Dear one,
“Fantastic” … or gleaning a thought from John Eldredge, our world is a fantasy.
Earlier this afternoon, I was greeted with indifference by the warthog family. Father warthog seemed proud of his tusks; mother warthog grazed upon her front knees; and their children frisked about. As I ascended the stairs to my room, I stomped loudly, since one of my neighbors has startled me several times: regaling its fluorescent green body, he (or she) has slithered its serpentine length beneath an aged door. Although fascinating to watch, I would that this neighbor might quit the neighborhood. And then last night I was suddenly stopped and warned: twenty feet away, his back gleaming in lamplight, a hippo lumbered its mass further inland. Oh, but of course the neighborhood is greatly enhanced by the giraffe families—to whom twins were recently born.
To my American eyes, these near-neighbors are strangers indeed; and yet, I do not doubt that to Ugandan eyes, our neighbors of chipmunks, squirrels, and geese might appear as oddities—and of course, there are our far-distant neighbors: elk, eagle, and alligator, which we claim as our own, even if we see them but rarely. In its great variety and detail, our world is fantastic.
Not far from my warthog neighbors, live others. I listened to their stories: one had just recovered from a bout of malaria-induced hallucinations; another was concerned about a newborn not nursing; still another the excesses of alcohol and marijuana; and for everyone the crops are a concern. These latter neighbors, these Ugandans live in a very difficult world—clearly fantastic and yet fraught with the conditions poverty produces. (Apparently unemployment stands at nearly 87% in northern Uganda—even at 75% the implications stagger.)
Within this Ugandan fantasy, pastors provide hope, and yet they approach their calling with limited resources: income, education, and opportunity. Many of them have seven, eight, or as many as fifteen children, all of whom they seek to nurture, including the fees for their children’s education. Ah! but when they gather to sing, their sound is joyous—and I have been privileged to hear and share in their joy, which is neither simplistic nor naïve: it emanates from the conviction of God’s love, and that they have been called to share in the beauty and the brokenness about them. They have understood Jesus’ injunction: “The harvest is great, the laborers are few; pray the Lord of the harvest …” (Matthew 9:37-38).
Amid the broken and the beautiful.
Stan