It has been a full week since I returned to America. Back into the daily work of being responsible for a household, a child, and a husband. My intention was not to leave you with Entry 15, but it seems that I have not had time until now to sit and reflect. Actually, that's a lie. Even now I only have a 2 hour window while Avery naps to sit, reflect, type, shower, make the bed, write a grocery list, and start laundry. Today I may be trading a shower for a blog entry.
It's a curious thing that happens. It seems that when we get to a place where no one knows us, we become most ourselves.* Traveling to Africa was an incredible departure from my normal everyday life. The chance to see, touch, and do things that I had only previously experienced via my couch & flatscreen, opened my world immensely.
The western world pumps adopt-a-child advertisements into our homes so often that the images of hungry people and stick thin babies become just another 30 second blip we forget 30 seconds later. American parents are quick to throw out the "starving-children-in-Africa" phrase to a child who refuses to finish their lunch. But I have been there. I have met those kids. I have shared meals and time and hugs with those people. And I have realized something vital. The only difference between myself and any S. African living in a one room shack is simply the fact that I was born a middle-class American.
Their way of life is different from ours. You don't see as much evidence of the rat race and the Jones's. Hope is a thing pushed to the side in favor of meeting basic needs. Families are broken by disease, distance, and desperate actions. Yet there still seems to be joy and contentment in even the poorest circumstances. Every place I walked, a smile was returned with a smile. Each person I met took a genuine interest in knowing my name, my story. People were kind, helpful, and reassuring. There was less focus on self.
Ubuntu.
It literally translates as 'human-ness' and is a common philosophy throughout Africa. In essence, it is the belief that we are all interconnected. No man can exist in total isolation. What I do with my time, talents, money and relationships always affects someone else. After spending time in Paarl the ache of poverty became real to me. But upon returning home, I realized a few things:
~ Just because you live in a smaller space, own less, eat less, and travel less that does not make me better than you. We are equally deserving and loved by God.
~ While I cannot adopt, save, or feed every person who is born into a life with less, I can re-evaluate how I use my treasure. Spend less time accumulating & complaining and more time giving.
~ If just one life is better, easier, or more hopeful because I have touched it, that is success.
~ Living in this country is a gift. There are people that I now personally care about who will never have the opportunities that I daily take for granted.
That is all the more reason to take my life by the horns and squeeze every last ounce of experience out. Paint late into the night. Bike ride in the sunshine. Try that new food, new book, new music. Share my meals with friends. Learn to sail, to salsa dance, to saute a perfect vegetable medley. Whatever the opportunity is, don't pass it up. I am an American with the privilege to learn, to go and to do. I intend to cherish that more deeply in the years to come.
I have a chair to sit on, a husband who financially supports my time to reflect, a new laptop to type with, a warm place to shower, a comfy queen size bed to make, money to buy whatever groceries are on my list, and laundry to do because I own enough clothing to suit my moods. These are no longer chores. They are much appreciated blessings.
Hanging in our home is a giant wall map with pins stuck in all the places we've been. They are color coded - Blue for Matt, White for me, and Red for spots we've seen together. Blue pins far outnumber all the other colors. But today I gained a couple on him. To others, they are just 2 white pins on a map. But to me, they are 2 weeks of cultivating my heart and regaining perspective on my life.
* I totally stole this line from a cheesy "Visit Michigan" ad, but believe it all the same!!!
