Prayers Go Up

In Ghana I type an email, then

Raise my laptop above my head

As if I am making an offering to the internet god.

The signal is better at that altitude.

Over and over I repeat this motion.

I type and lift

Type and lift

My message sent up prayer-like to the connected universe,

Like virtual incense.

I feel like some sort of

Cyber pagan.

Travel Fast

Go without food? No problem. I need to lose weight anyway.

Skip media for a time? It’s actually a relief.

Don’t scratch an itch? It’s a discipline for self-denial.

Deny myself some pleasure and replace with prayer? Common.

 

But take me to Ghana, through the tedium of terminals

Through heavy, humid days

And exhausted, lonely hotel nights –

The drama of children who with grace weave through wafts of black exhaust

Balancing massive, must-sell loads on their heads, approaching

The open windows of

Overstuffed worker-vans and rap-thumping Hummers –

 

Take me into the irresolvable dissonance of extremes –

The concentration required for me to connect across difference –

To running the show when knowing my deficit

 

Take me away from the one who is for me comfort and solid ground –

And this is the fast of my life.

G'Day from Sodom and Gomorrah

Forgive me, I am teetering here in Accra. The woman I am looking at across the road is balancing a great basket of clothes on her head, picking her way along the crumbling roadside, stepping over the sewage ditch with such grace and refinement. I imagine her a Ghanaian Eliza Doolittle, reciting “The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain.”  It is a grace that belies the circumstances, and I am discomfited . I have passed hundreds, thousands even, of other women and children with similar burdens in the space of a few days. Today I entered a slum in Accra that the residents themselves have labeled Sodom and Gomorrah. The women from this slum and thousands of others like it have developed ways of living – coping  -- with the harsh indignities of life, ways that preserve order amidst the chaos. The contrast confronts me. Clothes are folded and placed atop, her baby strapped to her back, her hands left free to navigate the neighborhood. Even the young women standing in medians to sell fish or brushes or packets of water move so adeptly. Never out of balance or in danger of losing their load, they are twisting and turning to navigate the traffic, handing product to drivers and making change – all with what looks like half the contents of a hardware store or corner market on their heads. Even as they sweat profusely in the unforgiving heat and equatorial humidity, their grace and quickness to smile are a reminder of the gentle imprint of dignity that Jesus has given to every live soul. Perhaps all young debutantes in the US should spend a stretch of time on a Ghanaian street.

Forgive me, it’s the context that makes me totter. I am out of balance as I try to navigate this place, the daily, relentless, unchanging realities that shorten and harden life for its residents. The pollution that hangs in the heavy air from charcoal smudge pots where the poor fry plantain to sell at roadside, or the piles of refuse that endlessly smolder, since the city only picks up two thirds of the garbage that it generates every day. The desperate pressure to find work. The churches and mosques that present a spiritual message that either pacifies the populace or confirms the status quo. Today we exposed students to six churches with varying levels of engagement of the city, some operating for more than 150 years. Entire slums have grown up around them. Some have tried to respond with compassion. Few have gone beyond that with more systemic ministries that address the root problems. The ones that have are as inspiring as they are unusual.

And so I am not doing such a good job of balancing the world on my head. I am tripping and careening down the corridors of my calling to seek the peace of the city. Oh that some of the grace of these women would rub off on me. Oh that I would learn to smile through my burden. Oh that my hands would be free to help others in the process and be raised to God in praise.

And so I say G'Day from Sodom and Gomorrah