African Grace

Five years ago, I woke to African winter, the Moroccan chill persisting heavy in the tile-floored, plaster-walled apartment building. That sour smell, tannery leather, permeating the air by the closets and doors, where pointed slippers waited for children’s feet.

 

 

The sing-song, harsh Arabic, spoken rapid and forthright. The broken English of flirting men (and aren’t we all broken, not knowing what we want, aware only of our hunger, and our pulsating wish to be happy?).

 

 

Rounded woman walk with rounded steps in flour-sack jelabas, traditional garb meant to preserve modesty and prevent lust. (And don’t we all cover up our warped-ness? The inexplicable mix of good and bad wrapped in our souls, aching to be sorted and set right . . . and we cover and compensate to protect ourselves and others from our brokenness.)

 

 

Bagged garbage plopped on corners and edges of wide cobbled sidewalks waits removal . . . sometime. This cultural mindset does not make room for proactive stewardship and preventative measures—it’s fatalism all over, and life does not stand much chance of getting better. (And don’t we pile soul garbage along the edge of our heart pathways, just so long as we have room to squeeze by and still function, we consider ourselves okay? And all the trash we don’t know what to do with, and the stuff that clutters, we hope Someone can clear away or recycle . . . before summer heat makes it stink). 

Black eyes stare wide behind ebony lashes, gawking at the fairer-skinned, blue and green and brown-eyed children walking with me. (And don’t we find the unknown, un-possessed, un-assumed beauty entrancing? How often we look so far out of our league to compare, that we miss the humbling, ordinary beauty of grace, the whisper of mercy, spoken over us every moment? And don’t we cheapen our potential for happiness by always looking at someone else, instead of looking into the eyes of the SOMEONE Who made us, and freely offers us life in His hands? And what grief we inflict when we refuse His gifts, His outstretched hand, because His hands were torn with nails and scratched deep with thorns, and to receive from Him means receiving pain AND joy as gifts. Receiving means to Trust Him more than trust the gift. And we’d rather not take the risk). 

The street bustle: not because people move fast, but because people walk everywhere. My casual gait propels me faster than the local pace . . . and I wonder if these people have purpose outside of their daily tasks and errands. And two sides of the revolving coin show themselves: how often do I spin my tires in an effort to look productive and feel like I’m going somewhere meaningful? And, how often do I sink into a routine’s confinement, letting a circumstance, instead of the Reality of a loving God, define my life?

And these pictures, cured and understood over time, continue teaching and speaking, and saying clearer that soul-film is thin, and life crust is fragile, and under each blinking eye waits a heart in pain, longing to be found, to be heard; a heart waiting to wake to beauty and joy.

 

 

And in the ordinary, the hum-drum, this is where Grace beats her rhythm . . . for the song of glory.

On slow change

13 September 2012

Sometimes, it is good that things percolate and brew. There’s a flavor transition, a texture change, a metamorphosis—so that one scarcely recognizes the thing finished from the thing began.

And people morph in progress; if we are not changed by the journey, we are not likely moving, not living at all. People must change. It is the nature we were given. Even when change is imperceptible externally, or torrential internally, or catastrophic contextually; it simply is our state of being: becoming.

Childhood’s emblems pass thick and dense with threads of imagination, all the worlds created from thin air, the first whispers of wishes for life, a prelude to the symphony. Perhaps the first pinings of “artistic temperament”, or just the utterly basic nature of man: to long, to hunger, to ache with happy angst for our true destiny, our ultimate relationship.

But dreams disappoint, especially when the dreamer is ignorant and scared—pseudo-safety constructed from gossamer whims. These disintegrate, swept away in reality’s cold winds, sometimes to liberation, sometimes to despair. And love of dreams wanes as actual strength to forge in reality what the heart sees in clarity fails, because the heart is humiliatingly weak, and the soul crushingly frail.

And yet, in all the smashing and sifting and blowing away, an indomitable, severe and sweet mercy pervades, because, after all, we are created ones, and we have a Maker Who cares for our souls. And perhaps the winds blow to teach us that we are not our own, that we cannot possess control.

Maybe the frost is really our friend, warning us to seek the protection we need from the winter storm.

Could it be that the darkness and cloud come as kindreds, beckoning us into the light and warmth of our Maker’s embrace?

What would happen if we welcomed the winds instead of resisting them? If we listened to the whispers and shouts instead of covering our ears? If we accepted the season of confusion, darkness, and quiet? What might we learn of ourselves? What might we come to know of the One Who made us? And what might change in how we look at the pilgrims walking near us?

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you say it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.

All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations.

You have never talked to a mere mortal.

Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - These are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” C.S. Lewis

Song of the Wind

Dear Pilgrim,

After weeks of donning light shells and thin finger gloves, winter finally settles into the neighbourhood. Everyone expected him weeks, even months ago, with the gale force tenacity he bellowed last year. But no, winter waited. Christmas passed brown and windy, the breathy exhale always accompanying the sunshine. We embraced the sun, and cringed to face the wind. The constant droning and moaning, piercing exposed sinuses, taunting the out-of-breath explorer, dismaying man and beast as it propels flames across the landscape—it grates our minds and aggravates our souls.

But if we want sunshine, we must accept the wind. The healing balm that coaxes us outdoors, with upturned faces, viewing the golden world, comes with the wind. The draining, changing, threatening wind—unpredictable, flighty, menacing—this keeps company with sunshine.

But what is the wind, really? Just blowing and blowing air, invisible, harmful only because of what it stirs up, or knocks over, or carries around. But just the wind . . . it’s just a breath. It tells us we are here, seasons change, nature’s garments flutter and flounce. It teaches us to hammer down what is important, and let the little things fly. It informs us of change or danger, blowing dust off our cars, cramming dirt into our windowsills. It gives and takes, always exchanging what it holds, never grasping it long, always taking it somewhere else.

The wind, it tells me that I too am vapour, practically invisible, a constant droning till I die away, moving things about through work, rearranging, then my body will lie quiet. The important stuff needs securing, the trivial needs shooing . . . and strangely enough, it’s the vital things of life that are invisible: relationships, looking rightly at the world, knowing why we are here, who we belong to, and where we are going. If we can’t nail these things, we haven’t much substance to carry, and will feel empty passing through the tunnel of time.

Because one day there won’t be wind, we won’t be scurrying. We will know what is truly valuable. And we’ll either love it, or shrink away from it forever.

God, help us now to love Your reality, Your unchanging nature, Your faithful hand, wherever You lead us. Because You are good, and want good for us, help us trust Your heart, and not chase after the empty wind.