Children of Light

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Oscar Wilde, Irish writer, poet and aesthete (1854-1900)

We had seen enough of Nairobi for a while. The pollution and dust burnt our eyes while the abject poverty stung our souls. Sixty percent of the city’s population lives in areas we would consider unfit for habitation. Schools and orphanages of children whose only crime was being born HIV positive. We journeyed to a rescue mission full of kids whose families had abandoned them to a life in a garbage dump. Then there was the trip to Kibera, the second largest slum in the world. Poverty existed there so harsh it made the life of the poor in the U.S. seem almost attractive. How could a loving and gracious God exist in a place like this? It was sometimes too challenging to accept. So now, we were headed out of town for a brief respite.

Into the highlands we went. Urban blight yielded to the expansive greenery of tea farms. Women harvesting tea leaves, waved as we passed by. Their clothes were brightly colored, even cheerful. “Gathering baskets” hung from their backs; babies were cradled in front. The harvest had been bountiful. We proceeded to the brink of the Rift Valley. The ridge was dotted with souvenir shops. The retaining wall of a rest area where we stopped was painted with images of animals and a Bible passage: “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways (Psalm 128:1).

A long descent along the ridge led us to the valley floor. For several hours we bounced and lurched along rutted, rough roads, dust devils swirling up on both sides. 224 kilometers from Nairobi we came to the portion of the Serengeti Plain known as the Masai Mara. Masai is the name of the tribe of people who occupy the area. They are readily recognizable by their bright red blankets often in tartan plaids.

“Mara” means “spotted” as the landscape appears spotted by the varieties of brush and trees which flourish there. “The Mara” is stunning. No gardener can trim the acacia trees as perfectly as do the giraffes. When the sun filtered through the clouds in shafts of pure light one could almost imagine God’s voice coming down from above (He is a baritone to me, but She could just as easily be an alto).

The morning after our arrival we headed out on a “Game Drive". The vistas were awe inspiring and the game plentiful. The two-way radio was alive with the voices of the game spotters. Though the voices spoke in Swahili one could easily discern when there was a sighting of something special: a treed leopard or perhaps a black rhino. The radio crackled to life and we were off again; the dust flying from behind our vehicle. Jackie, a superior court judge, sat in the bucket seat across from mine. As we jerked and jolted along she suddenly turned to me. “You know,” she began. “When we were in Kibera, we saw what man created.” “Here on the Mara, we see what God created.”

The world is not an easy place to live. Bad things happen to good people. Atrocities are perpetrated on the innocent often in the name of justice. Ever since Adam and Eve ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil we have struggled. If it is good for me, it matters not if it is bad for you. What is more, amid all the damage and neglect we have inflicted upon the earth and each other, we still find time to occasionally look heavenward, shake our fist at the sky and wail, “God, how could you let this happen.”

Our relationship with our God is passive-aggressive. “God, I am in charge, but don’t let anything bad happen to me.” “You fix it!” We treat God like an absentee landlord rather than a life-long companion. A companion who weeps with us, rejoices with us, mourns with us, triumphs with us. Our life will take us through dark tunnels, but we will also experience great light. The Apostle Paul calls us to be “children of that light.”

It would have been easy for our spirits to be weighed down by some of what we experienced in Kenya…shunning the light in favor of the darkness. But, if we had despaired, the peel of children’s laughter, the beat of drums, and the sound of feet dancing would have gone unheard. If we had forgotten God was at our side, we would have missed the prayers offered up for us, rising with the smoke of the incense. The many messages of God on buses, vans and storefronts would have been unread.

If we had despaired we would have been deaf to the angelic voices of the sisters and novices at Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity Convent. The children's mantra “How are you?” would have gone unacknowledged. In our darkness we would have missed the love we felt in the neat and tiny homes we visited. And, on that last night in Dandora, by the low light of flickering candles, we would have missed the heart-felt, spontaneous professions of faith offered up by the parishioners of Holy Cross.

But God was our companion and we did not despair! Instead, we carry those moments of joy with us forever. Our souls touched in such a way, we can shake the red dust of Dandora from our shoes, but we shall never remove the experience from our hearts and the glow from our souls.

Dear God: To you I lift up my soul.

“Goodbye, Farewell, Amen.” Title of the final episode of M*A*S*H, March 1983


© 2010 James E. Carper. All rights reserved.

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