Nigerian Chronicles a chronicling

My Nigerian parables site is up and posting. Check me out over there http://nigerian-parables.blogspot.com/

waiting

Singing to the tune of “Oh, Tannenbaum.”...

Oh, FedEx man. Oh, FedEx man. Where are you now, oh, FedEx man.
The Nigerians are busy being Nigerian. But could you please return my passport.
Oh, FedEx man. Oh, FedEx man. Come quickly now, oh, FedEx man.
Since the Nigerians are being Nigerian, I think I’ll be Nigerian too. Tomorrow, today, whenever we get around to it.
Oh, FedEx man. Oh, FedEx man. Where are you now, oh, FedEx man?

I once lived in a rental house with lots and lots of roommates. And then one day we discovered we could no longer bear to take a shower in our only bathroom because the hot water pipe had completely clogged up. We made several phone calls into the main office over the next 2 or 3 months and continued to shower under the frigid spray, except for myself. I don’t shower. Finally, we could again not bear it any longer...that is, everyone but myself...and so we made up this cute little song about the broken shower and how we didn’t know which was worse, the stench of our mingled odors or the frigid spray. We sang it into the machine of our absentee landlord in full part harmony. Soon thereafter, a workman showed up at the house to replace the clogged hot water pipe. He was well rewarded.

Perhaps I should make up a little song about a broken sewing machine that needs a motor. Perhaps, I could swing by Switzerland enroute to Nigeria and pick up a motor or two for the others who are waiting too. Perhaps, it might grab the manufacturer’s attention if I sang it on the radio: a sorrowful song of a severed relationship, of oily tears as she sits alone at night upon the workman’s bench, waiting for new innards.

If one should die at the hands of another #2

The accidental death

Nine years ago my sister died in a car accident that resulted from the traffic mistake made by one of her best college friends. They were on their way to Target to develop her film and were in conversation as he took a left hand turn at a red light. Oncoming traffic hit his car. My sister died soon thereafter from the injuries she sustained. The following day, when I went to the morgue to pick up her “personal effects” I discovered the roll of film that was in her pocket along with her driver’s license. The license was bent around the dented film barrel.

We were all walking around in a state of shock that week. There were random emotional outbursts about weird things like breakfast not being ready. Anger at all the too many people at the house. I remember getting to the funeral home early for the reviewal after a few days of fasting and praying and pouring over my poem I was writing for the next morning. Once I got up too fast, and nearly passed out, while the funeral director stood poised to catch me. But the image that remains in everyone’s memory is the moment Joanna’s college choir ended their moving melody and a tangibly expectant and reverent silence grabbed the attention of every soul. Not a sound was made as Joanna’s friend, who was in the accident with her, entered the room. "He's the one!" No one said it but everyone thought it. The crowd parted for him as he walked up to her coffin alone. There was a pregnant pause. Then, my brother and I, as though queued by some invisible force, emerged from the throng of those watching, to embrace him on either side as we stood together looking down at her cold body with tears streaming down our faces.

This was only the setting scene in our journey to experiencing shared grief with all who experienced loss in the accidental death of my sister. It was only afterward, when we were told back the story of that night, that we realized the powerful message we had enacted. I only remember feeling as though I was elevated slightly out of my body as it moved around, interacting with those there. Some slipping in and out, refusing to look at the body. Others there to support and observe. Yet others, touching and embracing.

if one should die at the hands of another #1

There is a storyline of response and justice that plays in the minds of people who experience wrongful death to someone close to them. The principles and restorative justice of non-resistance is more than doing nothing in these critical moments. It also takes rigorous preparatory exercise. I would like to imagine/relate some of those storylines.

God's GPS

A few months ago a few major freeways were shut down. My friend, who was trying to get to my house, called me to direct her. She is notoriously bad at navigating but as I found out she was even worse at taking direction from someone. I couldn’t imagine a worse combination. It would ensure one to be perpetually lost.

She told me the address of where she was as I pulled out my map. She sounded timid, lost and confused. So I began by attempting to orient her and build her confidence in trusting the direction I was giving her. I pointed out landmarks I knew she would see at the corner of University and 37th. I directed her east. I told her she would drive pass the capital building and she was wowed by my knowledge. But then I sensed she was getting impatient and confused and I asked her again where she was and figured out that she had taken a turn off to the right when I had asked her to go straight on one street the whole way. I asked her to turn around but she kept going on the wrong street. I asked her where she was at again and if she recognized any of the streets she was seeing. “No, she wailed. I’m scared. I want to go home.” I could tell she wasn’t going to turn around and fulfill the original directions but knew she could get to my place via another route. So, I told her to continue along the route she had chosen and scrambled to accommodate directing her, as before to a location she recognized. She was delighted when she found a landmark she recognized and eventually made her way to her destination.

This is the exact picture of God, leading us along the path of life. He tries to generate our confidence in him. He shows us where to go. He “fixes” the directions when we in our confusion take a turn where we were directed not to.

Isn’t this the picture of us also? We wander around on paths we do not know. We are mostly perpetually lost because we’re bad at navigating and bad at taking direction. Our whim often determines where we will go. Then when we check back with God, in our fear and confusion, it is not because he gave us bad direction, it is because we didn’t listen well and are now confused about the continued direction he is giving us to accommodate our wandering.

a small success

They finally did it! After too many meetings, grueling hours, and various unmentionable difficulties with public conduct, we have the a current webpage for the council I served on. You can check it out at the link below. You will see your's truly pictured there with another Bethel alumnus, if you know who to look for. How weird is that?

Kudos to the current president for getting this up and running after all these years of various attempts. He does deserve the credit for it, for as I discovered, even though this was a board of peers, hierarchical leadership is the prevailing ethos.

http://www.paynephalen.org/

traveling to Nigeria

So, you've noticed, I'm blogging again. I'm sort of in a crunch between projects and trips and stuff and thought I would leave the blogging alone for a while. But if you are a friend, don't let the appearance of busyness deter you from personal contact. I will be in Nigeria for two weeks in January. I thought I would not keep up with blogging during that time and during preparation but circumstances forced a different decision. The shots I got on Tuesday, all 6 of them, have altered my sleeping patterns. I was told by a friend, one shot would give you especially vivid dreams. I was kind of excited about that, especially since the movies that have been coming out in the last couple of year have been crap. But instead of having dreams. I am wide awake at 4:30 am without the hope of sleeping one more wink till the morning. So, instead of being upset and fighting it, I am blogging, writing and reading. Also, I have decided to blog while in Africa. Several folks have done it. I think it will be possible. I believe it will be necessary, based on the mixed reviews folks have had about my going. I think I know of only one person who has gone into the type of setting and under the type of circumstances I'll be going and he was fine. I'll be more then fine as well and I wish to bring everyone else along on that fine-ness.

"with no place to lay his head"

There was a sight I saw in Guatemala when I was there a few years ago, as I looked out over the countryside from my perch high in the hills. I had gone with the usual suspects: a ministry team who would spend the day teaching local pastors. Walking along a worn path along the highway was an old woman with a load on her back, walking with a man and a child. She looked up at me as I stood in the most elaborate restaurant conference room in the area. Somehow I knew she and many like her had spent the rainy night sleeping under a tree. I did not feel sorry for her, for she had a good rest and was continuing on her way in peace. I looked out at her and desired to have what she had.

In the US, I don’t know if it is exactly illegal to rest wherever one finds a place comfortable enough. I just know that good citizens and often the police will weary themselves with questions at the least and harassment at the most, if one decides to do any sort of lengthy resting on property they do not own. I must say I have learned quickly the full implications of stranger caught in the cross-hairs of capitalist exchange. The hostile exchange sits oddly in one’s soul. I felt guilty for simply being. Then I felt an indignant responsive yet primal need to live, rise up inside from out of nowhere.

Since then I have developed this bad habit of attempting to sleep wherever I can. I used to brainstorm with my friend Greg, where all those places might be. On the livingroom floor. In my car. In the bed of my truck, with my truck parked various places. Once when my house was filled with single women and they kept coming back from a year, or several months overseas and they had taken up every nook and cranny in my house I decided I would sleep on a high shelf on my porch. I endured a summer and a winter there. My friend Greg was much more adventurous. He slept with the homeless folks. He thought about sleeping in the space just wide enough for a human, in the median on 35W. You would just dodge traffic late at night when it was sparse and then in the morning when you rouse yourself, you would persuade morning rush hour traffic to let you back across.

Now, whenever I find it pleasing to my budget to sleep in my car instead of like a more expensive accommodation. I have a particular modus operandi. I pick a neighborhood. A semi quiet one where people leave their car on the street. I visit a gas station or a restaurant before I go there. I do the usual at the restaurant or gas station. Brush teeth. Get into pajamas. Switch from contacts to glasses. I go out to my car and arrange everything for the night. I get out a dark sheet or sleeping bag for the back seat. Dark is better because it is less eye catching. I crack a window: street side or sidewalk side depending on whether it’s a more patrols on the street or a more pedestrians on the sidewalk kind of neighborhood. I get to the intended location. I park. I talk on my cell phone and scope my surroundings to loose any onlookers or suspicious folks. When all is clear, I dive into the back seat for a good night. The next morning is about choosing your moment dive into the drivers seat to drive away to find a gas station or breakfast place or park to use their facilities.

This can be done in virtually any major city. I have found the neighborhoods with high Latino density to be the most friendly. In San Diego, I stopped at a 7 eleven to use the facilities, late at night. I was turned away. I tried again at an obviously latino bar and restaurant and grille. I was welcomed at the door by a woman behind a counter, her hands in a bowl of masa. To my question she smiled and responded, “alla, a lado derecha, miha.” Music was pouring out the back room. I went to see what was happening. A band was playing last call. The man at the door let me through to enjoy. And the bouncer danced with a lady who knew him and asked.

Now lets not all rush out and do this or maybe lets...
One certainly encounters the environment much more tangibly. And I have never been caught and harassed for doing this.

lesson from the ants

The sun was climbing higher in the sky as I ate my breakfast: a bag of dried fruit and nuts. I watched the ants as I was filled with warmth, food and peace. I looked across the barren terrain. The sandy basin to my back with nothing but prickly sparse vegetation. The rugged badlands to the east, where nothing grew. Hills and valleys of rocks like the one I sat upon. Nothing but lifeless barrenness as far as the eye could see. Yet the ants were busily at work around me. A tiny piece of fruit dropped from my hand into the path of an unexpecting ant. My curiosity was piqued. I watched intently to observe how a little ant would respond to a freak accident of consequential gain. It was the only piece of sticky fruit available as far as my eye could see. But for the ant... It paused. Briefly. Then it walked around the piece of fruit as though an object was obstructing its path to better things.

I heard the Lord say to me. You are this ant. Learn to recognize my blessings, which come as though from nowhere.