I counted the commandments of God hopeless, impossible, unrealistic and foolish, instead of counting them as pathways to blessing and peace. I began walking the hard road of rebellion and it led me to a place where I was alone and isolated. I thought that following my desires and my ideals would lead me to an open place of freedom and a renewed, true sense of intimacy with others, but my desires and my ideals betrayed me and left me alone, hollow, cut off from everyone and wondering what had happened.

I was lying in the ruins of my apostasy, tormented and undone.

I had clearly not kept my end of the bargain. Over the years, I had broken my promise to trust, my promise to rely on his grace, to renounce things that would corrupt and destroy me, to turn and accept Christ, to follow and obey Him. But as I look back now I see the ways that God was faithful to his promises, faithful to His grace.

"When Israel was a child, I loved him,
And out of Egypt I called my son.
As I called him, so he went from me;
They sacrificed to Baals,
And burned incense to carved images.

I taught Ephraim to walk,
Taking them by their arms;
But they did not know that I healed them.
I drew them with gentle cords,
With bands of love,
And I was to them as those
Who take the yoke from their neck.
I stooped and fed them…

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?...

My heart churns within me;
My sympathy is stirred.

I will not execute the fierceness of my anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim.
For I am God and not man,
The holy One in your midst;
And I will not come with terror."

Hosea 11:1-4, 8ac-9

God was faithful. He led people into my life to shine their light in my darkness, he spoke to me as I sat alone, searching desperately for something in a deck of cards. He spoke to me in whispers as I sat crying on my back porch because I didn't like the person I was becoming. Even though I had forgotten my promise, he hadn't forgotten his and he wasn't giving up on me.

In all those times when I showed my unfaithfulness to my promise, Jesus was falling to his knees in the front yard, head in his hands, begging that the cup of suffering would pass me by.

But it didn't pass me by. I drank the bitter cup to its dregs and threw up in the street.

"Your ways and your doings have
Procured these things for you.
This is your wickedness,
Because it is bitter,
Because it reaches to your heart."
Jeremiah 4:18

I always thought the tarot was pretty innocent. I always made it clear that I wasn't practicing divination, that I wasn't a fortune teller, that what I was doing wasn't evil---but no matter what I said, or what I told myself to make myself feel better, that didn't change the fact that the tarot was evil, and what I was doing was consulting evil.

I didn't just decide one day that the occult sounded better than Jesus. It was a slow rot. It started with my own apostasy, and somewhere along the way, I found something that celebrated that, and that thing led me deeper into darkness.

So when God began to drop hints a couple of weeks ago that we had some things to talk about, it had less to do with tarot cards and more to do with apostasy.

I had rejected the God I had promised to trust and it had grieved us both, only I hadn't felt that until now.

So when it came time to repent, I wasn't just admitting I was maybe wrong about a few things. I wasn't groveling before an angry God. I was grieving before a gracious one.

"O Lord, are not your eyes on the truth?
You have stricken them,
But they have not grieved;
You have consumed them,
But they have refused to receive correction.
They have made their faces harder than rock;
They have refused to return."
Jeremiah 5:3

My face softened by the tears of my mourning, I turn around to face the Lord, only to find that he has been in hot pursuit since the chase first began.

"If you will return, O Israel,
Says the Lord,
'Return to me;
And if you will put your detestable objects out of my sight,
Then you shall not be moved.'
And if you shall swear,
'The Lord lives,' in truth, in judgement
And in righteousness;
The nations shall bless themselves in him,
And in him they shall glory."
Jeremiah 4:1-2

In my grief over the separation I had caused, and in the joy of God's grace and forgiveness and mercy, I knew that I had to put the cards away. I had to put the rebellion and the broken promises and the cards away once and for all and I had to renew my vow to the Lord.

Father John and Ashley and their littlest Wallace, all together with Sonya Cronin witnessed the burning of my tarot cards and the renewal of my baptismal vows on October 26, 2009 at St Peter's Anglican Church.

We celebrated God's grace and piled the cards in a little flower pot that the Wallaces had brought. We doused them with lighter fluid and as they burned, Ashley and Sonya presented me for the renewal of my baptismal vows. They promised to help me grow into the full stature of Christ by their prayers and witness, with God's help. I renounced again the spiritual forces of this world that corrupt and destroy the creatures of God. I renounced all sinful desires that draw me from the love of God. I turned to Jesus Christ to accept and put my whole trust in His grace and love. I promised to follow and obey Him.

It all happened at once, the burning and the blessing. As Father John stood in front of me, he anointed me with oil used at ordinations and baptisms. He made the sign of the cross with his hand on my forehead and reminded me again of God's faithfulness when he said,

"You were sealed at your baptism as Christ's own forever."

He anointed my hands and my mouth and my ears with oil and showed me how God was setting me apart to do His work with my hands, a new work to lead me into blessing, and not into bitter darkness.

I felt Ashley's hand on the tattoo on my left shoulder and Sonya's on my right shoulder. They surrounded me in a triangle, and I felt so surrounded by God's love and devotion to me, thankful for his grace in putting people like Ashley and Sonya and John in my life to show me His love. I could hear the baby talking a little bit and the fire popping behind Father John. Sometimes if he shifted, I could watch the cards burning and it all just felt so good in the autumn air, I could feel some things were dying. Just like the leaves falling away, there were parts of me that fell away then, and the promise of new life was more real than it ever had been.

As it was all happening there, out in the open, in the garden at the church, I saw what small and flimsy things, made of only paper, the cards really were and I was sobered by that reality. I thought,

Hey, this whole time, they were only paper.

But it wasn't just paper that led me into bitter darkness. And it's not just the paper in my Bible that leads me into the presence of the God of the universe. A Bible will burn just as easily as a pack of cards will, but there are things going on in the world other than just what we can see with our eyes.

"Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.

Then He who sat on the throne said,
"Behold, I make all things new."

Revelation 21:3-5

yeah. this is all gonna turn out alright.

This came to me in a dream.

Righteousness, the cake I'm baking alongside all Christians over time and space. As I follow the recipe of scripture, mixing four parts purity, one part weeping, ten parts mercy, one part repentance, I get the feeling that others have measured this combination before.

And as I begin to watch the batter swirling into a sweet conclusion in the buttered pan, I think.....

yeah. this is all gonna turn out alright.

As I slide my pan into the hot oven, and the wave of heat fogs my glasses I think---maybe I'll survive this after all.

Maybe the warmth and the fire will set me free and when Jesus peeks over the oven door twenty five minutes from now he'll celebrate and say:

"And I will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.....Behold. I make all things new."
Revelation 21:4-5

Being a Christian is like making a cake----except halfway through, you hand the spoon to Jesus and finally admit that you are the cake. Surprised by this fact, you totally lose all composure and then you're both standing in the kitchen and the spoon is on the floor, your head is on Jesus' shoulder and you're crying and he says....

yeah. this is all gonna turn out alright.

"Assemble yourselves and come, Gather together from all sides to my sacrificial meal which I am sacrificing for you, A great sacrificial meal on the mountains of Israel, That you may eat flesh and drink blood."
Ezekiel 39:17

For whoever may or may not be still reading!

So, be there readers or not, I feel compelled to write again.


So much is changing. Uganda isn't gone. There are plans in the works to return next summer.

June 30.

Lisa and I are going to lead a group of women to visit the mothers at Kagando. After I just sort of landed in a heap in Tallahassee in July, it seemed like I would never see Uganda again, that my life was just going to spiral on into the future, bored, meaningless, vacuous.

But God doesn't just leave his people hanging that way. Things are beginning to take shape on the horizon. I've just made a two year commitment to Stephen Ministry at St Peters, so I guess I'll be hanging around for another year after I graduate, which is just fine with me. Midwifery school is still on the radar, but I'm not so anxious about going immediately. God's timing is perfect.

This is a widwifery school located in the Phillipines that I have been considering:

http://www.midwifeschool.org/Home.htm

The Stephen ministry website:
http://www.stephenministries.org/stephenministry/default.cfm/928

echoes

so i don't really know why i'm writing here right now. I'm not in uganda......I'm definitely not in uganda. I'm in strozier library. Which is a much sadder place. I just miss writing. I haven't really written a thing since I got back. I haven't really processed much of this stuff since I got back. There are no categories here for talking or thinking about Uganda.

man I miss it so much I cry sometimes. I miss it so much. I miss it so much. I have now been here a little longer than I was in Uganda after the group left and that is so sad to me.

I wanna get out of here. out of this country. off of this continent. away from this cell phone.

no one is probably out there to hear this shout, as it tumbles down the canyon wall into the abyss,

and all that comes back from that beautiful shout is a fading, withering echo.

and then it's gone.

that's what happened to Uganda. It came back like a withering echo.....and now it's gone.

Home

Well, as some of you may know, I am home.

I am sitting in the office in my parents house. I am showered. I am clean. My clothes have been washed. I found a small stowaway bug in my luggage.

The trip is almost complete. Now there's just the part where I tell everyone all about it a thousand times. I can't wait. There is so much to say.

I will say this, I am going to slowly reimmerse myself into life, so if you don't get a phone call as soon as you'd hoped, be of good cheer my friend. Things take time.

It's strange being back here, where everything is clean and everything is available and easy. Suddenly I'm reflecting on the time I spent in Uganda as a past tense thing, and it's sort of uncomfortable. I feel as if I've abandoned Uganda for a hot shower and a bowl of cereal.

I'm going back. I don't know when, but I am.
I was trying to explain kampala to my parents last night. My mouth moved 100 miles a minute and I stumbled over my words and spouted them out desperately. There are no words.

And yet I am using so many words.

Here is an excerpt from my journal the day we flew out of Entebbe.

I was writing the story of how I came to buy a small book:

The story really starts, if we're going to be quite honest about it, at the dawn of time, but for the sake of brevity, I'll start with just this afternoon.

Lisa and I were picked up from the Namirembe girl's hostel at 5:06 pm by a man named Steven. Lisa has been my travleing companion in Uganda now for two months. She's blond, she's beautiful, witty. She's one of those "scrapbooking" types. Steven is a medical lab technician, Ugandan, who runs a small clinic in Entebbe. He has a very thick accent and a low rumbling pattern of grunting, which makes it difficult to navigate a conversation.

The Namirembe girl's hostel is home to a number of Ugandan girls, school age, who stay in bunks at the hostel while they get an education in or near kampala. They must be very dedicated, because around the time the rooster begins to crow in the morning (4am), we hear them clamouring into the study room. Ugandans are morning people. They're also tea-taking-types. At eleven, everything stops, and everybody takes tea. They hide little electronic kettles in closets and office cabinets, waiting for tea time, and then---out come the cups and the water and the milk and the conversation.

The hostel is run by a man named Patrick, tall, lanky, with skin like an aging plum,very separate and yellowish teeth, spectacles and graying, wiry hair. He is kind, he is warm, he speaks slowly. The first night we came back to Kampala from the hospital, I saw him walking around in wide, slow strides, searching for a girl from room 31. A few minutes later when i was in the showers, I heard him shuffle in in his silk robe and slippers and his warm, fatherly voice echoed in the concrete washrooms--
"Heh-DOH?"
I answer and he immediately knows I am not the one from my accent--distinctly American and curt, not melodic or slow, like Ugandans. He mutters worriedly to the security guard outside the washroom.
"Dih guhl eehn druum 31 aast fahr pen-killehrs uhnd naw I aave tem uhnd I con-you to such fahr hah...."

And I feel more at home as I picture him in his bathrobe finding the girl with the headache or the pain and caring for her like a father---here, family connections are about love, adoption and tenderness, not biology.

So Steven picks us up at five, before the sun goes down because it's dangerous enough to drive in Kampala at all, let alone at night. There are a thousand motorcycle taxis called boda bodas and they strain through the traffic in the overcrowded and dusty streets like sand through fingers, sliding around and through wherever they can, not wherever is safe.

We pass the mosque, huge and shining, the most beautiful thing in the city, heavily gated and manicured. A shining monument, a dream among the orange tinted streets and buildings, the trash littered trenches and war torn doorways. The city looks like a place destroyed, abandoned, dying---and yet the Africans are here, they have no where else to go. This is their city, their home, their hope. I feel conspicuosly white as I tumble down the streets on the back of the boda--and my heart hurts as I realize more and more, in the faces of the taxi drivers and street vendors, that I am a visitor in their world, that I may never understand life here, that I may never get in step with the pulse of this plot of humanity because I am of the privledged white race. I am perceived of as elite, easyand powerful.

And yet, in the middle of it all, the swimming and screaming African continent, with all its tears and all its mysteries, joys, in all its shrouded beauty--I feel more powerless than I have since I was a child.

We roll past the mosque, toward Entebbe, out of the city and across a brief stretch of country side. Stacks of avocados and mangoes pass by under floating faces, confused and then smiling at our white skin through the window. I feel alone and sad to be leaving Uganda. Strangely, I wish I could stumble through another labored conversation with an African just to get to the part when you both start laughing and smile, shaking hands as an African high pitched, soaring sigh eases the nerves and settles your heart in a feeling of friendship and ease.

I have more to learn from Uganda--the land and the people.

But now we're continuing toward Entebbe, to the airport to begin the journey home, the long transatlantic hop to home, where the comforts of wealth will bother me more than ever.

After a confusing exchange with Steven, the driver, it becomes clear that we are making one last stop. Steven runs a clinic near Entebbe and he wants us to stop, so we can see it. Come see my clinic, he says, you never know what the future will bring. Let us start friendship now, perhaps you come back.

So, we go. And there is one tree with a tire around the bottom and patchy green grass, beige buildings with beds inside, a surprisingly clean and tidy facility, surprisingly empty too. We are led into a small room where a man sits behind a desk, and we are told to sit please. So we sit please and without fail, the man behind the desk produces a visitor's book. Very strange phenomenon in Uganda. Everywhere you go, they have a visitor book and you're expected to sign in and write down your address and your signature and where you're from. I have yet to fully grasp the visitor book concept.

A short visit later, we are on the road again, and we arrive at the airport with five hours to spare. WONDERFUL

We get some instant coffee from the bar in the lobby, which, like many things here, bears the lingering essence of colonial Britain, with its cup and saucer, proper appeal.

We somehow manage to survive the checking in process, with its subtle African, laid back flavor. It takes a while and it's a little uncomfortable when the airline employee is genuinely interested in your stay in Uganda and what you were up to. The no-nonsense, no frills, American approach to service leaves you vulnerable to shock at contact with sincere and warm service here in Uganda. We've lost our sensitivity and gained a whole new vulnerability by our hard appearances and way of life.

After being in the bush for so long, where you will not see a cappuccino for miles, it's shocking coming into the airport terminal, where there are shelves upon shelves of tax-free goods, strategically lit, displayed, available. This is foreign now, as images in my mind of beggars without limbs impose themselves over posters of beautiful woman on all fours, selling fragrances.

THIS is uncomfortable. The comfort is uncomfortable.

We have time to kill, so we wander around the shelves and shelves of fragrances. Some are one hundred dollars, about two weeks pay for a man with a decent job in Uganda. As we smell each one, Lisa accidentally knocks one and we both watch as it falls to the ground and against the white marble. It shatters with a sharp, clean ringing sound---and then silence. For a moment.

I feel the cool perfume on my foot as it is rapidly evaporating and we look at one another, mouths gaping. I peek at the box. On the nose, $100 of tax free accident.
You know what we're both thinking at this point and so does the employee on the other side of the store. So we wait. This is a wonderful strategy for those who have no idea what to expect--which we have been very often since visiting in Uganda. When in doubt, wait to be addressed.

A man comes over and nervously communicates non-verbally, then another comes to sweep up. I notice the perfume has soaked my pant leg and the thought begins to develop that I will smell of this particular fragrance for the entirety of our journey---over 24 hours. After some time, the first man reappears to break the news.

"You pay fifteen dollars."
"Fifty?" we reply in unison.
"nonono fifTEEN."

ohokgreatalrightfinelet'sGO.

Nervously, we quickly make our way up to the counter before we cause any more problems. To soothe the subtle uncomfortable nature of the situation, I grab a small notebook from the rack.
This way, at least it was a customer who broke something and not an anonymous pair of careless American girls who terrorized the fragrance section. After all, we must represent the hoard of good consumers at home on OUR VERY OWN CONTINENT CALLED AMERICA.





Also,

next stop: India.

THE END IS NEAR!!!

Well, the end is near.  

I'm sitting on the bed, looking at my bulging duffle bags and honestly, I feel pretty crummy.  

We're leaving tomorrow morning after chapel for Kampala and we'll spend a week there before flying back to the States.  I'm all mixed up.  Part of my doesn't want to leave Uganda, part of me really misses home, part of me totally does not want to go back to the busy-ness and the complicated nature of life at home, both practically and socially.  And then there's another part of me that just sort of feels nothing at all.  

I just really like staring at mountains everyday, reading my Bible with a cup of coffee.  I don't want to go home and dive back into all the busy-ness.  There are so many distractions, I didn't realize before how much I didn't notice or feel them....until suddenly they are all not there and I can breathe.  

I like Uganda.  I don't want to come back.  It's confusing though because in my mind, I'm already home...and yet I'm here...in Uganda.  It's an identity crisis of sorts.

Also I'm tired of discussing the election with British people.  

So let's reflect for a moment.

....I'm coming home in a little over a week.  My life is changed, my soul is altered, I'm going to have weave in my hair........let's just say I will never be the same.  I've eaten goat.  I've eaten chicken liver, chicken gizzard, fried banana cookies cooked in less than desirable sanitary conditions, kasava, one thousand chapati (a pancake of sorts made with lots of oil), a billion mandazi (a doughnut like thing fried in oil).  I've eaten matoke, pumpkin, sugar cane, dodo, and lots and lots of toast.  I have also drank more soda while I have been here than I have ever in my life.  (that includes middle school)  oh yeah and I also ate a fruit that no one knows the name of.  

And you know what?  I really have enjoyed all of it, except the chicken stuff....really gross since in Uganda, many chickens are not actually fed and they just go around pecking at whatever is layin' around (trash, stones, other trash).....so it was sort of disgusting.

I had a really terrible day today.  I went to the maternity ward to see if I could actually witness a birth before I leave, but I was totally discouraged by one of the UK elective students and then I felt like I was in the way because I'm not a doctor......so I got really sad and this all compounded on the homesickness and the not wanting to leave Uganda feeling and I went and sat behind the building and cried for a bit.....

and then I realized that there were a bunch of Ugandan women sitting on the sidewalk just across the way and they were all staring at me, shocked.  White people cry?

So I decided I would make myself feel better and go buy some soap for my friends in the fistula ward.  So I went down there and carried the huge box of soap on my head and we sat and stared at each other since we can't speak the same language, but I felt better because they're my friends now.  

You know in high school when I used to feel discouraged like that, I would go to the mall and shop.  

How things have changed.  

They really have.  I won't be the same when I get back.

Don't give it up

Some of you may know and some of you may not but I used to read tarot cards not too long ago.  I think I started reading them my senior year of high school and I stopped a little over a year ago.   Some of you may also know this:  I have a tattoo on my shoulder.  The tattoo is a tarot card.  I got it right before I stopped reading them.

 

Well, now that the Lord has taken me to Africa, I think I may finally understand what the image means in the larger story of my life, and what the image means in the stories of the lives of the women in the fistula ward, and what it means in the life of any person who has come to know Jesus Christ, and in the life of any person who hasn't. 

 

            People always ask me what it means and it’s probably the question I really hate the most because honestly, I don’t really know how to explain it very well.  There is no short version.  In fact, I hate the question because it confuses me, and it’s usually asked by a stranger, someone who I was never really ready to share the following story with. 

 

But I think I’m ready to do that now.

 

There was a particular season of my life when most of my relationships were abusive.  I allowed myself to be controlled by people not because they were directly causing me to behave a certain way, but because I allowed their presence in my life to cause me to believe in my own powerlessness, helplessness, and inability.  This is the essence of the meaning of the tarot card.

The eight of swords.  This card means captivity.  The woman in the image is blindfolded and bound, standing, of her own accord, in the mud.  She is not struggling.  She is not freeing herself.  Her captors are nowhere to be seen, and yet, there she is, alone, trapped in a fence of swords.  There is a building in the background, representing the place she has been cast out of.  She is in the wilderness, and she is completely isolated.

 

But this is not the image on my body.  The image on my body is upside down, which changes its meaning.  When tarot cards appear upside down, or reversed, whatever the original meaning of the card was when it was right side up, is blocked.  I wanted it this way because I didn’t want the meaning of this card to follow me around for the rest of my life.  Looking back on my life, I saw how oppressed I was, and continued to be, and I always wanted to remember to fight this trap.  I didn’t want to be controlled by anything or anyone anymore.  I saw the image of oppression and I rejected it.  What I wanted was freedom.  I wanted liberation.

 

 Liberate: to set someone free from a particular situation (especially slavery or imprisonment) in which their liberty is severely restricted; to free a country, city, or people from enemy occupation

 

So I started searching for this.  I started searching for freedom, but I couldn’t find it on my own.  Sometimes it feels like I didn’t find it until just yesterday.

 

The women in the fistula ward know what it feels like to be controlled by your own feelings of helplessness.  They were such promising women, hopeful for so much, and then something terrible happened to them, they lost their child.  But they lost something else too, something slipped through their fingers without their even noticing.  They lost respect for themselves and their dignity when they began to believe the lies people told them.   They began to blame themselves.  They began to blame themselves when other people began to blame them.  They believed the lies. 

 

If you were a good enough woman, like your own mother, you would have pushed hard enough and you would have your baby now.  Instead, you’re damaged.  You’re leaking urine right now because it’s your punishment for failing.  The only thing left for you to do now is take your punishment.

 

My version isn’t that different.

 

If you were really capable of love, you wouldn’t have been in so many failed relationships.  If you were really worthy of love, you would be loved, but nobody loves you.  Therefore, it’s your fault.  It’s your punishment for being damaged.  You’re damaged.  The only thing left for you to do now is take your punishment.

 

Yours may not be that different either.

 

You’ll never be the same after _________________.

You’re divorced.  Only selfish people get divorced.

You can’t go back to school, you’re too old.

War damages people.  You’re damaged.

Your dad always said you were_____________.  He’s right.

It was your fault when __________ died.

It was your fault when ___________________left.

 

Those are the lies that keep you standing in the wilderness, wearing the blindfold, accepting the punishment and the isolation.  These are the lies that keep women from accepting the love and redemption of Jesus Christ.  These are the lies that keep women hiding in villages on mountaintops leaking urine.  These are the lies that kept me believing I could never be beautiful again, the lies that made me want to cut off all of my hair and rid myself of anything that made me beautiful, because I believed I wasn’t. 

 

I didn’t want these lies, but I didn’t know what redemption looked like.  I didn’t know Jesus was what I was looking for.  I was like a lost sheep without the truth.  Jesus looked like He had nothing to do with my life.  He was just some historical figure, completely unrelated to what I was feeling.  In fact, most of His people didn’t really look like the sort of crowd I wanted to be associated with. 

I'd been down that road before, and the Jesus I found expected too much.  He made me feel ashamed and judged and I didn't really want that.  His people didn't look like people with hope, they didn't really look that different from anybody else I had ever met.

So I went out looking for liberation because I knew I didn’t want shame anymore, but without the good news in my life, I only found punishment, even with the best intentions.

 

I chose punishment instead of redemption.  I chose punishment because it felt like justice, but what my soul wanted was mercy.  I was looking for freedom, and you can only find that in one place.

 

The cross.

 

The Ugandan women find freedom at Kagando Hospital, because it’s a place where Jesus is healing people and giving them hope.  They make the pilgrimage because they hope that somehow there’s something better than living in shame on the top of a mountain, mourning alone and leaking urine. Some of them had been out to find it before too, like I had.  Just like I had turned to the church for hope and been sent away feeling worse, they had gone to other hospitals that made it worse, who damaged their bodies more than they were before, but the women who had come to Kagando hadn't given up hope.  They knew there had to be something better.  

 

Everybody knows deep down that they want something better than whatever it is they’ve got.  And they don’t just feel that way because that’s just how everybody feels.  They don’t feel this way because this sort of thing happens to everybody.  Everybody doesn’t feel that way.   It doesn’t happen to everybody.   It’s not just because they’re just never satisfied.  It’s not because they’re just flawed people and everybody’s flawed.  It’s not just because something that happened to you years ago will always affect you.  It’s not because you’ve made mistakes and there’s no turning back or making amends.  It’s not because you’re damaged.  It’s not your fault.  You don’t have to live like that.

 

But think about it.  If you believe that you do have to live like that, will you ever start looking for something better?

 

If you just choose to believe that there’s nothing out there that will satisfy your soul, and you accept whatever punishment feels comfortable and just, you will never be happy.

 

Have you given up that dream?  Have you stopped searching?

 

What if the Ugandan women at the hospital had given up that dream?  Some of them live alone in shacks leaking urine for the rest of their lives because they have no faith.  They’ve given up.

 

Don’t give up.  I didn’t give up.  I chose to believe that there was hope.  Hope just happened to be on the other side of the ocean, where Jesus called me to make a pilgrimage to a place where He IS doing something, where He is healing women just like me.  I don’t know where it is for you, but I know Jesus has something to do with it. 

 

Lunch

So I went to the hospital for the first half of the morning to poke around and take some photos and I got to see something cool.

Lunch in the fistula ward.

Beans in the left hand bucket, kasava in the right hand bucket.  This meal is free for the women here.
The orange bucket the woman in the back is holding is where her catheter drains to.
This is the fistula ward.

This is what the hospital looks like.  There is clothing drying everywhere, and people camping on the ground.  The wards are individual buildings connected by these concrete sidewalks.  It feels sort of like a very large family picnic.  Since the hospital can't feed all of the patients the way hospitals in the states do, patients bring attendants with them, family members who cook for them and care for them....which is why this hospital has a very large kitchen with lots of women always in it.
This is Harriet. (on the right)  She has just had the fistula repair operation the first week we were here.  Lisa and I were able to give her a Luhkonzo Bible we had bought in Kasese during the first two weeks.  
This is jackfruit.  Yes, it is actually as big as it looks.  In fact it's probably bigger than it looks.  These were small.  When you eat this fruit, you have to coat your fingers with margarine first because it's so sticky.   Jackfruit was probably on the tree of knowledge, because it looks unbelievable awesome, but then it's unbelievably messy.   No, I haven't had it yet.

It's Photo Phriday!

hey dad guess what!  i saw a huge termite hill and took a picture for you.

We saw a lion on the safari!  YAY!  it was five in the morning.  TIRED!

This is jayne and derek.  They are friends that Lisa and I met staying at the guest house.  They shared coffee and conversation with us and told us about Wales.  They have been coming to the South Rwenzori diocese for 15 years together and they have built a school here.

 Jayne is an Anglican priest in Wales and Derek, her husband, is an insurance broker.  I got to see Jayne baptize 11 African babies.  The service was trilingual because she said the baby's name in Luhkonzo, marked them with the cross of Christ in English, and said Father Son and Holy Spirit in Welsh.  I cried.

Jayne and Derek treated us to lunch at Hotel Margherita, where I was able to have a coke with ice in it and look at the mountains.

This is a view from the hike that Lisa and I went on with the medical students from the UK. (below)

From left to right: Victoria, Rosie, Lisa, Morwenna, Rachel, me, and Jane on the hike.  

So this hike, was really more of an awful thing than an invigorating thing.  observe the shoes.  also it is important to note that Ugandans tend to hike steep mountains faster than musungus because they grew up trotting up and down with big bushels of bananas on their heads.  I, on the other hand have been walking only on sidewalks my whole life.  Let's just say the hike was less than great for me.

This is real live coffee from real live Uganda.  Those beige-ish ones on the left will be roasted and such.  

ASWT, our favorite supermarket.  You can buy ICE CREAM here!!!!

All of the sewing machines are treadles here.  Here is one in front of a store in Kasese. Notice the signage: All these are done as, you wait.  This is Africa

Phun!

Well this week has been pretty uneventful.  I was exhausted on Monday from the weekend so I stayed home from school.  Then Tuesday was a holiday, no school.  Wednesday I was feeling pretty sick so I did nothing but read.  And yesterday...well yesterday I was homesick.  

So, since I haven't really been doing much this week, (except for reading and feeling homesick or regular sick) I think I'm going to go down to the hospital for the second half of the morning to poke around with my camera and maybe this time, I will get to witness a birth.  

Or maybe I'll just wander around feeling useless and conspicuous because I am:

1. not a doctor

2. white

.....or maybe something wonderful will happen.

let's hope for that.