Arthropods in Africa

When it is time to go to Africa, the one thing that creeps me out is the bugs. Spiders, centipedes, scorpions, mosquitoes that carry death, beetles that are the size of your hand and have vocal cords (I have heard some of them scream)... When I am here, thinking of there, the bugs scare me. There is a part of me that knows that they will find ways to invade my house and my space, and that I will have to come face to face with them. From a distance, I am afraid of the bugs in Africa.

There, it is different. When I am face to face with them, the time to be afraid is past. When a scorpion (or several) have invaded my tent, and I am searching them out in the black of night with a headlamp to make sure my sleeping space is secure, sandal in hand to crush them, it is too late to be afraid. The only way I can secure my house is to not act out of fear.

Recently I was faced with an equivilant to an African arthropod. At the thought of it, I was afraid. I imagined what it could do to me, how it would affect my future, why it had come. From a distance, it made me afraid. For several days I dreaded it in a deep place; the thought of it made me ill; I was robbed of joy. And yesterday, that thing came. With the derailment of all the plans I have made as of late, the time to be afraid was over.

I don't think that arthopods in Africa and facing fear in life is a perfect analogy. If it was, I would break down every aspect of it with a cheezy line of peppy encouragement. But, that's not how I roll. In a nutshell:
Bugs gross me out.
I don't get God when I think about them.
Unwelcome, they invade anyway, and living in fear is incompatible with contentment and joy...

So I don't know if you have a scorpion in your house tonight, or maybe one at the door. Here's a secret: people dealing with bugs are under grace to deal with them. A dear friend prayed when I went that I would find wonder and not fear in all of the critters. That prayer stood firm, and I believe that is possible with figurative arthropods too. Another dear friend, who radiates life and beauty, has her own deep reasons to be afraid. But today as we shared truth and raw and real about the arthropods in our lives, she posed the question a step further ... What if we were to embrace arthropods, like Both Paul and James suggest. What if they are a gift that brings life?

Another secret is that everyone who has ever really had impending suffering - even Jesus - begged that it would not come. The third secret of the night, is that despite how you are feeling as you read this, when the invader gets in your house, you will be more ready to deal with it than you are now. You are being made ready. You are going to be ok. And I have decided that I am too.

 

Birthday Cake

I thought about you all day today; from the moment I woke up til the moment I went to bed. Actually, for days and days I've been thinking about today and thinking about you. Not that that is anything new, you run through my head all the time and the things I want to share with you. Things you'd find funny, like inside jokes that there is no one to tell anymore.  Sometimes I try to tell other people but they never really get it.  But hey, there is no one else whose name was my first word and the subject of my first sentance, so I forgive them. How could they possibly get it?!?!?

It's funny (peculiar, not haha) when a day just isn't a celebration anymore. A day of phone calls and well wishes and thoughts and milestones becomes dreaded. Silent. Almost overwhelming. The conversation I have with myself every day - wondering if you are really gone - lets the disbelieving voice be especially convincing today. Not possible, right? At least 3 times I traced the pattern of your number on my phone and wished that dialing would prove truth wrong. Because I am healing and therefore not totally crazy (though I get how it happens), reality sets in with its force and the debate stops. The loss of you always saturates me and every part of my life, but it is the moments at the end of the debate that it hits me the most. Waking up from a dream, shaken into reality, hard to breathe.

But this post isn't about me, it's about what happened today, and it's about you. Today after bootcamp, a stranger said "It's our little girl's first birthday today, and we brought cake. Did you want some?" "Hey", I said, "It's my brother's birthday today too!" They're strangers so I can say stuff like that and they don't get all awkward and fidgity, which is nice. So this is what I did. I ate that little girl's cake, but I pretended it was yours.  I celebrated you.

  For the first time in a while I remembered that you being gone is not the most important thing; the most important thing is that you were here. Your life was too short... like an adventurous, unique, funny, love-and-know-me-like-no-one-else, nature loving, brilliant book with a terrible and untimely ending... A loved, dog earred, familiar book that I will treasure in the deepest part of my heart until the end of time. Though I lament that others cannot read you themselves and you have become a story, today is not for wishing. Today is for being thankful for what I had. You; my brother and my best friend. If I thought words would convey you, I  would type volumes trying to explain what the world has lost... But I don't think they'd get it.

PS: Readers feel free to leave a memory, if you so desire!