One of the highlights of the trip over to Johannesburg was looking out as we approached the coast of Africa and seeing a lightning storm go on below as I watched (and wept a little over) Cry, the Beloved Country. Beneath me there were these clouds that arose from a sea of clouds and they lit up the sky. Beautiful. Powerful. Awesome. Remote. Almost as though God were saying, “My boy, it’s taken you so long to get here, I thought that I’d put on a show.” And what a show it was. Just to prove a point, there was another lightning storm as we flew towards Durban. The girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder as I had my face pressed tight against the glass and said, “Are you seeing this? I thought I was the only one.”
To be fair, it was 3.45am Jo’burg time. Or something like that. And that soundless storm of indescribable beauty did not buffet our metal flying tube for even an instant.
There is a phrase I have often used: “a heart for Africa”. And, you know, it is not a bad phrase. It’s not a bad phrase when you pick up a paper or watch whatever news program actually bothers to mention Africa, and you see the storms of Africa: the genocide in Darfur, the results of Mugabe’s madness, the chaos of Mogadishu, the devastation of the eastern Congo. But what happens if those storms don’t buffet the metal tube that is your heart? What if you are not impacted by the storms at all? What if your response to the storms is occasional and sporadic anger, or even a donation here or there, but nothing that really buffets you? Then the phrase “heart for Africa” is a glib clip from standard Christianese.
Amahoro showed me that in spades. No one confronted me about this. I just saw lives lived, ministries shared. I witnessed the reality that a “heart for Africa” is only good if it motivates hands, feet, mouth, lungs – and only then if it is connected to the animating Spirit of Jesus.
For too long I have had a heart for Africa. Now I want to do more. Not in a paternalistic way that somehow assauges my guilt, but as a partner, as a friend. I mentioned that at Amahoro to someone: “I’ve just realised that I have had a heart for Africa and not been a friend to Africa.”
In South Africa (especially the Monday/Tuesday sessions, and the communion service) I felt the storms buffet me. They didn’t stop through beautiful Swaziland and reached a peak in Bulawayo. They are still rumbling. The main difference is that now I can hear them, now I can feel them, they are not so much a show that I observe but a storm that is around me. A storm I can live with, and respond to.
June 24, 2009 at 3:15 pm |
Africa is glad to have a new friend… and a good one, indeed. Seems like somewhere on the continent, maybe amid the storm, you experienced a moment of transfiguration that will now alter your trajectory on the ground. It is just starting to get interesting, my friend!
June 24, 2009 at 9:58 pm |
Hey Craig – I’m sorry we didn’t connect while we were both there. Thanks for sharing your thoughts… sounds like we have a lot in common.