Dear one,
6:00am and it remains dark; by 7:30pm darkness abounds. Such is my perception of the daylight hours of equatorial Uganda. Whether or not my perception is accurate, or even aligns with my previous visits, I don’t know; but upon this visit my heart and mind have repeatedly turned to that observation made by others: African cultures are generally characterized by fear and power. Theirs is the great longing to attain power, in order to counter and master those fearful forces operative in their world.
The other evening, very aware of darkness, my little flashlight in hand, I walked the seven minutes from our conference site to the quiet of my bedroom. There were no streetlights; the undulating, hard-packed road provided ample opportunity for me to stumble; and the two-foot-wide and -deep drainage ditches were not always easily seen. And of course, there were those riding bikes or motorcycles, or driving dust-laden vehicles, all swerving to avoid the next mogul; however, unlike me, most who walked the “shoulders” had no light. Great was the darkness.
As I walked, I thought of the many slithering varieties of African wildlife: serpents, with apparent stealth, often moving unseen, but when seen greatly camouflaged. Several are the stories I’ve heard of deadly vipers hanging in the thatch of a hut, or of a grandmother needing to quickly attend a snake bite. Moreover, this African world seems to have its sudden crises—without warning, a cyclone wreaks havoc, or an unseen disease decimates entire villages—unpredictable forces beyond anyone’s control, rendering them weak and defenseless, pleading for power.
Ah, but as I walked, I wondered: Is this not the darkness of my own heart? Three centuries ago, were not the swamps of Florida or the deserts of Arizona or the forests of Michigan as deadly and dark? When Joseph Conrad wrote The Heart of Darkness (1899), did he not depict Europeans bearing their own darkness to the Congo, rather than Europeans discovering a pre-existent, African darkness?
This past week, in my relating to twenty-five Ugandan pastors, we pondered Jesus’ death and resurrection, and in doing so, our affirmation was deeply heart-felt: “The Light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not snuff it out.” That is, the power of Jesus’ Light and Resurrection—His love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22)–conquered the darkness, that darkness still manifest among us. This is good news for those who fear, Ugandan and American alike.
Sharing in the Light,
Stan
Darkness ...