Ambient Light

A friend asked me today if my trip to Malawi had changed me. When I opened my mouth to answer her, my throat closed and nothing came out. And then this memory came ...

One evening, Jackie and I spent some time with the girls at House of Purity, the home of a pretty typical group of teens.  As my friend Dallas would say, they were looking for themselves in a window rather than a mirror. After sharing devotions with them, we walked back to our guest house for our team's evening debrief. No one else had arrived yet, and since Adam had the key, we wandered about in the yard, arms linked, and looked up.

The stars in Africa ... well, let's just say, they appear so dense and close, the only way to respond is to reach up and try to touch them. It's as though God pushed the sky right down to our faces, and said, "Look!" I know different stars are visible in the southern hemisphere than in the north; the thinking side of my brain registered that, but the feeling side of my brain wanted to stick out my tongue and lick their sweetness. They were that close.

One of the Chiwengo guards stepped off the dark porch of the house and asked why there are fewer stars in America. I asked, "Oh, do all the American visitors oooh and ahhh over the stars here?" He said yes, and affirmed how blessed Africans were to have more stars than Americans. And then in his rich, beautiful, broken English, he gave Jackie and me an astronomy lesson.

I've thought a lot about the guard, Jackie, and the cold night the three of us spent with our chins pointed up. What I could not explain to our African friend (although I tried) was the concept of ambient light. It's not that we have fewer stars, I wanted to say.  It's just that we can't see them.

And this is one of the many, many ways Africa changed me.  Just as surely as it's tougher to see the stars here in America, it's tougher to see God. The ambient light (also known as "distractions") makes it difficult to reach out and touch him as closely as I could in Africa. There, materialism, competition,  and insecurities were rare. Without those getting in the way, his presence shimmered -- in the dancing of widows and the sweat of men building a school and the mud of the floor of a hut, carefully applied by the worn hands of a woman making a home for her family.

God is here, too. I think I saw him yesterday in the leopard skin tattoo inked down the leg of a woman named Yazmine. I had to look a little harder, but I think I saw him again when I was choosing from among a pile of pineapples; rather than seeking the one, I gave thanks for the many. I know for sure I'll see him again tomorrow in my husband's precious smile.

God is surely here. All I have to do is stick out my tongue and taste the sweetness.