Simon's Nairobi Diary - gravity roots us to restoration

3 August 2008 12:26am

look closer. reposition and look again. wait. wait for how he reacts to what he is waiting for, and watch what happens when it comes. notice the tilt of his hand, the focus of his palm, the swivel of his body's center to face what he's attentive towards.

look closer. see how content he is with the outcome. see how eased it made him, and how his anticipation was transferred to satisfaction after the exchange. examine the method with which he completes the thing, since the unknowns have been swept away and only formalities are left. see how quietly confident he is, having been here a hundred times before, and probably lifting his forehead the same way.

follow his motion back to where he had come from. see how theres something new to do, since the last initiative was met. yes, hes already thinking, already going over the procedure for what is coming. you see him paying attention to it in his mind, turning over the task of what is to come like a coin, thumbing the ridge.

and after that will be another, long after you're not even around anymore. and when you're ten years down the road and a thousand miles away, chances are he'll still be doing something like this, and often, and having the same facial and body inidicators of success that you just saw. in five minutes, just just now while looking, you already learned this part of him. and now you feel like you even know yourself better, because you do stuff like that all the time.

love is the force that makes us fully human - d suzuki

27 July 2008 6:23pm

There seem to be moments in time where things hold still and ready, tied long enough to allow one to sit back and appreciate the circumstance of everything around. Lately it was a scenery out of a window and a song that was playing. The scenery and the song wound together like a hand in glove, and together seemed to absolute the environment of God's spirit, my mind and emotion.

I feel often such things as these are found when I'm committed behind God's path. Sometimes, when I am sort of thinking I'm in the right place I get the sense of being unfinished like an unended song. All seems an unsteady position, and I move to something else or cancel the thing altogether and the feeling goes away. Sometimes I'm not even thinking about where I am, and a notion will descend that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I feel as if the forward motion of history and the physical and spiritual realms which form its circumstances are bundling together as they were intended, as if I am walking or sitting in a place that is moving in a groove of God's fingerprint, sliding quietly and assuredly along the perfect rails of his mysterious desire.

Sometimes I get the feeling that people wonder the benefit of giving themselves to the way of Jesus. I struggle to explain the ideas above, that being held in the arms and forwarding purpose of the creator god gives my moments and years a solidity and luster that I encounter no where else. I think holding a commitment to thinking creative and simpler ways of communicating this notion to people is ultimately the focus of the rest of my life. This is just going to need a lot of patience.

God, there is gold hidden deep in the ground.

God, there's a hangman that wants to come 'round

How we rise when we're born, like the ravens in the corn

On their wings, on our knees crawling careless from the sea

God, give us love in the time that we have

God, give us love in the time that we have

God, there are guns growing out of our bones

God, every road takes us farther from home

All these men that you've made, how we whither in the shade

of your trees, on your wings we are carried to the sea

God, give us love in the time that we have

God, give us love in the time that we have

20 July 2008 1:33pm

Kwa heri Nairobi, you city of diesel smoke and laughter. Ninashukuru Nairobi, you amalgamation of a million ethnic elbows. To your city centre, off the beaten path and crying for health, and to your outskirts, walled bastions of wealth and poverty, to these nasema nimeshukuru sana. To the areas far outside the bustle, to the 'knuckled' hills outside Ngong and the wide swaths of plain around them, to the red soil and the thorny acacia bent and topped like a women with her firewood, nasema nimeshukuru kabisa. And to the sound which emanates from these areas, to the drums that pound at night from outside my room from down the road, where I know there is more than a sound there but that the drum beat means there is dancing and singing blossoming somewhere. Kwa heri to such spirit. Goodbye to the still serious colonial presence, to the burgeoning Mungiki terrorists, to the slums of Kibera and Mathare that swell during the dry seasons, to the Javahouse and Dorman crowds and the Nakumat busyness, to the Ethiopian injera positioned before its dancer, nasema nimeshukuru na ninataka rudi. To the villager just moving in, daunted by the buildings, by the ease with which people pick the Matatu. To the Matatu's scrapiness and its thunked side to stop, to the Masai cattle it dodges to make time, and to the way it gets gas while rolling, nasema nimeshukuru. Goodbye Kenya, your desert north and your Islamic coast and your impoverished western lakeside. Goodbye to your lions, only known by the tourist, and to your ibis that squawks loud enough to wake to, and to your thousand birds. Asante Kenya, to the way your hawkers corner the tourist in their poverty, insensitive and so excused at the same time. Nasema ninashukuru for your good families in your slums, the way they bottlecap-nail cardboard to the underside of the tin roof to increase the heat, the way the mother continues to figure out ways to encourage her son to study, the struggle to afford the uniform to attend otherwise free eighth grade, and the way the twenty something son looks to the side of his fathers head when listening out of respect. Goodbye to the way they expel hospitality like a breath, easy and always, to how hopeful they are when they get steady work, how work is the source of life in this city. Goodbye to your outrageous crusades, to critics of such fanfare, to your Swa rap music, and to the ever on the rise tendency to eat fries and chicken instead of the healthy ugali and sekuma. Goodbye to your tribal strife, situated at more odds than ever, its tension strengthened by its lack of exposure to one another. Why are the new nonslummed youth of the city not meeting your angered clarion call for justice? Goodbye to those who seek to reconcile this. Well, and goodbye to your ability to endure your posture through the genocide, to laugh while your leaders pilfer your tax coffers, laugh while your roads and infrastructure lie in ruins and the MP drives through at 100 km/hr in his Mercedes. Goodbye to the way you cry with all your heart, not mincing tears but saving them for a true moment of harshness. Ninashukuru sana Nairobi, because you have given me such vision for how things are all over, for how things should change, and for how we as God's creation can endure.

16 July 2008 11:57pm

I expected the leaving to be harsher than it has been. I imagined the whole tumultuous experience would finalize in a rattle and grind, shrieking to its end like a roller coaster. It began that way (click, click, click... wooooph). I thought it would be like That Hideous Strength where the ending happens five chapters before the novel's end, with the entire anthology taking a hundred pages even after the villain dies just to wrap up. But no.

Class ended quietly and absent of fanfare, exams too, and the final paper just breezed into the pigeon hole of the prof, sitting almost innocently. All of a sudden I saw Tom holding a grad checklist, so I got mine too. They came without an anthem or anything, just a graduation dinner to go to at 1pm last Thursday. At least the ceremony itself actually consumed the day, because otherwise I'm not sure how I would have measured an end anywhere at all. And it stands now, only five days from that last leaving, that the end will sort of ease on through like an ending winter. One day the icicles drip, and you look away, and turning back notice the star thistle is in full outrageous bloom. And though such an ending may hamper some sort of mental bookend to block off this chapter, this way sure is easier.

I was telling this to Debbie, before she left today, and she told me that she began to grate herself about the leaving upon packing a suitcase. I shuddered, because I've not begun to do that, and can't even really bear the thought right now.

To fetch the real diploma today required a list of signatures. I had to go round to fifteen people, all in the right order (twice when I messed with the order and they refused). Getting that final paper mandated a scrawl from the library (overdue fees), tuckshop (had to return empty bottles), farm (easy because I lacked milk bills), and a host of almost every office official on campus. The sheet was so foreign that I photocopied it to take home, and it reminded me of leaving camp as a kid, blue and black inked names from that weeks bunk friends smearing on the back of the 8X10 group photo.

16 July 2008 3:36am

There have been men who spilled soup on their shirts, ruining the wedding feast of their daughters. There have been people who have not allowed their cars to be borrowed, because they just came off warranty. There have been sisters who have withheld affection from their siblings, because their friends were in the room. There have been elderly couples who have been unable to agree on dinner, solely since they have little else to do. There have been thousands who have hid sections of themselves from those they hold most dear, simply because they are afraid to test this other's love.

Do we truly seek to envelope ourselves into his will, call ourselves his followers, seeking to graft ourselves into his historical lineage of the redemptive priesthood? Do we seek to love all as it is, moving then to restore, redeem, heal, and heighten the magnificent created realm of god away from its fractured condition and into a final state of shining fruition that he so full-heartedly desires?

Really? How far are we willing to let Him take us? Are we really serious about this stuff?

If so, we must seek to be transformed by renewing our minds onto what is absolutely central to existing in the full stature of our humanity. Whatever is elemental to the human experience (survival, a redemptive occupation, love of others/god) should garner the every thought and motive within our week. That which hinders or even distracts this way, whatever it is, small and large, nag or alcoholism, must be left behind. There is simply no room for compromise, there's just no time. Any of these things which ease in (so quietly) only succeeds in diminishing our overall rightness and satisfaction anyways. So what is it that bogs? What truly wraps its vine around our ankle (individual and collective) as we seek to follow Jesus down the hopefilled path of reawakening the earth's goodness? Because I bet being cut loose from the worst of ourselves is the first true task of God followers.

14 July 2008 4:06pm

I woke up the morning of the graduation, shrugged on a shirt, and stepped out the door to a live chicken on my stoop. Its legs were bound into immobility. It chucked at me nervously. I knew what was for, and I said, "Ms. Chicken, you have no idea whats going to happen to you. But you should be glad, because you're what they picked for the feast." It turned its eye my way and chucked back in suspicion. I sidestepped, and was out the door.

Graduation was tremendous. Really tremendous. Young children dressed in tribal regalia (skirts, fly whisks, face and leg paint, Masai shuka blankets) danced us down the aisle. I didn't really know the dancing was going to be in the procession of us all, but then Erick and Aquinas in front of me started walking in a swing step to the music, nothing too dramatic, just a small swing to the beat pouring from the speakers. Eventually we reached our chairs, had rousing speeches by various characters, and were called to receive handshakes and a pseudo-diploma (real one to be collected tomorrow).

Then it was over, and the throng dissolved into respective on-campus parties under rented tents with crates of glass soda bottles and fresh grilled chapati. Everybody and their uncle was there for most students. I shook hands with many student's wives, cousins, grandmothers, and parents who I had never previously met. People had chains of shiny tinfoil strung from their necks, were given bouquets of roses, were handed shining packages.

I was walking around to various families, excited to meet the communities of my friends, when Grace appeared in front of me. She is the lady from Karinde (down the road) I hire to come on Mondays to launder my clothes; sometimes I help her kids with math. She appeared nervous and excited in front of me, coming just for my graduation alone. I held out my hand to her. She took it, shook it, and gave me a delicate wrapped present in return. "Congratulations", she said practicedly, and before I could register what was happening she had disappeared into the crowd.

I eventually made it back home, splitting the crowds and crowds of clapping clamoring families. Carefully taking apart Grace's package, inside was a handstitched beaded belt of cow leather. I was on my mattress, looking at the belt, and just so overwhelmed with her generosity and deliberateness. She had so little, but had given me a present anyways. It was all so touching that I had trouble looking at the belt.

My mind was thrown from that moment to a noise outside. A flapping of wings, a choked chucking of something heavy, and then a crunch. I spun the key in its hole, threw open the door, and saw my roommates visiting family already defeathering the headless hen. Working the skin off the meat, they looked up from the chicken they had brought nine hours away by bus. "You are welcome for dinner!" the sister smiled.

12 July 2008 6:47pm

Thursday was the big banquet for the school, the graduating and the continuing students all together under one area. There was hearty eating. There was speeches. Mostly, it was a whirl of pure unadulterated celebration. And there was a moment when Tom and I were bent dancing to music in the end of it, where I was attempting to mimic his intentional bend, smile and step, there was an instant when I knew whatever it was that was happening was how things are supposed to be during these times. Not a state of static pensive fear-eyed preservation, but a motion of vibrancy and love. The stress was absent for once, like an afterlife, so I was three years thus thankful-in-step with him, laughing because it was easy.

I have come to know hype here. There are too many dance clubs and loudspeaker churches in the area to know that there is such a thing as too much enthusiasm. But there is something to be said about holiness and rightness in our care for one another when two friends can move in a motion that leaves no doubt. It was like a differently thunderous, less exact, and more rinsing version of saying 'I love you', and I'm not sure I'll ever be the same.

9 July 2008 11:21pm

I took an afternoon to sweep the conspicuous dust off the painted concrete floor and shelve the papers and clothes. I poured popcorn into a bowl, sliced mango and banana, and two nights ago had a graduation party with some friends. Packed in that little Q7 room were five Kenyans, an Ethiopian, two Americans, a Korean, a Brit, and a German. We sat and talked about the past year, its highs and lows. We gorged on copious popcorn. Lots of difficult and funny stories were shared about professors, about dating, and about living at NEGST over the past years. It was ten thirty at night when most left. I sat on my bed for the stillness of an hour afterward, awash in realization that this was really all I had wanted.

Like any who have crosscultural experience, I've had painful times where I felt disconnected here, doubting my usefulness and importance to this community and the people lives within it. Like I didn't matter. But sometimes, and thankfully during this ending time, I am blessed to know that I have good friends who I can talk to about important and unimportant stuff. I know this reads a little like some quest for self-worth. But honestly, sometimes its so good to throw an invite and people just come.

7 July 2008 11:09pm

Back in October I found myself following a priest down the stairs to a church carved into bedrock below. We were instructed to remove our shoes, the girls had to cover their heads, and he led us into the sanctuary of the rock hewn Adadi Mariam Church. Built in the 13th century, pictures of Jesus, Mary, and various Ethiopic saints littered the walls in popping colors and dramatic eyed relief. He relayed the various tenets of the place, mentioning the monks who lived in the compound above the stairs. He cracked open a handwritten bible in the ancient language of Ge'ez with thick vellum pages, a type of archaic paper made from animal skin, and on which the gospels were also originally written. When I asked if we could enter the Holy of Holies, the most revered section of the church, he gave a quick no and began to show us outside. Saying we were followers of Jesus like him, I asked if he could maybe just describe it to us. He harshly responded that such a thing would be blasphemous, curtly locking the sanctuary door. On the way out we passed by monastic huts, men standing in a lethargic composure of prayer or in quiet observance towards our visit.

There was such a breathtaking beautiful antiquity about that church, and it spoke of the long narrative that God has been working throughout the past two thousand years. It seems God has been quite at work in many variants of church before this modern era. But mostly that place rattled of listless religiosity and tenderless orthodoxy. Perhaps it has some moments of revelation and life in the one time per year where people open up that Holy of Holies, and maybe an occasional daily nodding prayer routine of a monk is sewn with seeds of world redemption and revolution. But mostly that temple was burdened in the life choking lawfulness that Jesus was so angry towards.

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