Still in Maputo

I spent the weekend in Maputo -- it wasn't my original plan. I'd intended to go to the northern part of the country for a few days and visit our programs, but the flights were $500 and it just didn't seem justifiable. So I enjoyed a weekend with nothing in particular to do. I'm staying with a wonderful woman who is in the country for 3 years, volunteering with our organization. Sunday, she and I took a long walk along the beach and decided to return towards the apartment by cutting through town rather than doubling back.

Before I say anything more, I should emphasize that I have lived in Baltimore City for eight years and I have traveled to roughly ten countries in Africa, some of them just coming out of civil war. I have never in all that time been threatened with bodily harm or had anything stollen from my person. But there's a first time for everything...

My friend and I were making our way up a dusty road just a block from the ocean and I was telling her the story of my life (we had a lot of time together) and how I became a Christian. I was just approaching the tumultous teenage years as a man walked directly towards us, pulled out a large kitchen knife and said to me, “Your bag, your bag, your BAG!” and I said “Okay” (he was so impatient). I quickly pulled the purse strap over my head and transferred the purse to his hands. It was over in 4 seconds. He was gone.

Luckily, all I had in the bag was a pack of gum and my wallet with a few credit cards, much less cash than he was probably hoping for, my drivers’ license, a few gift cards (damnit I should have used those by now -- but good luck to him finding a Pottery Barn in Mozambique) and assorted membership cards. Thank God my passport and the bulk of my cash wasn’t with me. We walked the rest of the way home and I called Richard to get his help cancelling my credit cards. And that was that.

Richard said to me on the phone, "I'll pray for you, and for him." He was grateful I hadn't tried to use my Jujitsu (this man didn't look like his principles would keep him from using the knife). But Richard's words made me wonder about the man who took my purse. I wonder how he'll spend (or has spent) the $30 he got from me. Maybe he has a baby he's trying to feed, or ailing parents. More likely, he just wanted it for himself. I don't mind that he took it, to be honest, and the whole thing could have been a lot worse.

I'm thankful that my life circumstances are not so desperate that taking someone's possessions at knife-point seems like a viable response.

Maputo

I've been in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, for five days now. Like so many major cities in impoverished nations, Maputo is a study in contrasts. There are cars all over the place--most of much cleaner than I ever keep my car at home--but drawn to the cars like magnets are beggars at every corner, and every mile or so the driver has to disengage an alarm that is meant to discourage carjacking. This morning, I walked along the road that runs behind the guesthouse where I'm staying, the road that overlooks the Indian ocean. I watched the sun rise over the serene water, trying to keep my gaze away from the heaps of garbage filling the ditch beside the sidewalk. Along the road, American-style townhouses rose three-stories high and enjoyed manicured lawns and outdoor seating areas fenced in by concrete walls. Along the tops of the walls, curled barbed wire sternly warned trespassers to stay away; cheerful vines wrapped around the wire to add splashes of color and camouflage the spikes. The view of the ocean was punctuated by boys and men dressed in torn clothing, lying on the sidewalks or sitting solemnly or begging with hand outstretched or tending to fishing nets.

It is difficult to know what an appropriate response to these contradictions is. Cynicism seems like the lazy way out. Blind trust that God is in control and protects His own seems shallow and narcissistic. Sadness, wonder, a longing to understand, a passion to bridge the gap -- are these things that are honoring to God? Are they honoring to the people who spend their days begging along the side of the road? Can consciousness and conscientousness and compassion change what appears to be an impossible situation?

Week in review...

After a rough weekend, the work week didn’t look it was going to be much better. I fear a new war may be developing at work. I’m constantly asking myself how much more I can take, what I should do next, where I should focus my energy, how I’m supposed to know what is good and right.

But some good things came out of the week:

Ø My boss’s boss reversed a decision he had made last week that would have thrown even more of my job into chaos. At least now I feel like I have a little breathing space.
Ø Richard and I bought a new tree last weekend to put in the front sidewalk (to replace the very sad Charlie Brown tree that was there before). It’s a weeping cherry tree. It’s only about 6 feet tall right now so it looks a little pathetic and the neighbors’ kids ask us if this one is dead too, but I’m so happy with it. Something about weeping trees makes me happy.
Ø Richard has been working on painting the front door (which we replaced in December but hadn’t gotten around to painting). It’s a beautiful blue, a deep slate blue that is restful and confident and disarming. I love it. He’s also painting the frame around the door and windows and putting up new numbers to identify the house. We’re going to have a beautiful front-of-the-house.
Ø We had a contractor to the house on Thursday to give us an estimate for removing the concrete from the back area, laying paving stones and erecting a trellis and pergola. I think we’re going to move forward with it. it will give us a little shade, a lot more character and a flower bed with enough dirt that we won’t kill our plants in three months. Hopefully. We’re going to have a lovely outdoor area out back.
Ø I survived. I’m now in the Johannesburg airport getting ready to fly to Maputo, Mozambique, shockingly peaceful with the knowledge that I have four weeks away from the office. And in just three weeks, Richard and I will be on a week-long vacation in Lake Tahoe…

I usually hate it when people say, “God is good,” probably because it seems like people only say it when things are going well and so it seems phony and not well thought through. But being in this faraway airport, completely conscious of the fact that life is hard right now and the future is a big fat unknown and I’m not in the healthiest emotional state of my life, I can’t help but acknowledge: God is good. With all the crap and the chaos and confusion, there is beauty and mystery and hope. Always hope. Odd how the question of life so often leaves me wanting to curl up in a ball and tell God, “I give up, I don’t know the F*&%ing answer!!” Perhaps the fact that the question remains even when life is truly stupid and illogical is a miracle in itself.

Sunday Night

I've been angry at my husband this weekend. There's no apparent reason for it. I'm mad that he wants to talk to me, that he asks what I want to eat for lunch or dinner. I'm mad that we have to make decisions together, that my decision to be in a bad mood matters to him. I'm mad that he doesn't understand what I'm thinking or feeling, that he doesn't know how to make me feel better, that he doesn't know what I need and when. I'm mad that I would have to tell him all these things in order for him to know them, and I'm mad that I would have to figure out what I know before I could communicate that to Richard. I don't feel like taking the time, investing the effort, to be still with myself long enough to analyze the make-up of irritability, anxiety and discontent that grows over my being like mold.

Crazy

Last night I returned from two days in Ohio where I was visiting a couple of church partners. I have one week left in the office with my boss who is moving on, then I get on an airplane headed for Africa where I'll be for close to three weeks. Then 36 hours after arriving in Baltimore, Richard and I will go on a week's vacation in Lake Tahoe. I'll be outside of the chaos of HQ for four straight weeks.

Crazy.

I've been struggling with the question of how to live generously in this world where hand-outs create as many problems as they address, well-meaning organizations are run by prideful people who care more about their status than the state of the world, and I want more of whatever I have and fear we won't be able to pay our mortgage. How does one balance the call to give sacrificially with the realities of ever-increasing bills and ever-limited time? Something is wrong with this place in which we live.

My boss's boss forwarded me an email written by my boss's previous boss and current nemesis, who apparently doesn't think terribly highly of me either. Her words that questioned by abilities and capacity stung like a hornet, pierced my sense of self with an arrow, confirmed my deeply-held suspicions about myself. This woman--whose abilities and capacity are similarly questioned by many in the organization and who is viewed as a crazy cat lady by many others--somehow managed to throw my inner world into turmoil and led me to question whether I have any value or should just quit and let someone more capable take over. Whatever the truth may be, it's amazing to me that one person whom I don't even respect a great deal has the power to unsettle my soul. When will I learn to rise above such disturbances?

Last weekend, I had another encounter with the extraordinary woman I referenced in the last post. I'll call her LD. She asked me to take her to church Saturday evening, so Richard and I picked her up and sat with her and two of her friends. Two songs that had been in my mind for no apparent reason were sung that evening, which was astounding to me and beautiful and a little bit tragic. It again took us an hour to get LD out of the building after the service, she was so so intent on trying to talk her other friend into driving her an hour north the next week to go to a baseball game. As we dropped her off at her parents' condo, she asked if I'd take her to Sunday's service as well. I said I didn't plan to go but she could call me if she was unable to find another ride. Note to self: don't say things like that to a manic woman with no boundaries. She called a couple hours later to say she needed a ride; I agreed to pick her up.

So Sunday we were again sitting in the front of the large auditorium, but this time LD had nobody else to share her exuberance with, so I took it all. She held my hand and laughed with me and told me to raise my arms as we sang. Throughout the sermon, she frantically wrote notes to me on a pad of paper, trying to convince me that it was God's plan for me to work for her (as a personal assistant / co-singer in her nonexistent worship band) and asking me if I had suffered a great deal in childhood. It was, in a word, surreal. But after the service as we talked to a mutual friend who insisted I was a saint and a good person, LD demanded that I listen to this man because he was a truth-teller. If for no other reason, I could believe that God wanted me to be with LD at that moment so I would be forced to listen to two people tell me I was good, I was loved, I was God's.

I finally dropped her off two hours after the service ended. That evening she left a frantic message on my phone saying she needed a place to stay for the night because there had been an emergency and she was locked out of her parents' home. I called her back and, to Richard's great dismay, I allowed myself to be talked into picking her up so she could stay with us "just overnight," as I explained several times that we had other company coming the next day. Richard was, to put it mildly, concerned. Just as i was preparing to get in the car, our phone rang and a staff person from the church informed me that LD's parents were sitting in a courtroom at that moment awaiting an emergency court order for LD to be taken to the hospital for treatment of severe mania. The police had been to the condo twice already that day and she refused to check herself in. The staff person asked if I would please not come to LD's rescue, for her sake and for my own safety.

I don't doubt that LD is an extraordinary woman, but like so much else in this world, she was dancing on the line of sanity. I left her to dance alone. I hope she will forgive me.

Monday, on my walk to work, I finally introduced myself to the homeless man I pass every day. He seemed surprised that I would care what his name was, that I would take the time to ask. It was James. I'm grateful to know him.