Dear one,
“A picture is worth a thousand words” … or so we are encouraged to believe. This noted, my intent here is not to debunk this aphorism, but rather to share with you my thoughts regarding the picture above: a young Malawian mother and her child.
Ever since my brief encounter with her, and then her subsequent picture, I have been captured by what I see—or is it that I have been captured by what I think I see? For me, in many ways this young mother reflects so much of what I appreciate about Africans in general. Her eyes and smile evoke life and joy; a simple earnest delight in being alive; an open humility, exhibiting a thankful heart. And of course, the babe at her back, seemingly warm and secure, rests peacefully, accustomed to mama’s movements, comforted by the lilt of her voice.
Moreover, this picture radiates color: the richness of her skin tones; the vibrancy and variety of the green plants and trees; the gnarled bark and the draped, purple and black sun filters; and the various pots: blue, turquois, and broken terracotta. And there she stands, amid a Malawian “greenhouse,” fully natural.
And yet, I must confess, my eye does not readily note the broom in her hand: she had been sweeping the hard-beaten pathway upon which she stood. What other tasks were part of her labors for that day, I do not know; but stooping over, brushing the earth with a three-foot length of bundled thatch was one of them. Nor does this picture show her feet: no doubt she was barefoot, her feet hard and dry from the many kilometers she had already coursed in her young life—and I have no idea her age. Was she eighteen or nineteen, and was this her first and only child? So much I do not know; so much I do not see.
This picture was taken in 2013, and so I now wonder: What has become of her life—more children? Has she lost any of them, or even the one pictured at her back? How has she lived the recurring floods and droughts and malaria outbreaks—and governmental indifference and corruption? I wonder.
About this I do not wonder: no doubt she and I, although very different in so many tangibles, share a kindred spirit: the desire to know and to be known by the One who created us, the desire to love, because He first loved us.
Hoping to see,
Stan