Biblical proportions

I remember once, in my "former life" as a cabinetmaker, receiving a call from a very, very, very wealthy woman who wanted to come by my shop and get my advice on the design of something she and her husband wanted to build.  Having done a great deal of work for her I knew there was no guessing what on earth she was thinking about building!   Over the years her eccentricity had pushed my skill and creative imagination to the limits ... not to mention my patience.  

I was in the office when she arrived, and when I walked out she had just heaved a massive roll of blueprints onto my workbench.   As she unrolled this colossal tree stump size roll of blueprints, I'm sure I audibly gasped, as I began to realize the size of this house they were thinking of building. I'm not even sure you can reasonably call it a house .... it was nearly 40,000 square feet!  

Regaining my mental footing I asked her what she needed my help with.  She told me that she was having trouble determining the size of the laundry room (as if she was ever going to do laundry!) and wanted my opinion on whether what was drawn was big enough.  What was drawn was nearly 20' x 40' - which staggers the imagination for a laundry room for a family of four!  But she couldn't visualize it.  Her problem was that she couldn't appreciate the scale of the blueprints. Everything just seemed so small to her - which may be why the house ended up nearly 40,000 sq. ft.!

One of the biggest problems we have as evangelical Christians is not so much error (though I've noticed a few popular writers "emerging" who seem to enjoy dabbling with it), but rather scale or dimension.  Like the woman who visited my shop, it appears that for many of us it is extremely difficult to get our minds around Biblical proportions.  Not only is there the problem that Piper likes to describe as viewing life and all things religious through the wrong end of the telescope,  but we also tend to view small things through a cultural microscope so that the wrong things, or at least very small and inconsequential things tend to become big in our eyes. As a result, we not only tend to lose sight of the greatness of God, but also the dignity and nobility of man made in the image of God ... and as important and urgent as the former is, it is the latter that concerns me most here in Africa.  ... But I'm going to have to wait till tomorrow to expand on it.  It's been a long day.

  

 

FYI

Someone recently loaned me a book entitled, "Men Without God, A study of the impact of the Christian message in the north of Uganda".  It was written in 1966 by J. K. Russell who appears to have been the Anglican Bishop in Northern Uganda during that period.   It has been for me an interesting read.  But unless you live here and have some of the quirky interests I have, I'm not making a recommendation.  Nevertheless, in it I came across the following testimony from an Acholi and thought you might like to know the source of all your misery: "At the time when God made man, he gave him all the fruits of the earth to eat: millet both for white men and black men.  Afterwards they separated from one another, and the white men refused to eat the black men's food.  Instead they began to eat the fruit of which God said "You shall not eat".  For this reason, God became angry and said "Because you have eaten of this fruit which I forbade you, you shall die."  And so death came into the world because of the white men"  ... thought you would want to know.

Blogging, neighbors, and the sovereignty of God

I am simply mystified at how so many bloggers manage to sit and write so often and so much ... with what appears to be an astounding breadth and depth of knowledge of all current events ... and even what their fellow bloggers are saying.  They obviously don't live in Africa.  If I am fortunate enough to have both the electricity and the internet working at the same time, I will surely have someone come by and want to "sit" with me a while.  

Whereas time management is a highly developed art form in the West, and "time" an honored and respected form of "property rights", the management of expectations seems to be the corresponding art form here in Africa. Precious little goes as "expected". But, inasmuch as we in the West "manage" our time and are genuinely more productive and prosperous for it, the typical African "has" time for their neighbor ... and I have many neighbors.  

So there it is, my excuse for not posting anything for many months.  I started with grand intentions and a firm resolve not to go the way of so many blogs that end after only a few posts, but I've just had a hard time getting in sync with the rhythm of life here.

But let me return to the issue of managing time.  It is interesting that for all of our time saving devices that help us slice and dice up our days we never realize how small we become in the process.  "Time" is us.  It is actually we ourselves that are sliced and diced.  We segment our lives in highly disciplined ways and give only the "time" (portion of ourselves) necessary for the task.  Out of courtesy we get "straight to business" so as not to waste each other's "time".  We go through life with packed schedules "meeting" people all day long ... but not really.  We are really like ships passing in the night. Suddenly our colleague ends up in divorce court and we say, "Wow, I never knew they were having any problems.  ... Honey, what is his wife's name again?"

Not so in Africa!  People and relationships between people are much more important here than almost everything else.  This is why extensive daily greetings are so important.  It has taken me a while to appreciate this.  I'm sure I have appeared as a barbarian to my friends and neighbors as I have said "hello" and gone straight to the point of my visit ... or worse, as I've asked them to get to the point of their visit. 

Throughout this part of Africa, there is often quite a ritual of greetings between people -especially upon their first meeting of the day.  As an outsider, this time of greeting appears to be an enjoyable time of sharing. But it also seems, in some way, to continue or extend an existing relationship, even between close relatives.  I'm almost tempted to think that a relationship must be renewed each day by the way they greet one another, even when a good relationship already exists.  It almost seems that a person cannot presume upon the relationship of yesterday to care for the relationship needs of today (relationships are the "social security" system in Africa).  But this is just speculation.  Yet, it is the only reason I can think of to explain why, when I leave town, I receive calls from people just to greet Susan and me.  They greet, inquire of our well being (it is never just me but always Susan and me), and then they hang up.  Even the process of saying "goodbye" is drawn out a bit here.  You never just say goodbye and close the door behind someone.  You accompany a visitor who is leaving for some distance down the road.  Relationships are treated with the utmost honor and respect.

For us, the honeymoon is over.  We are no longer visitors.  We have been here long enough to be expected to behave "normal".  We are expected to embrace the cultural value that people are esteemed far more highly than projects, plans, schedules ... or blogs.  But it is, nonetheless, my sincere hope (and "expectation") to once again resume posting my musings here.  But, in the very likely event of another delay, you can know that I'm not "wasting" time.  I'm cultivating the art of "having" time and "managing" expectations.

 

Shallow slogans

It has often been said (and I've said it myself) that the church in Africa is a mile wide but only an inch deep.  I suppose that it would be difficult to argue against this, for in many ways this statement is a fair description.  But before we swallow that slogan as the whole truth and draw an unfavorable conclusion, I want to give another perspective on Jesus' "wide and shallow" church in Africa ... and by the way, it would probably be wise to remember that it is His church ... and it is ordinarily good practice to use care when speaking of another man's wife! 

Ever seen the Nile river on a map?  It's really long.  It runs from Lake Victoria in Uganda all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. To help you appreciate the value of this river, Uganda is preparing to build a new dam at the source of the Nile in order to generate electricity. Not too long ago Egypt threatened to send fighter jets into Uganda and blow it up if anything should happen to reduce the flow of water to Egypt.  That's pretty serious!  What does that indicate about the waters of the Nile?  

I have been on the Nile at its source.  As it leaves Lake Victoria and starts its 4000+ mile safari to the sea, it cascades down a set of falls with such amazing force that rafters and kayakers travel from around the world to experience the world class rapids it creates.  But viewed from the other end of the river, from Egypt, this life-giving water (note the green in the satellite photo above in contrast to the Sahara Desert through which it passes) that Egypt is willing to go to war over finds it source thousands of miles south in a very wide and shallow Lake Victoria.  

Lake Victoria is the 2nd largest (and widest) fresh water lake in the world (26,000 sq. miles) spreading itself approximately 150 miles wide.  It has over 2000 miles of coastline which has become one of the most densely populated regions on the continent.  Its extensive surface area belongs to three nations.  But, though it is vast in size, it is the shallowest of the great lakes. So, it too has the dubious honor of being notoriously "wide" and "shallow" ... yet a source of life to so many! 

Perhaps width and depth is not the complete and, therefore, true measure of things.  Besides, what are we measuring against?  Just how "deep" is the church in the West?  I really wouldn't underestimate the life giving force of this "mile wide but inch deep" church.   In the coming years this continent will most likely have the highest concentration of Christians in the world. If the same Spirit that hovered over the tumultuous waters of the unformed earth (Gen. 1) dwells in the church in Africa, it would be foolish to be hasty in forming a judgment just now.  I have a suspicion that at the end of the day, God will look upon it and say, "It is good".

The transforming power of gadgets

It is now seventy plus years since the "east Africa" revival blazed across this part of the country, and that generation is almost completely gone - along with the stories of those days.  I wish I knew more about it, but there is just not much written available here.  It is commonly said that when an old man dies here "a whole library dies with him".  Being largely an oral/aural culture this, no doubt, is a true saying, and it is a sad loss.  Heaven, I suppose, will be the more glorious, as the saints from across the ages, and from "every nation under heaven," gather to tell, with glorified animation and eloquence, the stories of God's intimate and mighty deeds done on behalf of His people, for the glory of His Name, during the days of their sojourning.  I have no doubt that these stories will be worth the wait.  But I'm also convinced that I will have to wait until then on the stories of the revival - unless someone does a TV documentary or some kind of special posting on YouTube.  

It has become fascinating to me to listen to the laments of teachers and professors throughout the world who are complaining that "students just don't read anymore".  Here, if a person can read, there is very little available.  But it seems that in the "West," we have passed into what some have called a "post-literate" age.  Students would rather listen to their iPod while they keep up with their friends on Facebook instead of reading a "Realbook".  

New technology has a way of changing the way we think and even what is important to think about.  I believe it was Marshall McLuhan, who first wrote about how the introduction of new technology always reshapes the structuring of our thinking.  Once it is assimilated into everyday living it takes a life of its own and we never notice. 

Take the clock for instance.  When God created the world, He set the sun, moon, and stars in the sky to regulate the night and the day and the seasons of the year.  Even after the flood, that sad "un-creation" account, He made sure to point out that He was going to make certain that there would be order and regularity in life on the earth through the predictability of days and seasons which would, no doubt, be governed by these luminous time-keepers.  But they are not even noticed anymore, for in our world of seconds and minutes manufactured by this piece of technology called a clock, the sun and the seasons, these God ordained time-keepers become irrelevant.  They no longer hold any value to us for regulating life.  We prefer (or just don't know anything different) to mince our lives according to the dictates of the artificial, mechanical representation of time produced by this creation of ours.  

As a tool the clock is a wonderful thing.  But rarely do we understand the impact that our gadgets will have on how we see and know the world around us.  That which is intended to serve us very often ends up ruling us.  The clock made us into time-keepers, then time-savers, and now time-servers.  The same holds true for the phonetic alphabet.  To be able to see one's utterances rather than only hear them is no small thing.  We have not merely traded the ear for the eye as the organ of the body that should have preeminence, we have restructured the way the mind works.  This was driven home to me as I was being taught how to learn this language here.  My teachers forbade me to use my eyes (I couldn't write anything down).  I had to learn with my ears, by listening.  Every bone in my body rebelled against this and all I could "think" about was how much I wanted to write down what I was hearing so I could see it, break it apart phonetically, then try to re-say it.  But is this how a child first learns to speak?  It is certainly now how an African, who usually knows two or more languages learns.

The priority of writing, of making visible one's utterances, is losing ground in our day of electronic media.  This is what is so troubling to so many educators whose minds have been trained like mine to see rather than hear. Along with learning to see speech, much, much more has happened as a result of the invention of the phonetic alphabet. A whole way of thinking, and whole disciplines of thinking have developed.  

You see (pun intended), writing freezes speech and in so doing gives birth to the grammarian and the historian. Written words can then be analyzed and studied long after they have been spoken - and learning can be done in isolation from other people.  But sound is related to the present moment and situates us in community. As Richard Jensen indicates, where a "word is received by the listener, there is always community."  There is something rather profound that happens when the spoken voice is heard by the listening ear, something that connects.  For sound resonates from the interior of one person and penetrates the interior of another person.  It enters our bodies.  Something personal is shared between the listener and the one who speaks.  

With the advent of print came the advent of individualism.  Surrounded by books, Descartes could say, "I think therefore I am".  But here in Uganda, it could be said, "We hear, therefore we are." The spoken word, therefore, implies/creates community (at least in theory - sin has a way of complicating everything!).  Print produced the solitary scholar/scientist, but with the coming of electronic communication, specifically the internet, we are seeing the re-emergence of the priority of community.  There are now all kinds of communities springing up as a result of the world-wide web - even scholarly communities.

Do you "see" what I am "saying"?!

Now, why have I rambled on and on like this?  What is the purpose of my musings?  With the flood of new electronic gadgets coming in from around the world (especially China), Africa and Africans will most likely bypass the mind structuring influence of the book (and it is more profound than you know).  With the advent of the polysensory forms of communication provided by electronic communication (TV and internet) it will be increasingly difficult to get and keep people motivated to read books.  That is why I said earlier that I may have to wait until heaven to learn about the east Africa revival - unless someone posts a short video on YouTube.  

Notice the pictures.  When we took the first picture above we were in the middle of Maasai land where there was no electricity, yet there was cell phone coverage!  And the lady's house, in the second picture, was not much bigger than what you see in the photo.  It had no chairs, she still cooked over charcoal, yet she had a T.V.!  The invasion of the gadgets has arrived! - but how will they shape us?  They obviously already demand attention!  Just like in America, front and center of the living space is a TV.   I have even been in remote villages where there was no electricity and found young men who gave me their email address!  

Now listen to Marshall McLuhan (again, pun intended!).  "An age in rapid transition is one which exists on the frontier between two cultures and between conflicting technologies.  Every moment of its consciousness is an act of translation of each of these cultures into the other." This is probably more exaggerated in the West than here, for the technology of print has been the dominant form of communication and has held sway over the formation of the mind, and now the dominance has shifted to electronic media.  But for us in east Africa, who have never really experienced the dominance of the print culture, this "rapid transition" is more of the extreme sight of seeing a Maasai warrior reaching under his cloth wrap and pulling out a ringing cell phone!  

Short Calls

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to transfer someone from the 18th century into the 21st century?  It is not much of a stretch to say that it is probably very similar to what a rural Ugandan experiences who has never left the village.  Recently I had the unique experience of taking a young man to Kampala to visit his brother who had never been to the city before. During the whole 4 hour trip he never stopped chattering about all that he was seeing for the first time in his life.  He was like a 3 year old asking "what is that?", "what does that do?", etc. But once we reached the outskirts of Kampala, he became silent.  The whole way into the city he never said a word.  He was just "bug eyed" and silent.  

Once we arrived at the place that seemed central to where we both were headed, I gave him instructions on how to find a boda boda (small, insane motorcycle taxi) and how to get to the hospital where his brother was staying.  Needless to say he was overwhelmed with fear.  I asked if he had any questions and when he finally opened his mouth to speak, the first thing he asked me was what he should do if he has to "go for short-call" (urinate).  

I have no idea all that went through his mind as we traveled through this massive city, but of all the things that could happen to him, all the unknowns of how to get around in a city where they don't speak his language, all the questions he needed to ask about how to find a bus to take him back to his home in the village, the one thing on his mind was what to do if he has to "go for short-call".  Far be it from me, a certified coffee addict, to minimize that question.  But since I've been here, I've never known a Ugandan to wonder about the answer to that.  It is forever a common sight to see a man standing on the side of the road with his back to you (or not) tending to that need.  It is simply an altogether familiar sight.  But somehow he figured out that they must not behave that way in the city and he needed to know what to do.

I decided that the best thing to do would be to take him into the mall where I had parked to let him relieve himself before he ventured off into this concrete wilderness of strange sights and sounds.  Now you have to appreciate the fact that he comes from a place where there is no electricity and no plumbing.  You travel a long way everyday just to get water.  As we walked into the building he saw a large fountain near the entrance with a really nice spray of water.  He was completely dazzled by the sight.  As we passed through the building filled with shops and bright, blinking lights ... and so many white people, I could tell he was experiencing sensory overload. We finally reached the men's room.  When I pointed to the door he started to walk through and as he looked in he just froze.  He stood in the middle of  the doorway and didn't move.  He kept staring at the wall.  Curious, I finally decided to go see what the strange sight was that held him spellbound in the doorway.  As I approached the door opening I looked inside and saw that he was staring at a row of urinals attached to the wall.  He turned to me in complete perplexity and with uneasiness in his eyes and asked, "Is that it?  What do I do?"  Having no ready response, I just decided to lead by example.

   

Eating termites

This morning while visiting with the Principal of a local tertiary institution (something like a junior college in America), a lady who works in the building came running into the office where we were meeting, gleefully holding a sauce pan full of fried "ants" (actually termites).  The next few seconds passed without words, but she and I very obviously exchanged messages with each other.  Though meaning ... deep meaning ... was clearly, effectively, and immediately communicated, neither of us could plumb the depths of the source of each other's deeply held beliefs.  She seemed to be as mystified at my spontaneous reflex of disgust as I was at her delighting in what cannot, in my mind, conceivably be classified as food.  It was a fascinating moment.

I was reminded of the introduction of a book by Eviatar Zerubavel entitled, Social Mindscapes An Invitation to Congnitive Sociology, where he discusses the role society plays in shaping our thinking - even in such things as what is to be legitimately considered food.   "Why do we eat sardines yet never goldfish, ducks yet never parrots?  Why does adding cheese make a hamburger a "cheeseburger" whereas adding ketchup does not make it a "ketchupburger"? And why are Frenchmen less likely than Americans to find snails revolting?"  To his list of questions I might sincerely add, "Why do Ugandans find such delight in eating grasshoppers and termites and yet cringe at the thought of eating crawfish?" 

But this is the season for termites ... and the season for delectable delight for those Ugandans who enjoy them.  The rains push them out of the ground by the millions - millions and millions. They fly around and, well, I'm not sure what they do after that because I'm shut up in the house trying to avoid them.  All I know is that the next morning there are gazillions of individual wings floating across the ground in the breeze.  Their light membrane shape reminds me of those seeds that twirl and float down out of the pine trees at home in Mississippi. I suppose at some point in this process people go about gathering them up and cooking them, but up till now it has escaped my notice.

An expat friend of mine told me that their three sons were persuaded one evening recently by their young Ugandan friends that these termites were the best things they will ever eat.  In the early morning hours just after their induction into this new fraternity of insectivores, their young friends came knocking on the window to get them to join in "harvesting" the insects and frying them for breakfast. Each one of them, with the enthusiasm of a young Indiana Jones, ran into the yard and collected a bag full of these tasty morsels.  Some time later, the youngest (4 or 5 years old) came busting through the door with tears streaming down his face.  His mother worriedly asked him what was wrong and he bellowed out, "(sniff, sniff) I don't think I like terrr-miiites (boohoo)".  

It's ok, Zak, I don't think I like them either.