Contrasts and Catapults; The Aesthete and the Stone

Written a few days ago, this just needed a moment to marinade...


Some mornings, you pull a face as you pick something gross and sticky off the bottom of your dress; and hope that nobody saw that it was there in the first place or that you threw the mystery gooeyness onto the living room floor. Some mornings you dash off to the tailor up the road, hoping that no one will notice that you’re still in your pyjamas, desperately needing an outfit altered. The only way to attend a celebration like the one planned for tomorrow is to rock it - traditional Congolese style. And, with the tailor’s help, at very short notice, it should fit perfectly; neither working to escape my body as I move nor preventing the unavoidable process of in- and exhalation. Some mornings at the sound of your 5:45 alarm, you remember your soaking laundry and that, left one more day, the harsh washing powder is likely to gnaw straight through your clothes. Some mornings you leave the house, to-do list tucked under your arm whilst over-moisturizing your hands, still reeling from the laundry ordeal and their encounter of soap-like-sandpaper an hour earlier. But you’re grateful - your clothes appear to still be intact and the colour of the water hints at the bush dirt having been drawn from the thread. Success. Some mornings, half way up the hill, you realize that you’re still in your ‘shower shoes’ – a cute pair of Havais which quite simply don’t fly here as ‘real shoes’. And so you return home so as not to offend anyone you’re about to meet. Some mornings you walk to find a motorbike driver willing to usher you to meet your in-town errands at a decent price. And then you walk and walk and walk… until eventually you wear one down with your very best negotiation skills (or was it the willingness to engage in small talk and broad smile?) Some mornings. Today, was one of these mornings.

I have learnt though, that its mornings like this, which set one up for a really great day!

On any given day, I’m likely to take a step back and peep, like through a two-way mirror, at the substance of my day. There are seldom days where this brief reflective interlude doesn’t give birth to a smile that rapidly grows into out-loud laughter regardless of whether I’m on my own or with others who understand and so can share in the joy of it all.

And oh, the Joy!

This week has been a week spent in the city, sandwiched between two weeks spent out in the village, on what often feels like it could be the very edge of the world - only 12km from one of the world’s densest jungles and home to some of my favourite people on the planet. City life is so vastly different to village life. Each, captured in oils on canvas, would possibly suggest two completely different worlds altogether.

City Traffic at Sunrise

The one. Faster, louder, dustier. Volcanic ash littered, and dotted with white skin, pink skin, caramel skin, blue skin. Foreign skin. Complimented often by the glint of an open-to-work Mac and heels or ironed shirts fresh from a suitcase which hint at ‘just-a-few-days’. A taste of tar and red iron roofs. The odd generator-powered glow in the city-by-night version.

A Village View

The other. Vibrant with the greenest green and the richest soil brown. The colours washed clean by regular rain and the sky, blue bright and littered with nothing but cloud. The pace slower, the roar of a raging river crisp in the early morning quiet and the drumming and dancing and singing and laughing clear on the wings of the night. The poverty more defined and yet the smiles more sincere.

More frequently, however ‘a village portrait’ is streaked red with fear or slashed clean through by the violence of those who recognize not its beauty or its value. The value of life. The value of another’s humanness. The value of Louisa or Kassereka or Heritier or Rebeka.

It’s a privilege to look at and into both paintings; acknowledging beauty and progress. Seeing reality, but choosing Heaven’s perspective. There is such Joy in our choosing to stand and pick at the thick, sticky red-streaks of fear with Truth. There is such Hope as we see the gashes healed through the validation of stories and worship and simply being willing to live in mud huts, eat local sticky foo-foo and sit in the dirt. We bring Peace – not because of who we are, but because of who He is and because He says that we can do anything!

Such contrast.

And I will miss them both.

IF you didn’t read my previous blog, now would probably be a good time to do so. Unless of course you’re one of those people who are quite happy to walk in on the last 30 min of a movie you’ve yet to see, plop yourself on the couch and dip your hands into the almost empty popcorn bowl.

I am the sand. Moving from one bulb to the next of the old Portuguese explorer’s hourglass. I am in unstoppable transition. Completely rested in all that Papa is asking of me right now and tomorrow and the day after that, though my heart breaks a-little-a-lot at the thought of not living in either painting right now.

A season of development. He said. A season at My feet. He whispered. A place so familiar that the systems become mechanical and everything else you have to give can be Mine. A moulding, shaping and growing time (which I know often includes new breaking time). Before being flung again with even greater force to the ends of the earth. He said.

Life's better when you can hold somebody's hand..

The other day, on the edge of the soccer field in the village, I ended up somewhere beneath three tiny bodies, all wanting a little lovin’ – a back tickle or a hand held and conversation, just a chat. Three bodies and three catapults shoved into three pockets (they knew better than to even pretend to sling stones at one another anywhere near me). Three catapults made from condoms. Genius. I didn’t ask where they’d found the resources with which to make the catapults, I only celebrated that they were even available at all :) And in all this, Jesus spoke clearly, again. He pulls us back to launch us forward.

He places us into His catapult and draws us gently back, closer to His heart and there, at the point of maximum potential energy He grows us. Develops us. Breathes new strategy into our bones and writes new ideas onto our hearts. All the while solidifying the plans and purposes He has for our lives. All the while clarifying our callings. The substance of the sand doesn’t change.

I am excited about all that He has in store for me in this next season (a flash in the pan really in the greater scheme of things). And I have learnt that “simple obedience changes history” and I was born to do so. We all were.

In a mere week, I step into a season back in East London. A season back in a classroom – how kind that in this moment of pulling me back He is giving me the gift of being able to teach 28 twelve-year old girls until the end of the year, in the very classroom I locked ‘for the last time’ almost 3 years ago. Jesus certainly has a sense of humour. Teaching has never been a job; it’s always been ministry – though a mission field quite different to life in the world’s conflict zones for which my heart burns, but no less rewarding and no less important to the heart of the Father. I look forward to sharing what love looks like in that place as I continue on this journey of justice through love. At home. In that place so familiar that all the systems become mechanical and everything else I have to give can be His.

If we can’t lay our lives down everywhere, how can He trust us to lay our lives down in the anywheres of the world? The darkest places of the earth? Those places that call my name and for which I have near impossible dreams. Seeming impossibility… The very reason we do what we do. Justice is rising and it’s an honour to be part of it all, regardless of where Papa has me for the moment.

And so, my life, for the first time in almost three years is about to be lived in one currency for the most part. And there will be far fewer moments of panic as I wonder whether or not I’m wearing earrings designed to pop open the sim card slot of my phone as I cross a border, change my sim card and message my family from yet ANOTHER new number. I’m excited. Except for all those moments where I’m a little terrified, to be honest. And whilst I listen to the crash of Indian ocean waves upon the shore from my bedroom as opposed to the roar of the river from my reed mat. And as I enjoy the click of the kettle switch as opposed to the charcoal-buying fire-making process before a cuppa. And as I open a tap as opposed to hauling water in a bucket. My ‘Yes’ cry remains loud. My ‘yes’ to learning to love like He loves and see what He sees. To have my heart broken for the things that break His.

In just a moment, my “some mornings” will look very different. But, because I’m caught up in His catapult, my response can remain exactly the same.

And oh, the joy!