Southerner's Travels (in West Africa)

4.17.2008

Much has happened since I last posted, or even since Amy posted for that matter. My neglect is due to the increasingly hectic nature of our lives and our quickly diminishing stores of energy, two phenomena which I’m pretty sure are inversely proportional. Since February, I have visited a village and spoken in English to over a hundred Ghanaians I had never met before about the benefits of education (I had to be translated from English to Twi to Ga, two local languages, before I could be understood); I learned how difficult it is to convey in simple language the importance of learning to people who don’t have a school and who don’t speak the same language or share my culture. More importantly, though, Amy’s parents have come and sadly gone. It was a wonderful respite to have them here in Ghana, but as we knew that it would only be a temporary stay it was still a bittersweet time. During their visit, however, we didn’t sit around and complain that they we wouldn’t be around forever. The Maugans’ took us to Tanzania where we marveled at the vast plains of the Serengeti, the cloud-covered African peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Meru, and lions hunting warthogs in the hollowed-out ancient volcanic caldera that is Ngorongoro Crater. Besides these excursions I have chaperoned and “directed” our students in a 3-day Model UN event in which our school took part; Amy has continued to alternate between sweating outside everyday for P.E. and then rushing back inside for Bible classes; and lastly we have both gotten food poisoning several times. I’ve also written two aborted blogs which were essentially attempts to explain my own weariness and lassitude.

Well, I hope that the first paragraph has given an adequate picture of our lives lately. This doesn’t really even include the amount of preparation we do for our classes and the struggles which persistently attend our relationships with students and other teachers. And while I wish I could attach the same bildungsroman format to this blog and show how I have grown in the last 2-3 months, I can’t quite muster up the mental energy to create this sense of purpose and linearity. In fact, Amy and I have been frequently struggling to make sense of all the chaos at the school: students who seem to bicker constantly (it is high school, of course; their proximity to us is just closer than normal due to the relatively small number of them) and who appear to resist any form of moral development, let alone learning. We’ve also dealt with the inevitable development of multiple teachers and staff coming and going. To add the cherry to Amy’s (I rarely eat it) bowl of foreign ice cream which never quite tastes the same as it does in the States, living in Ghana the Third World Country leaves all of our interactions with bureaucracy—our constantly derelict electricity and the nearly unpayable bills which follow (because we have to work so hard separate truth from falsity to find out how much we owe)—stained with the bitter taste of corruption.

But despite all the confusion at school and the unreliability in this country, I have days when I am able to write this in my journal: “Today was a particularly good day at AIS. These are the kinds of days that make me project wistfulness into the future. I can already envision the Ghanaian sun’s warmth exerting mental warmth over the memory of this day.” This was the second day back after spring break, and as I glanced over the ethnic as well as personality diversity of our student body and the relative peaceful coexistence of our students and teachers, I knew that the gloom which had presided over the last few months was not the conquering theme. Although clouds of unknowing and darkness at times seem to overshadow the light of God’s love, we do have Christ to dispel the darkness by bodying forth his illuminating, redeeming love.

And although that fact stands prominently fixed in my mind and heart even if I don’t always apply it, this is not the idea that is ringing in my brain presently. My “non-epiphany” runs like this: while God has fixed his immutable though ineffable standards to this world, in practical experience life does not offer us the same moral fixity and logical consistency we so crave. This complexity does not just consist of the familiar “people doing the right things for the wrong reasons or the wrong things for the right reasons.” That commonplace statement is a part of life’s complexity, but more acutely mental/spiritual vacillations cause me to marvel at God’s majestic creation in one breath and to feel absolutely meaningless the next. Over spring vacation these two sentiments were elicited by the exact same observation: the now indelible mental tableau of a sinewy female lion pausing from the hunt and staring directly into my eyes for thirty seconds while the breathtaking walls of the Ngorongoro caldera towered above and enclosed me within this sanctuary of primordial nature. This sight—this lion that stirred a premonition of death and self-negation—inspired within me both exultation and fear and also amazement and existential doubt. Blake’s image of “The Tyger” is perhaps the best representation of this dual response to elemental, beautiful savagery because it shows how we as humans are both compelled by and driven from reminders of our mortality, even shapely, fascinating ones like wild lions. It forces us to ask the question, “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?”, since it begs us to answer what kind of Being could create a beast that is both capable of intense, unconscionable malice and also one that displays such wondrous, immaculately proportioned beauty. Only a God whose mind is unknown to us could display evidence of his ordered handiwork while still leaving us conscious that our lives are a vapor, a chasing after the wind.  

So this is the normal process of my mind: I constantly waver between wonderment and adoration of creation on the one hand and confusion at its incomprehensibility on the other. What is the purpose of all this suffering in Ghana (domestic abuse and AIDS, kids routinely beaten, dead men left on the roads, Good Samaritans in rare supply because no one can afford to get involved, belief that witchcraft rather than Christ can solve problems, etc.)? But I also wonder why should I be the beneficiary of such a marvelous, awe-inspiring world? In short, I have now accepted what my literary and philosophical training previously taught me. Life is so infinitely complex that the human mind, with all of its own fluctuation and irresolution, cannot even begin to penetrate the interconnectedness of all of life’s various, conflicting inconsistency and also its unexplainable beauty and goodness. But then again I don’t need a rational explanation for the connections amongst life’s incongruities; I just need the mental certainty that Christ, who has woven together the tapestry of this temporal, fleeting world, has redeemed me from inconsistency, evil and confusion. Then I, with all the odiousness endemic to my nature, can be comforted by the awareness of His omniscience while relying on his grace. And with that, I’ll end the blogpost with one of my favorite prayers from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, one I meditate on frequently when beset by this ailment of double-(or triple or quadruple) mindedness:

Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws, We have left undone things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have though, And there is no health in us: But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders; Spare thou them, O God, which confess their faults, Restore thou them that are penitent, According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord: And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen. 

Postscript: Although this lion metaphor repeatedly surfaces in a similar form in The Chronicles of Narnia in the character of Aslan, I’m almost positive Lewis never personally saw a lion in the Serengeti or the Ngorongoro Crater, so I win. Take that, Clive Staples! I may not be a better writer or more profound thinker, but at least I win this round.

Oh, and look on Amy's Facebook profile for pictures because for some frustrating reason this blogsite wouldn't let me put any up.

2008-03-03

Well, I do not know yet how I am going to enlighten you this morning, this afternoon, this evening.  How bold must I be to say how I am going to enlighten you, heh!  

America, overseas, my dear quiet Korean student Ha Eun Moon, grade records, leaving money for the cook, getting bitten by mosquitoes, exercise, internet, reading books, talking to God, getting annoyed with people, music, dumb people, adventures on vacation, these are thoughts fluttering through my brain. I know we, as part of humanity, ponder 17 things at once and when someone rhetorically asks “How’s it going?” what exactly are they looking for as an answer (maybe just a nod).

I fight tremendously when writing these blogs between giving a “nod” or giving the truth. Is the truth too personal for such a mass variance of people out into the void of cyberspace, and is a “nod” too general and insincere for such a convenient opportunity to share with so many people I cannot individually email each week.

This dichotomy kills me! I know you are saying (besides how the heck is this enlightening) “what is the big deal, just write about your experiences”. I cannot simply state recent events concerning how “God has blessed me” through it.  This life here is something extraordinary and ordinary. It is extraordinary because I was born and raised in the land of opportunity, so Africa is unusual.  It is ordinary because I eat, sleep and work each day with people. What I wish I could do is be Homer and call upon the Muse for assistance in writing this blog.

Balance.  Contradiction.  Compare.  Contrast.  For all of those you need two things. Living this life is much, much more than one thing you see, do and stick to (pardon the jumbled thoughts, dear friends).  Christianity is not seeing, believing and living according to one thing.  Why do people hold onto such small verses and phrases from the Bible, from books and from sermons. Christians say “The earth is 5,000 years old” as if the Bible tells us that, right? And Christians pray prayers like “Thank you for never leaving us nor forsaking us”, like that is true in every situation? Also, Christians pray that Atheists will “be like them” and repent, yet the Christian cares nothing for who the lost person is, how their salvation might come to fruition, and how that Atheist’s beliefs can be more devotion-based than the Christian’s?

How come the world could not have been created a billion years ago? Does not God do things for his glory, even if that means forsaking us for a bit? Are not there many “good” Atheists and many “awful” Christians?

I recall my senior year of high school having a discussion with my boyfriend about movies.  Jonathan condoned some pretty terrible things in movies, but, as he would tell me, they are only terrible in a shocking way because that reveals the necessary theme; he would elaborate that those chick flicks aren’t grotesque in their visual images, but their messages are shallow and unjustified.  I remember wondering if I could marry a guy like that, and after 1700 fights I walked down the aisle and here I sit a bitter cynic like him. My momma always said, “You become like those who you habitually choose to hang out with”…….and it happened (sorry Andy). There just came a point when watching drugs destroy a man followed by redemption became much more appealing then seeing a “beautiful” girl have premarital sex with a “nice” guy the day after they had a romantic encounter in the park.

Balance.  Contradiction.  Compare.  Contrast.  For all these things you need two things, and the Bible is full of them.  The Bible shows the Balance of being in the world and not of the world. The Bible seems to contradict itself by saying “He chose you before the foundation of the world,” but you have freewill because God gives salvation to “Everyone who believes”.  You can compare, weigh against, the issue of alcohol with not being drunk with wine and using wine to gladden the heart.  Let us contrast asking God to destroy your enemies and how to love your enemy.

I wish the Muse was helping me right now with my words. I wish so badly I could eloquently and intellectually explain this frustration in my head, but many have tried over the past centuries and how many people care? Not a lot. I just have become so tired of the easy answer to everything just because I am a Christian and it all goes to the cross, no questions asked. That is huge though because after ALL my frustration that is where I end up ( there is another paradox).

In college I pored over Psalms. I read the structured laments and Praises of men, feeding off of words like “I wait for your salvation, I obey your precepts” and “How can I repay the LORD for all his goodness towards me?”. Here I sit in my first year of marriage and my first career, and all I can ingest is Ecclesiastes. I do not need to hear Asaph tell me “Give thanks for his name is near”; I hear plenty of “genuine” missionaries say that weekly.

In one of the commentaries on Ecclesiastes it says most people disregard “this” book because most Christians cannot make sense of it so they leave it alone (quietly of course). I thought that absurd, but as I thought about previous reactions and watched new reactions of people dealing with death, problems, pagans, etc, I realized people really do neglect the ideas in Ecclesiastes. People become sad when some random news reporter dies; older people get angry with the new generation because the new generation is “so far gone”; and people think life is unfair because they are not pleased with life at the moment or their prosperity level is low and that is just “unfair”.

Hevel, hevel hevel hevel hevel! Vapor is the meaning of that word. Life, money, work and toys are all hevel. How can they be hevel if God made them for us to glorify Him through? Ecclesiastes presents life as complex, as it should be looked at from time to time. In chapter three it says death is a season, so if a random news reporter dies, why bemoan that when nearly fifty Ghanaians were killed over a Futbol match. Death happens all the time all over the world. It is a season (besides, you do not know the news reporter or the Ghanaians). And how can generations look at the next and say anything. Not many years ago our great country treated men as animals; yup you are right, this new generation is so bad because they kill fetuses instead of exploiting and abusing a whole race of people because of their skin color. And lastly, where does it say we are to be prosperous? Every time my taxi stops at a red light or during bad traffic people with baskets on their heads run to my window to sell me sugar cane, plantain chips or mentos for pennies, mere pennies, JUST so they can eat. Do not read so selectively in the Bible that you think prosperity is owed to you just because you are educated and civilised.

You must wonder why I always get on some “soap box” about America’s weaknesses. Jonathan is wondering what to do post NICS. He wonders what he should study in grad school, what he should do with what he studies, etc. After so many years of being jealous of Jonathan’s knowledge I realize he has something I will never deal with. Jonathan has the pressure of using his knowledge and intelligence. With my abilities I have a call to my husband, my fellow Christians, the society I live in, etc, but I do not feel the same pressure Jonathan does.  To settle for certain jobs would be a waste of not only his knowledge but of what he understands concerning those he could help. That is how I feel about America. We pride ourselves in valuing human life (whoop-di-do, we cry when some idiot we don’t know dies); in Ghana we occasionally see a dead man (sometimes naked because the poor take what they can get) just lying on the side of the road, no one cares and THAT is what is sad. A good Christian Ghanaian man rode his bike to work the other day and a tro-tro (large van) knocked him off his bike. THIS good Christian man pulled the tro-tro driver out of the van and beat him up a bit because the law, told to you by the police, is in your hands. When I buy minced meat the “butcher” pulls out the meat, throws it in a bag and hands it to me, never changing his gloves (I am careful not to touch the germ covered bag). Ghanaians (I hate to speak for all African countries) sing and pray in a repetitive form. They do not articulate what they are saying but just that they are saying “holy” words.

America is called to more than mediocrity and self containment. Some may say that we have enough problems of our own with these “radical democrats,” etc. We have so much to offer a world like this (where I am presently). They do not always value life because death is so common, so we can help with the physical needs; they beat up someone who did their bike harm, so we could assist in establishing more of a civilised society with laws. They walk over sewage, germs in raw meat does not bother them, we could help with awareness on health issues,; they sing repetitive songs and pray with words of little connection, so we could educate them in theology.

I will end soon………….Just know that there are a lot of societies around the world full of people who have fractions of what you have (intellectually, mentally, etc) but what difference does it make if you do not use it. I am not telling you to come to Africa. How long will I be here? I am telling you to use it (the knowledge you have). Use it in your society, use in to sharpen your heart, use it to help the world in some way. I am speaking mainly to you older readers. Forget stupid people like me and read Ecclesiastes and wrestle with the complexity of life and your purpose on this earth. I am a firm believer that Christians are the most ineffective people because they never question even their own faith.

Disclaimer: this is a long blog, full of my own wandering thoughts and personal beliefs, so read at your own risk. I promise my next blog will be more Afrocentric and less cerebral.

2008-02-06

Well, in this blogpost I’d like to report some of the goings-on in my classroom, and I also need to respond to some of the ideas that currently pass for truth in Christian circles. These mostly erroneous and pervasive ideas are represented by students’ comments made both in and outside of my English and History classes.

As I was teaching the other day, I made the casual remark that we are all born sinners and are in need of the grace of God. And, yes, I even emphasized that small children were saturated with the corrupting effects of fallibility. Some students felt that this position was overly harsh (because I said that infants were inherently selfish and manifest similar tendencies towards self-absorption as much older humans, and not merely because they cry), but I made this comment to drive home the truth that none of us is righteous and that no one can achieve salvation apart from God’s grace. I know it sounds unfair that God would charge these seemingly innocent infants with being sinful and worthy of condemnation, but we must remember that God’s justice is incomprehensible to our human standards of equity. Our entire concept of salvation is founded on God’s specific grace for those he loves, so it seems unfair that people living in cultures without access to the Gospel or that those who lived before Christ should be damned. But God does not share his entire plan with us and does not find it necessary to justify Himself to man.

It may be that there is an “age of accountability” for infants, unborn children, or even older minors, but both the mystery of God’s sovereignty and also the lack of a clear indicator in Scripture preclude a satisfying answer to this question of infant condemnation/salvation. We cannot impose our civil concepts—such as minors or juveniles being held to a lower legal standard—on God’s demand for righteousness, just as we can’t offer civil righteousness (good works: think Mahatma Gandhi, Plato, Virgil, a UN Human rights worker, or anyone who helps a little old lady across the street) to God as propitiation for our sins. The perfect life of Christ and his atoning sacrifice are the only means of salvation. It may be that he grants mercy to those who lack cognizance, i.e. the young, but the burden of proof lies on the person espousing this doctrine. Anyway, my main bone of contention lies not with this purported doctrine of accountability; I’m primarily concerned with the universal nature of sinfulness.

I’m not alone in my belief that sin covers all and that everyone is in need of God’s grace. Both St. Paul and St. Augustine, the two foremost interpreters and writers of Christian theology, articulate a consistent understanding of original sin. In Romans 3, Paul assembles a battery of Old Testament passages to build a fully realized presentation of man’s sinfulness. When he states, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one” (verses 10-12), he stresses the universality of man’s condition and leaves no room for any human goodness which can justify us in God’s sight. He ends by saying, “by the works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin” (verse 20), which may cause some to argue again that we must possess the gifts of cognition and volition to be eligible for God’s punishment. But in chapter 2 of Romans Paul carefully explains that there is no litmus test such as circumcision (a ritual given on the eighth day in order to assimilate Jewish infants into their own faith and initiate their union with God) which can suffice to save us. I’ll also add that I’m assiduously attempting to refrain from proof-texting here so that none can say I’m ripping verses out of context to fulfill my own agenda for the Bible.

Moreover, in Augustine’s Confessions, the most famous extra-biblical interpreter of Scripture begins his theology-drenched autobiography by commenting on the wickedness of small children who lack a clear will or developed brain functions. He clearly propounds the doctrine of original sin, starting in infancy, when he writes:

When I did not get my way, either because I was not understood or lest it be harmful to me, I used to be indignant with my seniors for their disobedience, and with free people who were not slaves to my interests; and I would revenge myself upon them by weeping, That is the way of infants I have learned from those I have been able to watch. That is what I was like myself and, although they have not been aware of it, they have taught me more than my nurses with all their knowledge of how they behaved. (I.8)

Augustine spares no pity even for these young children who know no better than to seek their own interests. Their knowing no better is in fact precisely my point. We all seek our own interests and are utterly depraved from the start. This is sin nature. Although we may not even know how to differentiate right from wrong, our natural inclination is to selfishness (not just self-interestedness, which would cause an infant to stop crying after receiving food, but infants cry “to revenge” themselves on those not serving them in every capacity).  Babies physically need the touch and care of their mothers or at least a guardian (as numerous psychologists’ and neurobiologists’ studies demonstrate), but this says nothing of the spiritual sickness which is already firmly entrenched. Sin nature begins at birth and plagues us continually until the cross shows us a different way to live, and even then sin still besets us. This sin nature, this restlessness, is ultimately what causes man to seek the rest he desperately needs in Christ’s outstretched arms.

Besides the universality of sinfulness, I would also like to refute as well as repudiate this entirely fallacious argument for original sin: that sexual intercourse, since it connects all of us back to our first fallen parents Adam and Eve, inoculates each of us with a healthy dosage of sinful nature. This argument has been completely disavowed by most thinking Christians, almost all reputable theologians, and probably most importantly John Milton, because he has thought more cogently and more exhaustively in Paradise Lost (everyone needs to read it at least once and probably multiple times to understand the Bible as literature and to also to learn to question commonly held biblical beliefs that are culturally inculcated) than anyone else on the subject of man’s fall and the proper role of sex in marriage. The fact is that sex existed in the Garden of Eden—whether you believe in a figurative or literal interpretation of Genesis is completely irrelevant here, as the theological principle remains unchanged either way—in its most exalted and most unmitigated form. Childbirth, not sex, is what is specifically made corrupt through pain after the fall. In a post-lapsarian world, sex is riddled with the same problems as every other human institution, but sexuality itself is not a source of evil. Thus, Jesus could have been birthed through intercourse and it would have no bearing on whether or not he was sinful (the miracle of his conception through the Spirit proves his divinity, not his lack of sin--a distinction which needs to be made). Sexual intercourse is thus beneficial for humankind and is not intrinsically corrupt; we humans are the corrupt ones, not sexuality.

Lastly, I’d like to address the historical origins of the idea that we are born without sin. The Enlightenment, as most people with the slightest knowledge of intellectual history know, was the source of the scientific method (if you count Bacon as kick-starting the Enlightenment way back almost in Shakespeare’s day), Cartesian skepticism, and Lockean individualism. But following John Locke’s belief in tabula rasa (which means blank slate, or the idea that man is just an unwritten tablet waiting to be imprinted by good and bad influences), Jean-Jacques Rousseau perpetrated one of the most attractive and destructive lies which has ever been unleashed on the human race. His idea is that “man is born free but everywhere is in chains.” Rousseau reiterates this throughout his major works, which include The Social Contract and Emile (which I’ve read) and another work entitled Confessions (which, regrettably, I have not read). My friend Joel could probably do a much better job explaining Rousseau than I can, but succinctly his belief is that society, not an inherent nature, enslaves man to evil. Therefore, a noble savage—someone separated from the corrupting elements of society—or else someone elevated by education beyond the petty, bickering, fickle natures of men who are conditioned by society, could attain to a virtuous and enlightened nature. This belief, however, was variously tested throughout the 18^th and 19^th century and found seriously wanting. Utopian projects where reason instead of doctrine or Christian humanism reigned, Paul Gaugin’s artistic search for noble savages on isolated islands, and attempts to flee decadent European society all failed and led to the same conclusion: man is an inconsistent animal driven to evil by his own nature, not by society. These misguided attempts usually ended up in disillusionment for the seekers of earthly perfection because man’s nature always reverted to selfishness and communal dissension.

Any classical or medieval philosopher, or really any philosopher up to Hobbes, would at least agree that man is inherently sinful, but the 18^th century saw a drastic change of direction in man’s conception of himself. No longer did he need grace and Christ’s salvation to alleviate the effects of sin; now reason could raise him to heights formerly unforeseen. Despite this unhealthy attachment to reason, we are capable of goodness, charity and enlightenment outside of God’s salvific plan, but these gifts come through common grace, which can be the intelligence and beneficence which God grants men apart from His spiritual workings (these would include Gandhi's morality, Plato's philosophy, Shakespeare's dramatic genius, or the examples mentioned previously in the blog).

Unfortunately, this early Enlightenment view didn’t just die out. It transmuted into the widespread American belief in humanistic and narcissistic deism. Basically it runs that there is a God in the universe (His handiwork is made clear through the structure and order of the world) but that He would never willingly condemn anyone, especially a person who is basically good (read: BORN GOOD), to hell because no one deserves hell unless, you know, like you’ve done something totally bad, like raping or murdering someone or stealing someone’s ipod out of their locker. So there is no longer any need for Jesus because there is no such thing as sin. Jesus is just the loving extension of God, who used to send people to hell but knows better now that the intelligentsia of the world have informed Him that people are basically good creatures.

Anyway, it’s late and I should probably stop typing. I just wanted to give a sense of how the trajectory of false doctrine (rejecting sin) can lead you to eliminate the need for Christ. If you don’t believe the Bible, then you don’t have to accept the fact that man is sinful and that you need forgiveness, but then of course, you have to find a way to explain Rwanda and the current situation in Kenya and motorbike robberies and rape and gang violence and drug use and incest and abortion and genocide….

I seem to  have dwelt uncomfortably in the realm of man's evil nature the last couple of blogs and have neglected to record anything truly hopeful or redemptive that has occurred in our lives. Well, there have been those myriad encounters with beauty, but stirrings of the soul are frequently deposited in the memory, and once carefully stored there they do not effect any tangible outpourings of charity toward others.

Nevertheless, the blessings incurred while in Ghana have easily outweighed our sufferings and challenges, even if heat, bureaucratic corruption, pervasive cruelty, and internal discord can be overwhelming. And although the bubble-like environment of AIS can be suffocating, it is the people, both those who remain here day after day and those who step in temporarily, who make this life worthwhile.

One teacher, who will be nameless but most likely identifiable, is an encouragement to me and to others everyday. This particular teacher wakes up everyday at a quarter after 5 and proceeds to spend at least thirty minutes with her God and then goes outside to run all alone because her husband laconically lolls around in bed. This disciplined routine, though, is not just a legalistic rite but a means of survival and coping, a worthy sacrifice for her body, and an endorphin-fueled time of painful joy. Then she comes back home and frequently makes breakfast for her still lethargic husband and goads him into getting ready for another day of inculcating knowledge to resistant students (can't blame them though; I was the same way in high school). Then the two of them walk outside, say hello to their guard and friend Lawson, and either hail a taxi or ride their bikes to American International School. At school she has the job which is often deemed the "fun occupation" at a school in America, but in Africa her work can be frustrating and exhausting because persistent 100-degree temperatures are not easy to endure for 4-5 hours a day.

Aside from her job as physical education teacher, she has willingly volunteered to be the Bible teacher for both 8th grade and the high school, and she spends countless hours preparing lessons and creating the curriculum for these students even though she was neither a Bible major nor trained as a high school teacher. Beside that, every time a student has a birthday she brings in their favorite dessert, whether English sponge cake, cupcakes, or cookies, and makes sure that the student has a felicitous day. On top of this, she plans parties and hosts students at her house and always bakes for and entertains them. You may think that she does this because she has an intense desire to be liked, but in fact she desires to serve others and to show them the love of Christ. In Bible class she gives them inoculations of doctrine and biblical truth from the Book of Common Prayer and the Nicene Creed and from Jonah, Ruth, and Job. These shots of truth, however, are never unacommpanied by kindness and loving selflessness, which is difficult because it's hard to be a subject teacher to 11 high school students in a tiny, cramped room when you're just 5 years older than they are.

And one other thing: she accomplishes all this even while having to come home to a self-involved husband who does not always acknowledge her sacrifices and her hard work. In fact, she negates her sense of self so much so that she doesn't think she's any good at what she does. But there are many examples of her talents. She successfully planned (with help from her committee and our visitor Wally), organized, and ran the first field day for AIS, and all of the students talked about the "funness" of the event for days and even weeks afterwards. Moreover, she has never shirked her lessons for Bible even though her class sometimes proves unmanageable because the room is too cramped and because all ages are crammed into one group. She has been a constant support to her husband, and she cooks, cleans, and does laundry after long days of school. Lastly, AIS would be a less cheery place without her because her spontaneous smiles and inappropriate comments generate laughter and eliminate tension at meetings and in class. Her vivacity and genuineness are appreciated in any environment, but in a high school setting they are a stark counterpoint to some of the verbal abuse and gossip which inevitably occurs.

Well, her name has been omitted because you might falsely accuse the writer of this encomium to be biased. Although someone else would never know her as well, I think the most casual observer would see quite a few of her virtues and would marvel at her attitude in a climate where complaints can choke out patience and joy. She was even the one who brought up the idea of Africa or overseas ministry to me, so her strength and faith have catalyzed this Christian venture for both of us.

There are others who bring joy and who increase my knowledge of Ghana and this beautiful, sorrowful world, but they will have to be the subjects of future blogs.

November 26, 2007

When God at first made man,
Having a glasse of blessings standing by ;
Let us (said he) poure on him all we can :
Let the worlds riches, which dispersed lie,
            Contract into a span.

            So strength first made a way ;
Then beautie flow’d, then wisdome, honour, pleasure :
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure,
            Rest in the bottome lay.

            For if I should (said he)
Bestow this jewell also on my creature,
He would adore my gifts in stead of me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature :
            So both should losers be.

            Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlesnesse :
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least,
If goodnesse leade him not, yet wearinesse
            May tosse him to my breast.

George Herbert, "The Pulley"

So Amy put up a famous poem by Robert Frost, and I had to match her by inserting one I really liked. This poem has remained a favorite of mine for at least the last four years, mostly because it aptly and subtly shows what it takes for me to return to Christ's waiting, outstretched, -- out of love but also forcibly spread apart by the cross -- salvific arms.

Throughout the tumultuous last 4 months, I have been tossed back and forth between exaltation and despondency, weariness and energy, strength and weakness. These three antinomies could turn into a litany of contrasting emotions, but the dichotomies chiefly illustrate the transient nature of my joy and sorrow. At certain times, I feel as though I'm really imparting something of significance to the students, but during other low moments it seems as if I'm hurling rocks of knowledge at minds which act as huge retaining walls of aversion to critical thinking and wisdom. But the fault doesn't just lie with my students or really with anyone in my life (well, then again, sometimes it does). At times my attitude is self-centered, and what I deem appropriate for them intellectually and spiritually may be off target. Outside of the classroom it's just plain hard to live here, especially in these beginning months because I'm still discovering how to accomplish simple tasks and because it's just tiring to live in persistent 100-degree heat with temperamental air-conditioners and other non-working appliances. Of course those physical annoyances aren't really the source of the discontentment that has plagued me these past 4 months and that has been a staple of my life so far.

Here as in America, I tend to rely solely on those gifts from God which Herbert mentions, "strength, wisdom, honor, pleasure," and I frequently cling to my aesthetic sense, or my capacity to appreciate and understand beauty in all its forms. Ultimately, these personal affinities, joys and passions -- marveling at beauty in nature and art, uncovering the order of creation through the powers of logic and reason, and engaging in rational self-examination to grow in knowledge, wisdom and strength -- can only take me so far, and eventually I grow weary and am beset by my own feebleness and inability to deal with other humans. Herbert's word for this tendency is "restlessnesse", and I think he intentionally (but here I commit the "Intentional Fallacy" according to Wimsatt and Beardsley) aligns his poem with Augustine's famous statement from Confessions: "Our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee."

Although I might have an iota of strength, a modicum of knowledge, or a glimpse of real or ideal beauty, none of these qualities can save me from the wretchedness and depravity of my self-justifications, my selfishness, and my self-involvement. I delude myself into believing that my love for Plato (the philosopher, not the dog) and his credo, "The unexamined life is not worth living", can save me from the strife and malice which pervade the human heart and which consequently determine interactions between people. But really my thoughts and feelings, just like everyone else's, are stained by the corruptions of original sin (I've been discussing common grace in my English classes lately in order to reconcile pagan goodness and virtue with original sin, but that's fodder for another blog), and I crave the atonement of Christ to calm my vacillating heart and my wandering soul. I've just recently come to this epiphanic reminder, a belief I always knew but repeatedly forget to accept: I am by nature a weary, restless creature and will usually manifest this inherent state through anger and frustration, but I will never actually find rest or peace until I return to the site of all peace, the cross. Christ alone can and will transmute seething antipathies into virgin springs of charity. My restlessness fades away after I recognize this fact, but the fallen world makes me lose sight of it after I forget God's grace and once again believe that I can use my perception, learning, and personal strength to govern my life and mitigate the inevitable anger directed at colleagues, students, friends, or even my wife.

I suppose these thoughts have been weighing on my mind for a while now, and the advent of, well, Advent itself and a break from school have made me take stock of the semester and the stresses which daily beleaguer me. I have enjoyed my time here and find myself looking forward to returning after Christmas break ends, but I also long for a necessary physical rest which can provide a temporary cure to ailments which probably have spiritual origins. Of course, I will never receive true rest until sanctification turns to glorification, but as long as I can hope for that day I have the strength to persevere through whatever calamities or challenges God sends me.  

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Frost

 2007-11-12

It is just another Sunday afternoon in Africa.  I woke up this morning to the sound of a rooster’s wake up call, the guard sweeping outside my window and an airplane taking off (loudly…we are a few kilometers from the airport).  The rooster alarm and Gilbert sweeping simply reminded me that it is just as every other day; however, the airplane stirred an amazing emotion.  I hate writing this because it sounds so pretentious, like I am taking something so prosaic and making it seem profound.  I will blame this “amazing emotion” on the fact that I am listening to “Ice Age” by Pete Yorn. Yup! To introduce my point I will start with my daddy.  My father, whom I miss desperately, is a pilot and from the time my little brain could recognize what an airplane was and its connection to why my father was absent from time to time, I always associated planes with security and pride. Once I arrived in Africa and realized whenever I saw a plane there was NO chance my father was in it and there was no chance of seeing him, and the rest of my beloved family, unless I got into one, my association altered. A plane used to represent security and pride but now it is a means to freedom and comfort (to the extreme). 

When I hear that stupid rooster there is some level of comfort because I anticipate laughter after dodging it while riding my bike to school.  The sweeping is nice because I am reminded that I have helped a man feed his family and I have someone to say an English phrase to that will inevitably end in both of us laughing because we are confused with each others language and mannerisms.  Both of those are the same everyday, and so was the sound of an airplane until today.  For the first time in over four months the thought of being home at Christmas was a feeling of excitement, but this time it was accompanied by the thought of who I will be sharing Thanksgiving with before I depart for home and who I will sit next to during the African Cup after Christmas break.  My satisfaction in life is not set on my freedom from my bondage in a foreign land away from my dearest of friends.  My satisfaction is in that I am not merely surviving through (somedays I amJ) this life in Africa, I enjoy it! When I heard that plane and my thoughts went beyond the ascent, and all the way to the descent back into Ghana I gave a relieving exhale and gratefulness for that peace. 

The other night as I attempted to sprawl out on the bed (strategically, because if my and Jonathan’s bodies touch we become even hotter in a non-air conditioned room in Africa) so as to be cool enough to sleep, Jonathan said, “I love the way African’s say “WoOoW”.  After that comment we began to come up with all these funny, enjoyable mannerisms and pronunciations we loved about the local people: one guy repeatedly asks Jonathan (apparently) to say my name because he likes the way Jonathan says “Amy” and not “e-m EE”.  All being said, this “amazing emotion” really just arose because I am so tired and because delirium had set in!

It has been something difficult to grasp this life here.  I hear a voice in my head saying “Man, Amy, this is a long missions trip” or “Don’t worry, you can survive a little while longer”. Then I realize I am lying to myself because I am not going home anytime soon, so my thoughts change to that of “Why would you move so far from opportunity, establishing a future, your friends, a life you know all about”.  Familiarity is tricky because everything familiar for me has some association with the South and my childhood (USA); however, my marriage will always be associated with unfamiliarity because Jonathan and I moved here right after our wedding. (I apologize, this is the moment my thoughts go wacky).  All I know is, if I hold onto my longing for familiarity and my fear that I will never returning to it, I will miss the fact that my place of ultimate familiarity is in the shadow of His wings.  I don’t look at heaven as my home, though I can’t wait to hear God’s oratory on suicide, predestination, and whether or not Jonah actually was repentant, but more as God as my home now and in Heaven (sorry if that is crazy talk based on some –ism that I, as Jonathan’s wife, should know better than to say that).  I have written and erased a dozen sentences trying to say the best, most p.c., or theologically sound sentence on my view of heaven as my home, but all I know is when I get to heaven I will have never been there so how could it be familiar? I will, however, be worshipping and enjoying God in a perfect way and THAT will be familiar (not the perfect part)….which is what encourages me because no matter where I move I will be struggling with different things, and that will just teach me different lessons, and I will hear the familiar sound of God challenging me but always giving me an “amazing emotion” every once in awhile.

I would like to give credit to this “amazing emotion” (haha, I love how I named this specific emotion of mine [please still love me, Jonathan]) not only to Delta and KLM but a guest we just had stay with us. He may never read this and that is probably best, but I have tears held back every day for my sister-in-law back home, my dear sweet trio of Westminster classmates and my big bro’s, but for some reason I have them for this former guest (he left today).  This guest came for a specific reason he thought was in God’s will but didn’t find it…….yet somehow he blessed me and Jonathan in his professional advice and friendship (and, for Jonathan, the fact that he was a boy).  He exuded compassion and a genuine faith! Without belaboring an ambiguous explanation concerning this new friend, I am just pleased with God’s thoughtfulness to use someone to build up my faith even in the midst of their distress!

As I began to write this blog 20 minutes ago, I attempted to tactfully and universally convey my sadness and struggle with my recent attitude of discontentment.  As I swirled a few paragraphs around (somewhat aimlessly) and sprinkled them with relevant verses to back up my “confusion” (because the Bible is confusing and paradoxical), it became quite windy outside.  I paused and stared at the palm trees and massive yellow flowers fluttering ferociously (that is for Jonathan because he rolls his eyes when I use words like that inappropriately) in the tropic wind. I proceeded to write more but paused yet again to stare out the window as the trees and flowers were being gently washed by a tsunami! I stood up to go into the kitchen to make for myself a bowl of Jell-o I had prepared the day before.  Since the power had been off an hour earlier, there was a large pool of water by the frig (common obstacle), but I managed to scoop out some strawberry squish! I finished my Jell-o and walked back into the living room trying to decided if I really cared about my boring blog full of self pity.  Should I watch Scrubs? Maybe I will read for my class. I could stare at the ceiling? Should I bake some muffins?  I should email a dozen people.  I could do the laundry? These were my thoughts. And suddenly I saw in my head the small mud/brick/palm branches for a hut house just meters down the road from my large cement walled home with a frig to hold my squish (Jell-o).  I thought, HOW can I wrestle between watching television, emailing on my computer and reading a book on a nice couch when little black boys and girls are huddled in their soaked homes with possibly some rice and plantains.  I am dry, they are wet. As my brow was furrowed because my discontent attitude was causing shame I remembered attending SOS one Spring Break in college.  We were building a house, rather fixing a house, in Binghampton and I recall how the poverty was awful. I remember staring at the sky and I could see hundreds of kids all over Memphis staring at the same sky yet living in such comfort. That day I remember feeling so very ashamed of my lack of appreciation for the luxury I had been living in my whole life.  Here I am in Ghana, luxuriously, yet discontent. Of course the only thing I can think about is how I wish the power would not go off so much, the two inch long cockroaches wouldn’t crawl out of the drain when I did the dishes, I could run outside, I did not have so many bug bites, and I could afford to buy Tide!

I do believe God has blessed me with so much monetary stuff……my English teacher in High School taught me never to use “stuff” unless it was the only word that fit, in this case it fits perfectly.  I have just a bunch of stuff that I rarely appreciate. 

This blog is jumbled and incoherent but I just decided not to give into my emotions (rendering myself to be pitied). Jonathan taught me….aside from the proper definition of Romanticism, D.C. is not in a state and why Cordova is a terrible city [refer to the Introduction of Ideas Have Consequences]……failure is a part of our nature, so I should not beat myself up as much as I should strive to prevent a possible new failure (discontentment, impatience, anger, etc). Life is not about our own glory rather about striving for righteousness through God because we cannot attain it on our own. Constant striving despite our doom to fail, over and over and over……whether in Memphis or Ghana.

 I hate when I realize how discontent I am, but I hate even more when I realize I faced a similar situation four years ago. Won’t I ever learn? I suppose the answer is no, but I can fight not to be discontent and when I am again, I just fight again.

Blah!

 2007-10-20

This past weekend we left the city of Accra for our fall break and visited the Coconut Beach Resort Hotel at Cape Coast in Ghana's Central Region. It was our first time to travel outside of what is known as the Greater Accra Region, which basically contains Accra and its suburbs and extends north to the southern tip of Lake Volta, the world's largest reservoir. The trip itself was a much-needed excursion because we were able to relax and view some of the sites for which Ghana has earned its reputation as the symbolic capital of West Africa.  

The first afternoon we met some of our kindergarten teacher Ashley's friends in the small fishing village of Elmina, and afterwards we toured the notorious and beautiful slave-castle that is situated on the harbor there. While we looked at the different dungeons (one with windows for white soldiers who had misbehaved and another unlighted, cramped room for the slaves; in the latter dungeon, the prisoner would not be “released” until a rotting corpse was smelled) and heard about the Dutch governors' practice of choosing female slaves for purposes of degraded pleasure, an American black lady had the unique privilege and retributive pleasure of spitting upon the burial spot of one of the aforesaid governors who must have had his way with numerous Africans (his epitaph praised him for Christian charity and integrity). She proceeded to vituperate against the dead man by remarking, “I’ll match my sin with his. I’m sure I’ll come out all right while he’s burning in hell.” This understandable but slightly embarrassing verbal display merely accentuated my well-developed American sense of guilt over the perpetuation of this centuries-long atrocity. Even more intolerable was the chapel's use of Psalm 132:14--"This is my resting place for ever and ever; here I will sit enthroned”--to indicate that the Lord dwelt here. Appropriately and seemingly on cue the tour guide wondered, "I wonder where God really was," implying of course that He wasn’t in this unholy milieu.

Well, the spitting incident reminded me of the attitude of many back home who are always clamoring for the redress of past injustices (which, to be fair, are still visited upon third and fourth generations because of cycles of poverty and concomitant violence). The Africans, however, do not hold the same sense of entitlement that the radical equalitarians in America espouse (radical equalitarian or egalitarian aims, by the way, hardly ever mean true equality and neglect what should be striven for, equity; in contrast, they usually present an inequitable and irrational bias toward one side). Instead, they have realized that such injustices stretch beyond the scope of individuals or even races. Showing greater perspicacity through an acknowledgement of historical fact, they have remembered that coastal African tribes initiated and prolonged slavery by selling members of inland tribes to the Europeans. Even though they didn't actually ship them over to America, they were undoubtedly aware of the miserable conditions on the ships and in the New World when they sold them into slavery. Anyway, the crux of my meditations, as I was processing the picturesque scenes which assuredly accompanied the slave castle then as now, dealt with the nature of evil. My mind became consumed with yet another inscription at the castle: this one vainly hoped that no such horrendous act would be perpetrated by mankind again.  I knew the inscription was well-intentioned and optimistic humanism, but it still produced a discordant note in my mind because the quotation simply overlooked the glaringly obvious doctrine of original sin, man’s inexorable attraction and capitulation to evil.

Ultimately, both the inscriptions and the retaliatory responses to slavery elicited consternation and bewilderment over the enigma of the human condition. I don’t purport to have a definitive answer for the twin problems of evil and suffering, but it seems that the Christian model does provide the surest explanation for why such events continue to happen. Even if the exact circumstances will never be replicated in Africa (white man arrives; blacks sell rivaling tribes; whites then enslave Africans), similar egregious problems still exist (intercontinental slavery, tribal warfare which lingers on from even before the arrival of white men, not to mention the struggles arising from divide-and-conquer, civil war, power struggles, and hordes of refugees in a host of African countries). It seems clear that man’s nature is one of entrenched evil, and although he somehow possesses the gifts of pity, grace, sympathy, and even benevolence, these better angels of our nature are often thrust aside by our capacity for violence, selfishness, or at best cynical despair (that’s my side of it). The frustrating counterpoint to the Christian notion of original sin is that the remedy, Christ’s sacrificial, redemptive act of love producing an outpouring of charity, is often vacant in his followers’ practice. The Dutch and later the English always claimed to be Christians. Thus, it’s disconcerting that a chapel sits perched high atop the slave castle, carefully cloistered away but silently condoning the rapes and murders which routinely happened below. Do all men then possess the same predisposition to extreme evil? Or do those who are predestined, foreordained, and called according to God’s purpose get a free pass for avoiding this journey down to temporal if not eternal Sheol? And what about those who never commit such blatant atrocities and who perhaps even seek the just, true, beautiful, and good in their secular, unbiblical, and (gasp) Platonic way? (In my mind, Dante’s Limbo has always seemed a blessed place, but there’s really no room for it within the New Covenant).

I have often dealt with this problem by separating the universal standard of original sin (there is no one righteous, not even one; everyone has gone astray, etc.) from the more Aristotelian and secular concepts of virtue and vice (which can even look a little like Pharaoh’s hardened heart in the Pentateuch or, in Pauline Christianity, God giving men over to debased minds and to debauchery). Christianity tells us that everyone is a wretched sinner (except for Pelagianists, of course). In Aristotle, man acclimates or habituates himself to good and evil by consistently choosing one or the other path, thus forging a certain character. In a sense, he wills his nature. Boethius reiterates this idea in Consolation of Philosophy, but he must deal with Christian predestination rather than just the ancient concept of determinism or fate (I really need to brush up on Aristotle but presently cannot because my books are in Memphis). I’ll skip Boethius’ explanation of how free will and predestination coexist because it doesn’t pertain to my present musings, but the most salient consideration is that man, through common or special grace depending on whether or not you have been justified through faith, is able to perform either wretched acts of evil or merciful, humane acts of goodness. But I suppose this is where Boethius’ explanation of God’s sovereign foreknowledge and man’s free will coexistence does become relevant. Everything that happens is part of the divine tapestry of God’s will, but in His atemporal viewing gallery He stands above the physical world ascertaining all of history unfold simultaneously: he watches men volitionally enact certain events and choose good and evil but without constraint of historical trajectory. So those who follow evil and those who obey Christ’s precepts are just caught up in the seemingly infinite web of God’s sovereign plan. That’s where Romans 8 fits in (all things working for good, but not everyone, however, just those who are called according to his purpose). O well, I’ve rambled on enough, and I’m entirely certain that I’ve become ponderous, so I’ll stop.

After the slave castle, we had a day of relaxation by the pool overlooking the beach, and the next day we visited the rainforest by way of a canopy walk (rope bridge with side netting spanning from tree to tree) 300 feet above the forest floor. Amy was just a little scared, so I was the dashing gentleman and coaxed her from platform to platform. Actually--for shame!--our music teacher supplanted me and talked Amy through her fear of heights. I was a little preoccupied as I was engrossed in the beautiful colors and the miles-long views, but don’t worry, I won’t revisit my feelings of sublimity and attempt to transcribe my Romantic responses (see past blogposts). We then spent the rest of the day and most of Sunday recumbent while watching the 10-12 foot-high waves perpetually roll. Endless series of rocks disappeared and emerged as they were covered by the undulating crests and troughs; this African side of the Atlantic is more terrifying, more natural, and more ruthless in its persistent and vehement fury. The jagged rocks, the high waves, and the infamous riptides betoken a less placid side of the world.

As a whole, the experience was Edenic, and appropriately Amy named the facebook picture album “Third World Paradise.” Our repose was jarred only by the squalid condition of the shantytowns in the fishing village and by the Rastafarian who asked us why we were working in Accra when so many in villages needed teachers and volunteers. Although this question bothers me at times, the return to school on Tuesday reminded me that those at AIS need the Gospel to palliate the effects of sin and evil just as much as those in the villages. I suppose I’ll stop, except to explain the title of the post. Other than my blatant love for Milton’s brilliant theodicy Paradise Lost and the obvious paradise-like trappings of Cape Coast, the trip revealed the surfeit of wickedness and lack of humanity in man himself (ironically, the word “humanity,” which designates a fallen race, still has connotations of all that is good in the world: a vestige of ancient Greek humanism, I suppose), but the natural settings and my own thoughts and meditations redeemed the experience. The castle, a monument to the slave trade, is itself a setting of redemption because the formerly accursed edifice, set against the never-ending outfolding of blue-green sea, manifests both the design of God and also the wickedness of humanity. Although we are always capable of sinking under the weight of sinfulness, we can be raised above the depths of slavery to sin and death through knowledge and understanding of Christ’s love. In West Africa, the ocean is the perfect symbol of Christ’s redemptive love: it buries the sinfulness of the flesh and swallows up our past iniquities, even our most shameful ones (slavery), and renews us through the purging and cleansing of our sin nature. The regularity and simplicity of the constantly rolling breakers mirrors the harmony and order of God’s perfectly perceived plan for human history, even if treacherous winds, ravaging storms, and invisible undercurrents seem to preclude sight of the working of God’s Providence. I suppose that’s why baptism is one of the only sacraments which stretches across denominational lines: water, so essential for human life and unique to Earth (so it seems), is perhaps the universal symbol because it physically mirrors our spiritual need for both cleansing and renewal. Those who reject the knowledge of their sin contravene the very image of humanity written into nature.

October 3, 2007

Today school was cancelled due to the combination of faulty electrical circuitry, the power sporadically turning on and off, and the blown fuses and non-working air conditioners which inevitably followed (and possibly fried computers as well as other blown electrical devices). I remember once getting let out of elementary school at ECS because of one paltry power outage, but I don’t think the problems resulting from ill-functioning power in Memphis quite match the hot, sweaty, blinking-light madhouse the school might have become if we had actually held class (okay, that might have been a little hyperbolic). This electrical calamity just compounds the hundreds of dollars of damage done to many of my social studies workbooks during a torrential downpour which occurred within the confines of my room (the roof leaks; no, leaks is too anemic a word—it gushes water). We have, however, become suitably acclimated to this inconsistent and frustrating existence though, so smaller annoyances (a relative term: our director is the one who actually has to resolve what goes wrong at school) recede as more important intellectual and spiritual triumphs give us the succor we need to persevere.

Anyway, because I would never complain about circumstances here, I’ll move on. It seems that most of the teachers have used the last couple weekends to get out of Accra and see the bush or some of the villages and rural sites outside of the crowded, dusty streets of the metropolis. Our own adventure happened the Saturday before last, and although we didn’t actually get to visit a village—we’ll do that in 2 and a half weeks when we visit our friend Daniel’s hometown where they are in the middle of cocoa harvest—we did pass through the bush where we viewed prominently displayed palm trees set against lush, green plateaus full of tropical plants and flowers. During our trek around the countryside of the Greater Accra Region, we managed both to ride six or seven different trotros and also to view a gigantic, rushing waterfall and a plant sanctuary at Aburi Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, we forgot our camera, but I might pilfer our friends’ facebook accounts for pictures of the falls or the gardens.

Being immersed in the idyllic, natural setting overwhelmed me not in the way that the soccer game confounded and befuddled my senses, but it did produce a stirring or longing which has welled up within me every time I have surveyed some sublime vista or beautifully desolate (people-wise, not in terms of vegetation) region. I suppose it’s no accident that I gave my high school students an assignment to meditate or reflect outside for thirty minutes without the distraction of Ipod, casual conversation, or any number of civilized gadgets which disrupt the cultivation of our cognitive and aesthetic senses. Although I’m quite sure that the assignment did not trigger any profound searches for truth or beauty, perhaps someday they will desire to find God in the still and beautiful places of the world without the clutter and clamor of technology or avant garde postmodern self-referentiality which pervades our culture.

Not that this is a self-call to pantheism or nature worship, but my schedule here is so busy that as a mental break  I’ve been turning most often either to the prophetic and poetic books of the Bible or to the Romantics, most notably Wordsworth. For some reason I picked up “Tintern Abbey” for the first time in at least three if not five years, and his early Romanticist zeal for uncovering his soul by meeting with pure, unmediated nature has mirrored my wonderment with this tropical beauty. I’m not overly fond of how the Romantics have unloosed their modern vision of poetry on us (the Artist as God and the cult of historically and literarily uninformed creativity and imagination), but these lines from Wordsworth give voice to the belated raptures of nature working upon my mind: “thy mind / Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, / Thy memory be as a dwelling-place / For all sweet sounds and harmonies.” Likewise, my memory has served as a repository for these aesthetic experiences, and the word “sublime” really does explain my mystified reaction to sights I can’t possibly comprehend (hackneyed Miltonic example: in Paradise Lost, Raphael likens the spiritual forms of heaven to bodily shapes so that Adam can mentally picture them because they are sublime or beyond human understanding).

These distinct glimpses of natural beauty—rustic Africa, the antiquity and ruggedness of Greece, the immensity of Rome, my awestruck first viewing of the Milan Cathedral, and every autumn in Tennessee—prefigure the ideal beauty vested in the Divine Nature and consequently tax my feeble human ability to comprehend God’s creative powers. These encounters, however, seem to emanate from and merely hint at a childhood draught of beauty, my first viewing of the Sangre de Christo Mountains in Colorado. It’s no accident that they’re named the Blood of Christ mountains (see the Paul Simon song “Hearts and Bones” for another take) because they exemplify the awful beauty and transcendent, incomprehensible majesty which is vested in the Son of Man “who walked the waves” and sacrificed his blood for humanity. Both the sight of these mountains rising out of a flat, prosaic valley and the image of the crucified Christ are equally as incomprehensible, so every time I witness a scene of unmitigated, ineffable beauty I am returned to the impressionable childlike mind inexorably drawn toward the rugged, natural beauty of those Colorado peaks.

Besides prompting this feverish mental reaction, my experience in the bush, meager though it was, has caused me to ask questions about my own choice of job in the relatively civilized world of Accra. As I’ve stated numerous times, physical signs of the juxtaposition of Western and African cultures are ubiquitous. As a result, we have to deal with cheap plumbing and electricity, but we also have the benefit of Western grocery stores, taxis on every corner, and basically access to everything we need (but not necessarily want). The juxtaposition works inversely as well, with the Western influence being negative and the Eastern being positive. We actually have a relationship with our fruit vendor and seamstress who both see us regularly and give us good deals, while the overpriced, impersonal store Game rips us off (we go there when we need a dosage of American capitalism).

Anyway, I’ve started to wonder what it would be like to be a teacher at a school in the poor, flood-ravaged Northern regions of Ghana or really in any of the rural subsistence-farming communities in Africa. Would that life and vocation be more sustaining or satisfying than the one I’m presently living? Recently one of our other teachers traveled up north to take supplies and to commune with the believers there, and now our school AIS is having a clothing and food drive (via money because food costs too much to transport) for some of the villages decimated by floodwaters. Moreover, another of our teachers visited a village in the Volta region just a few hours up north and reported a small, bustling village school full of small children eager to learn. Anyway, the clichéd questions arose: am I doing enough to help where I am already? Is just coming to Africa enough? Should I be teaching wealthier Ghanaian children and the missionary kids who have ready access to a Christian community? But then a new set of questions cropped up. What can be done about the spiritual, intellectual, and moral poverty that defines most of America and Europe? Is it of primary importance to serve others’ physical needs rather than their immaterial ones? I know that serving widows, orphans, and ministering to “the least of these” is thoroughly biblical and that Jesus told the disciples to shake the dust off their feet if they came to an unreceptive town, but perhaps the stage is set to revisit the decadent West and its provincial outposts in the expatriate communities of countries like Ghana.

On top of this, I feel that the “bare-bones” spiritual/intellectual education which prepares villagers for technological change and which bestows upon them a sometimes minimalistic, doctrinally deficient Christianity does not retain the beneficial parts of civilization, finding ethical solutions to complex problems and the constantly searching for traces of ideal beauty, truth, and goodness in the world, which I hope to transmit to my own students. By preparing students for higher learning or by giving them a taste of God's Providence and character manifested in history, literature, and art, I hope to foster their own burgeoning faith in Christ. I guess it’s my own take on the Great Commission, and I’m striving to understand each day how I can fulfill it within my own time, social circumstance, and geographical setting. I’m content, at least momentarily (we human creatures eventually seek larger boulders to roll up new and higher hills, just like Sisyphus), and I can only pray that God grants me ample opportunity and spiritual strength to show love to others. Just this week the Crosbys, Amy, and I were able to help our night guard by giving him money to pay for his mother’s hospital bill; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been released and her bill would have mounted steadily. I hope opportunities like this arise frequently so that we may aid others with physical needs to supplement our work at the school; in consequence, perhaps some will see just a tinge of Christ’s love manifested in our oft-straying and weak-willed lives.

That's enough of these ponderings on my paradoxical love for the reflection produced by nature and also for the moral and philosophical advantages of civilization. As Amy reminds me, I should be more personal in my writings. Hopefully this wasn't too academic, but I fear it was.

Just to let you, the reader, know I do not know how I am about to enlighten you. I just have been somewhat emotional lately.  I need to clarify this word “emotional” for you.  I have always thought emotional was when a woman was being too sensitive; Jonathan, however, frequently informs me it is merely feeling ANY emotion (complex, eh?).  So when I say I have been emotional lately, I am using Jonathan’s definition.  I have been excited, frustrated, tired, sad, happy, hopeful, content and discontent all within two weeks.  I think the clashing of my home culture with my new culture has become most apparent lately.  I love it here nonetheless!

I am Mrs. Callis, the most wonderful P.E. teacher in the world to the preschool and Kindergarten class, simply because it is more fun to run around than have nap time or learn the ABC’s. There is a French boy in Kindergarten, named Noe, who has only been  speaking English for five weeks now; he often interrupts saying “excusez-moi” in a rather strong voice! Noe asks numerous times a day, so I have been told, when “Mrs. Callis time” is because he does not know the term P.E.  Anywho, after the 4 and 5 year olds I have the 1^st through 4^th graders, and they may or may not think I am wonderful, but they seem to get excited about P.E. every time I say “Everyone listen or we will start reviewing your math homework”. I say all that to defend why, by late morning, I am a bit sweaty from the sun and the running.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are predictably exhausting for me (but I love it)!

SO today, on this particular Tuesday, I once again became rather drippy by late morning.  Sometimes the air conditioners in the school work, sometimes they do not, today they did.  I was sitting in the teachers' lounge (deceivingly convenient- it is used for a dozen other purposes) when I heard the familiar crackling of the coffee brewing in the nearby kitchen (yes, people drink coffee here, even if we are 3 inches from the Equator).  I thought, why not drink some coffee; I cannot get too much hotter and the air conditioner is blasting in the “teachers' lounge” (I suppose I’ll put it in parentheses’ this time).  So I pulled out my specially packed “sweet-n-low” from my backpack and found a random cup I hoped was clean and made myself a cup of coffee like I did back in the states.

After a physically tiring 90 minutes of P.E. with the preschoolers through fourth graders, I was not expecting to have emotional pain shortly thereafter. 

I sat down with my cup of coffee (made from personally imported sweetener, just like home), and time paused for a moment. I am not really sure what happened in my head, but my senses were ever so reminiscent! My taste was of something familiar, my fatigue was that of any normal morning run, and the cool air from inside that “teachers' lounge”, freezing my sweat to my face, was the same of my favorite season, FALL IN MEMPHIS. 

Oh, how many times in Memphis during fall would I wake up early and go run a few miles, and following that I would always, always have THAT cup of coffee beside my journal and Bible outside Starbucks or home. Oh, how it hurts to think of what I am missing at this moment, right now, this day. I wish ever so badly that I could set my alarm for 5 am and get up tomorrow morning, tie my shoes, get into my Honda and drive to Shelby Farms and RUN…..run until I was so tired my ankles hurt and my lungs burned and my muscles ached so bad it felt like someone cut them with a knife!!!

I have requested of Mr. Callis that he sit outside with a latte for me sometime in the near future, but now I cant seem to bear the thought! Hahaha, I must seem so silly to all of you readers! I adore it here in Ghana! This last weekend Jonathan and I took a trotro (extraordinarily cheap, jostling transportation) up a nearby mountain (3 hours away) with 4 friends to see some Botanic Gardens and a Waterfall.  The daily sites and sounds are captivating, honestly. The children who hug me every day at AIS are priceless.  But the memory of home rips open my heart and spills out too many emotions to handle. 

I suppose I say all this to tell you (why I feel I must have a “charge”, I know not?) to really, really appreciate what ever little thing you have at this moment.  For me it is NOTTTTTT Memphis Fall (Oh, how I wish it was), but it is my nearby fruit stand that sells me enormous pineapples for 60 cents, my new dog who bites me and the community of friends here in Accra! If you are in Memphis, however, I have another “charge”, if you will; GO run, just a little bit (or a lot?) and when you do think of two things: #1, how Amy must live vicariously through you at the moment and #2, how much better dinner will taste after the runJ

I miss all of you back home, those in Dallas, those in Chicago, those in Nashville/Murfreesboro, those in Boston, those in Atlanta, those in South Carolina, those in Europe and beyond, but especially those experiencing the beginning of this year’s fall in Memphis! I love you guys; do not forget about Jonathan and me, we’ll be home at Christmas!

2007-09-16

The most exciting thing that has happened recently has been that we have acquired a small, furry, biting creature. No, it's not Gizmo or one of the malevolent mogwai(s?) from Gremlins; it's a diminutive, spotted puppy (part Husky and part terrier: what kind, I don't know) which we have named Plato. Alright, we didn't really name it; I named it, but the surprising thing is that Amy actually allowed me to name it after my favorite philosopher. She put pictures up on facebook and labeled the album "Plato--The Ideal Dog", so her cleverness actually far exceeded my own. Anyway, it has been a lot of fun to have him around the house biting ferociously at our ankles, our hands, our clothes, and our computer cords, especially because we have been missing the menagerie of canines who lived at our respective parents' houses back in Memphis.

I'm trying to keep my writing on a more superficial level, per Amy's request to take a one-blog break from the mental intensity of previous posts. So here are some anecdotes. Yesterday we went to the market and amidst the general pandemonium that occurs along the crowded byways of hissing vendors (they say "sssssss, sssssss" just like a snake's hiss to get your attention) and small huts we managed to pick out about 50 yards of fabric. Although it may seem that Amy has undertaken to sew a patchwork dress for a a man of Brobdingnagian proportions, in actuality we've been using different kinds of cloth to construct makeshift curtains for the many windows in our house. We just stick them up with clothespins, and subsequently we are able to play our household soccer games without fear that our neighbors the Korums can look in and find out how weird we are (oh yeah, we have a tiny soccer goal and a large, poofy soccer ball in our living room to fill the empty space). Well, that's all beside the point. Near the end of our time at the market, I spotted some plastic "rugs" which I thought would make bright additions to a flat which is presently devoid of color variety. Our friend Daniel helped us negotiate the price, but he looked a little perplexed as to why we wanted the blue and green patterned mats. After we had finished shopping and after Amy had carried the two plastic rugs on her head to the tro-tro which would take us home, Daniel asked why exactly we wanted Muslim prayer mats for our house. We then realized that the plastic mats were meant for those looking toward Mecca, and we were a little chagrined to have bought them as mere ornaments to our undecorated house. Well, hopefully no Muslims come in and feel slighted by our religious faux pas, but we really are enjoying the color that at least one of them brings to our house. One is in the kitchen next to the sink, and the other is yet to be assigned to some appropriate, still vacant corner of our domicile. This is just another typical example of the general cluelessness we exhibit while in Ghana, but everyday (at least everyday that we venture outside of the school and house gates) we learn some new way to adapt, even if the lesson does seem rather trivial.

[At this point, I had a good deal more written, but somehow I deleted an entire paragraph's worth of verbiage. I'll attempt to rehash it here, but I'm tired as it's nearing 10 p.m., a signal that bedtime is nigh at hand.] Well, aside from dealing with our nibbling dog, teaching fifth and sixth grade Sunday School at church today and attending youth group on Saturday, and having most of the teachers over Friday night for pizza and a rousing game of spoons, we have led a markedly repetitive existence. I know I’ve mentioned this fact previously, but I’m just now realizing how the mundane and the repetitive can be a blessing. The last four years of my life have been nearly manic in their spontaneity, general busyness, and the arbitrary nature of the order (or lack thereof) of my life. At the same time, I had a remarkable amount of control over school and work events because I could anticipate and deal with most changes thrown into my own daily schedule. Here in Ghana, however, we have little to no control over our schedules, and it’s difficult to make time for all the various chores we need to accomplish. Errands take hours rather than minutes. Groceries are an ordeal that we try to take care of once a week instead of in multiple, convenient trips to Kroger. Plumbing in the house breaks and can’t be fixed for several days. Despite all this uncertainty and the seemingly tedious, insignificant events that devour the hours of the day, our lives are less pressure-packed and less stress-filled than our lives in the states. It’s as if our cultural clocks have been completely dismantled and reassembled to fashion a timepiece that is less-efficient and slower-moving than the corresponding American timekeeper. There’s less of a burden on us to be everywhere at once, and people make allowances for all the monkey wrenches that are thrown into your social, professional, and familial lives. Here, we can concentrate more on the significant points of our earthly existence rather than become enmeshed in the chicanery and artificial urgency of all aspects of American life. Either the stress is mitigated by our lack of control and the more lackadaisical attitude here, or else the obsession with time/urgency just dissipates somewhere in the wide breakers of the Atlantic Ocean. In Africa I can clearly see how events transpire for God’s glory and show how he has called out of the misery that exists apart from him. Twice I’ve seen this in passages of Scripture, once in the morning devotion I gave before school started one day—Micah reminds the Jews in chapter 7 of his prophetic book that God remains merciful and restorative even after he sends destruction—and more generally in the Sunday School lesson that we taught (out of Hosea and Amos) this morning. I'm too tired to provide further explication, but perhaps I can add more later.

Jonathan

so I have been a bit intimidated lately by Jonathan's insightful and well written blogs, but as I was writing an email to a friend back home I discovered something inside me I wanted to share. Forgive my lack of ability to write both clearly and correctly (probably).  What I do have to share is nothing revolutionary or complex but a simple realization on a powerful concept. 

My high school Bible class has been a trip- wooo, I never knew how much high schoolers do not listen ( I recall now how I too was like that just a few years ago and i realize now I was listening without knowing it).  Maybe I should not have started the semester off trying to explain (trying) where the Book of Coomon Prayer came from;)

Anyway, I moved the class onto easier things: Charles Haddon's Bio! We had a good 'ole time memorizing how Spurgeon wrote 3,600 sermons, never gave an alter call and preached to 23,654 people at one time!  We read Joshua 1-7 in script form, dissecting the story of a Prostitute who was found in Hebrews 11 along side Abraham and Moses (men who actually did great things WITH their faith).  I attempted to convey the purposed irony of Rahab's placement in Hebrews 11, that being she had merely faith whereas the others were fueled BY their faith to do great things.  (pardon my jumbled thoughts and choppy explanations).

As we discussed Spurgeon's sermon on Rahab's Faith, it was evident the students were not enthused.  I drink up Spurgeon's words, depictions of certain things and "loud" (I am sure he was) convictions!  The sermon broke up Rahab's faith into six faiths.  I expected too much feedback from the students so the discussion on the first faith, Saving Faith, was a little BOoooooringggggg! BUT then I discovered I needed to speed up the next five, get it over with and start over fresh on a new sermon! I was taken by surprise.  The fourth faith has come alive.  I recall, believe me or not, pondering (yes, pondering) this idea of "Deny thyself and take up the cross" a few months ago before I got married.  Deny myself, eh? hmmm, alright. Okay! As my Latin teacher used to say in class in a valley girl voice QUIDQUID! So here lies this fourth faith inside Spurgeon's sermon: "Self-Denying Faith".  I did not look at it any differently beforehand than I had the other faiths (despite my small mental arm wrestle with it months before). 

A Christian must give up what it is that they hold dear, too dear.  We must deny ourselves what seems reasonable and naturally comfortable.  Spurgeon believes Rahab was no longer a harlot, simply retaining the title.  The Israelites and their “God” could have walked around this double layered wall surrounding this fortified city, Jericho, and after yelling on the seventh day no crumbling, reasonably so, could have happened.  Rahab could have then been found out to have housed the spies and been killed by her own. She denied herself and believed in this “God” who split a sea (the Red one) so His people could escape from physical destruction.  We must deny ourselves “Lest we be called hypocrites”, Spurgeon says, when we sing hymns to God. 

I say all that to show you what was going through my head, I was not lacking in appreciation for this story concerning Rahab’s faith!  God freely gave me an encouraging nugget.  God answered something I randomly pondered one afternoon last March. 

What happened was one of my students commented after my brief explanation of “Faith Number Four”.  She said, “But, Mrs. Callis, it was not self-denying? It was selfish what Rahab did”.  Hmmmmm, alrighty? Today I realized that THAT is it! Self denial is realizing the ultimate JOY one will receive after suffering! I responded by saying “yes.”  But we see that NOW as we look at the end result of Rahab’s life.  At the time Rahab could have lost the little dignity she had if she was wrong about this “God”.  We make decisions all the time: Should I move, should I date this guy, should I do something that might make me feel uncomfortable, should I still associate with those certain friends, should I watch certain movies (even if they have redeemable value through well done cinematography), should I hold onto some cozy Christian occupation because it is “eternally noble” (or so we think).  Whatever it is, everyone has one, two…..we could all remain, or deny what we hold close and THEN look back on our life and see the SELFISH part, which is the growth of faith in our lives. 

There is a teacher here at AIS who has very little monetary items to claim as her own, she eats once a day and even her spouse is unsaved, but let me tell you something about this woman- NEVER have I seen faith in a woman in ALL my years(22, heh!) in the church in America.  I say that NOT to bash America, but to challenge America.  Those who are suffering, not because they have too much to eat and feel “fat”, or have too much vehicular comfort they complain a stop light is too long at a certain intersection, or have too much to ever really need to settle down with with one person and search the ends of the country for the best monetary fit, no, to those who are really suffering THEY know faith! This I did not believe in when my place of residence ended in USA.  I thought to myself, well, America has sufferings of their own….life is just hard, some in poor countries, some in rich countries. NO, no.  I don’t know if God led me last week to open up Jeremiah for the first time in my life so I could mention it here, but I am scared for America after reading the first 17 chapters.  God is compassionate and Loving, Merciful and our Father, but He too is the great Judge! I fear for the coming destruction on those who do not know God! The wrath of the LORD does not sound pleasant in Jeremiah.  This teacher here I know, she speaks of the LORD as if she has coffee with Him each morning at Starbucks (or in her little house up on a mountain outside the city).  She speaks of God with passion unlike I have ever seen.  I am mesmerized by the beauty of her speech (believe me, it is not the eloquence of her speech), it is dripping with Faith: Faith that saved her(and not yet her husband), faith where she is alone (like Rahab), faith that is stable (because her circumstances let her not forget God), faith that has sanctified her!

Due to my self proclaimed and evident disorganized writing, I am trying to think how to wrap this up?

Have faith! Forget your possible anger towards me for convicting you by being in America, forget your pompous attitude concerning what good you do do, forget your elitist attitude because you are older then me and say “I am just experiencing something”.  Forget yourself, deny yourself, be selfish ultimately and be willing to suffer NOW for the glory that will come.  The Bible does not simply say “drink wine and enjoy God” or “obey my commandments and you will have life”.  I like to remember how the Bible says we will be singing “holy holy holy” forever! What could we possibly not give up now that would matter when we are standing in the