Paradox was a concept I first encountered in GK Chesterton's writings (before we were even a pair of docs) and have held onto like a life-raft ever since. Gratitude and grief, for instance, the words that described the last year of severe injury and mostly-recovered relief, apply to most of our review of the past. We aren't forced to wear rose coloured glasses, to pretend everything was wonderful. We can lament honestly. But we are enjoined to pay attention to the mystery of good, even as we acknowledge and mourn the losses. Holding two opposite, disparate truths at the same time, it turns out, is also the path to hope. Looking ahead as well as looking back, we know that everything won't go our way . . . and yet we dare to believe that love is stronger than death, that good overcomes evil. That ultimately, everything we actually need will be true, because God is with us.
But living with paradox takes a toll. As we slog through reality, choosing joy risks experiencing disappointment.
Right now power is out, again. We have a long slew of tasks to accomplish that are made more difficult by the zero-electricity state, not to mention the thunderstorms pouring forth. People we love have some significant injury and illness issues, heart-breaks and challenges abound. In the last week, our team's been slammed with some confusing tax/facilitation/government/legal fees here in our country that could potentially mount up to way more than our annual salary (not that we have to pay it all). That plus Ebola simmering on the edges, and constant reminders of disability, make choosing joy a challenge.
To quote the book I always quote because we're reading it as a team,
And we pray that far under the surface of our lives, however easy or arduous, there would be a deep source of joy, a constant current of love that will never run dry.
This rain has me thinking of that underground river of joy that is available, but needs some excavation to tap into. So how do we risk it? How do we dig down to the source of joy? Paying attention to the presence of God in daily life, and reminding our soul that that is what we actually need. Looking back on the week, for me that happened one morning in a little wooden shack of a pharmacy shop, across the road from the health center. I had gone down to see the daughter of one friend who was recovering from a C-section and as usual the needed medicines were missing from the hospital stock, so we had gone across the road to buy them. It was a place I hadn't been to in ages, and so when the proprietor turned out to be a nurse we'd worked with long ago still cheerfully plugging along and delighted to connect, it was encouraging. She had about 3/4 of the vials needed for the full dose, and the energetic commitment to procure the rest. But even better: her daughter was on the porch of the shop and came in, and she had not only graduated from CSB but was a trained nurse-midwife herself and worked at the local government health center too. (In fact, we hadn't even been aware of the first friend's daughter's C section because the health care system we and others invested in for so many years, including these people, worked to save the mom and baby alive.) And the daughter's daughter was the cutest little preschooler, all smiles. To encounter a family who embody the all-things-new of what God is doing in Bundibugyo, lives spent serving the sick and endangered, faithful to their jobs and enjoying each other's presence, investing now in the smallest 3rd-generation member like we had invested in the 1rst and 2nd . . . it was a moment to glimpse that committed work with the hospital, school, church, discipleship, scholarships, encouragement and example, does keep rippling out. For the world's good and God's glory, our vision statement says. Many days we don't see much of the world turning good, and we don't feel that we're reflecting much glory. But risking joy means celebrating the "sacramental reality", the presence of God in the muddy, complex, tangible stories around us.
the little newborn who we went to see . . .named Lindsey after one of our teachers!
Glimpses of glory, Margaret and Asita with decades of faithful work for this place
And Yoneki and Damali, saints that remind us God is present
2nd and 3rd generation blessings, which give us the audacity to risk joy
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