What is it?

June 24

Karen Blixen once said, “The cure for anything is salt water- sweat, tears, or the sea.”

Daktari agreed with this home remedy at last, so we went for a few days where the salt water of Zanzibar would wash over us enough that we could begin the painful process of physically leaving Kenya.  Some would call it a beach vacation.

I called it our “Last Resort in Africa” time.

June 30

This was the night we flew.

There was a none-too subtle American lady there at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.  I call them the Pushy-Affluent-White-lady types (PAWL).  She didn’t like that our family had 13 pieces of luggage to check in. “Hey! What is it blocking the line? How can I get checked in?” (How can I serve my own needs in the midst of bigger needs?) I smile and apologetically wave to say, “It’s me.  We are moving.  Sorry.” (In Kenya everyone always says sorry to express sympathy with what the other may be feeling at the time)  And the PAWLady bellows across the lines “That’s not my problem”. 

Well, it actually was her problem precisely.  And sadly she was the one losing face in front of every Kenyan there for showing her “temper” in public.

Ah, Americans.  Is that what you’re going to be like?

I began having second thoughts about boarding the plane.

July 12

Silver sprinkles of shad minnow raining upwards from the glossy surface of the Tennessee River,

The whitetail near the road and myself, we shared a secret.

It was about how the beauty stopped me in my tracks,

How it brought a tear to my thankful eye.

How lovely a white and pink tipped puff of ethereal, ephemeral delicacy

Could be growing on the hardiest terrain of steep banked country roads.

A wild mimosa tree, proud as a peacock with the glorious flowers for feathers- but silent too, like the whitetail that went bounding through the woods after it got over my non-sense.

Ah, America.

There is beauty in the rare quiet here.

July 16

It’s so hot you can break a sweat without even working and you can wear shorts to let your legs breathe in the sunshine and freedom of living like a PAWL.  Oh, Lord I am one of them after all, aren’t I?

Jupiter and Venus are still up there in the night sky.  We saw them from Zanzibar too.  It feels like Jupiter and Venus are closer to me than my life in Kenya now.  How can we even be on the same terrestrial ball?

But the round white Queen Anne’s Lace is crusting the fields like manna every morning.

What is it?

It is like daily bread in this wilderness time.

Reminding me: He provided for our ancestors here. 

He will provide for my needs too, one day at a time.

There is beauty in taking life one day at a time.

There is Life in taking beauty one day at a time.

And then Uncle Glenn pulls up in his farm truck.

He’s saying to his sister on the phone

“well, I gotta go down to thu co-awp

and git some fertilahzer, and you never know what might come up then,

so I cain’t say fer sure what time I’ll be there”.

That sounded just like Africa.

It was a beautiful and gloriously grounding moment for me.

Karen Blixen also said “God made the world round so that we’d never be able to see too far down the road”.

August 16

Sunday.  Today we got to join in the Lord’s Supper.

Little round flakes of white that we eat.  Not ephemeral, nor ethereal, but solidly grounding the truth of heaven come down to earth.

What is it?

The Bread that came down from Heaven for the Life of the world.

Every side of this world.

Meeting our needs one day at a time.