Between Creation and Creator

Recently I spent four weeks with no functioning indoor plumbing. Due to an infrastructure malfunction, the water supply was almost non-existent to the house at which I’m staying.  A tiny trickle came from the tap behind the house, which was to provide water for four people.  It took about an hour to fill a five-gallon bucket, making the water supply extremely limited.  Only small amounts could be used for simple activities like bathing, cooking, and laundry.  During one of those weeks there was also no electricity, which meant no lights after dark (excepts candles and flash lights) and no hot water for bucket baths.  Aside from being incredibly tiresome, this experience was an opportunity to learn and grow.  

I didn’t realize how dependent I had become on modern conveniences like indoor plumbing and lighting until I had to go without them.  I had never questioned whether water would flow from the sink faucet when I turned it.  Although I had heard stories from returned Peace Corps volunteers, I never thought I would learn the art and science of the bucket bath, because the shower always worked.  After living for weeks with very little water, I became very aware of exactly how much I was using.  When your only source is very limited and time-consuming to acquire, every drop counts. When the water came back on, this now almost instinctive mentality remained, that every drop counts. When the water flowed through the pipes again, it felt so luxurious to do laundry without hauling buckets of water that took hours to fill.  It was a glutinous indulgence to take a long, hot shower.  I realized I had taken for granted how wasteful I had been in my water consumption and how privileged I am to have running water at all.  In the crèche’s neighborhood where I work, no one has indoor plumbing.  There are taps along the road where women come with their buckets for their daily needs.  I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for the lives of my co-workers and the children at the crèche.  I had endured that hardship for an insignificant amount of time compared to potentially one’s entire life. 

This experience begged the question, how many other resources as a privileged person from the developed world do I take for granted?  How often do I assume that “simple” things like water and electricity will always be there? And for how many of the world’s people have these things never been available?  As another example, it took me months to realize that I’m working for free.  There is something inherent in the job description of a “volunteer” that I am not receiving wages for the work I do.  But it took me several months to realize that I’m not “profiting” from this experience.  For whatever reason, I had never taken this idea to heart, because the stipend that I am provided with takes care of my daily needs: food, transportation, utilities, etc.  There is also money for things like newspapers, minutes for my cell phone, the occasional movie rental or coffee…  My needs and then some are provided for. At the end of the month there is usually just enough, or even a little left over, if I budget well.  Tracking how much money I spend has become a spiritual discipline.  By recording every cent, I hold myself accountable to exactly where my stipend is going.  With a “limited” amount of money every month, I am aware that I can’t take it for granted by spending frivolously.  And yet, many of the people that I work with can’t count on something as basic as a monthly stipend and barely scrape by on social development grants from the government.  With the South African unemployment rate at 40%, for many there are simply no jobs available to earn a decent living.  

I have been told that how people spend their time and money is a direct reflection on their values.  A person’s schedule and checkbook reveal quite a bit about who they are as a person and their priorities.  But if everything we have comes from God, how we use what we have been given is also direct reflection on the sort of relationship we have with God.  This includes not only more “western”-valued things like time and money but literally everything: the roof over our heads, water in the pipes, food on the table, opportunities for employment and contributing to society…  This includes not only physical, tangible things necessary for life, but also the intangible needs for love, acceptance, and community through relationships with family and friends…  This continuous blessing is very difficult to compartmentalize, because it permeates every part of our lives.  How can we work on our “spiritual lives” if every encounter, every action is a spiritual act, a communion with our Creator?  God is in all of it, because he gives us not only everything in our lives, but our lives themselves.  We have a responsibility not only to use what we have been given, but also to ensure that all people have access to those things necessary for life, as a response to the love that God has shown us.     

Food for thought: 

884 million people in the world do not have access to safe water. This is roughly one in eight of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)

2.5 billion people in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation, this is almost two fifths of the world's population. (WHO/UNICEF)

The weight of water that women in Africa and Asia carry on their heads is commonly 20kg, the same as the average UK airport luggage allowance. (UN HDR 2006)

At the feet of another

On many days when I arrive back at the house after spending a day at the crèche I wash my feet.  Especially on rainy days the dirt road between the khombi stop and the crèche is cause for mud between my toes when I wear open hiking shoes. The dirt from the courtyard and surrounding neighborhood, carried on the shoes of the learners, constantly deposits itself on the floors of the hall and kitchen.  Many days begin with mopping up droppings from the pigeons that manage to get into the hall overnight.  I usually spill a drop or two of morning porridge on my pants while feeding a toddler.  There are always snotty noses to wipe.  Occasionally a child will wet his/her pants, and needs to be cleaned up.  It seems that almost everything within reach of the kids ends up in their mouths, resulting in many objects covered in spit.  There is always a rather large insect, lizard, or bird to be chased out. Working at the crèche can be a dirty job.  The feeling of warm water and soap on my feet at the end of a long, often exhausting day is a simple blessing.

I was struck during Holy Week by the connection between washing my own feet and how Jesus, through his example, calls us to wash the feet of others.  (This text is read on Maundy Thursday.)  After washing the feet of his disciples in preparation for the Passover meal, Jesus said, “So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.  For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you”  (John 20:14-15).  I realized that, at the end of the day, I’m often washing my own feet and not the feet of others.  The only time that I have literally washed someone else’s feet is during Maundy Thursday worship service. 

It is so easy to spiritualize Jesus’ commandment to wash one another’s feet. In Jesus’ day the washing of feet was reserved for the slaves, for the lowest class in society.  We no longer exist in a slave-owning society, and foot washing is no longer a ritual of hospitality. What is the equivalent of “foot washing” in our day?  How does one place oneself “at the feet” of another?  What are the acts of service that make our lives cleaner and more comfortable, which require getting dirty?  Cleaning toilets, changing diapers, collecting garbage, mopping floors, washing laundry and dishes…  And who are the “slaves” of our day, the people who take the thankless jobs no one else wants?  The domestic workers, child-care givers, nurses’ assistants, janitors and garbage truck workers…  Are these the kind of people, according to Jesus, who most closely following his example of service in our times?  Are we all called to do the same?

Jesus is calling us to get our hands and feet dirty, to take off our “outer garments” and learn the vulnerability of service.  Touching someone else’s feet is an intimate act.  A person’s feet can tell you a lot about them.  It can be difficult to create this kind of physical connection in other mundane aspects of service, but an element of vulnerability is always involved.  In our day there is often a disconnect between the “service sector” and those receiving services.  There is very little human interaction, no opportunity to serve another person, because a “service” is bought and paid for.   

In the mundane, even servile act, of washing his disciples’ feet Jesus shows us, not just tells us, how we are to serve and love one another.  Love, manifest in acts of service, is often this radical thing encountered in ways one doesn’t expect.  The call not to be leaders but servants, to place ourselves “at the feet” of others, is an uncomfortable, inconvenient thing.  How would our days be drastically different if we sought not to be served but to serve?  What would happen if we took Jesus’ commandment seriously and realized that none of us are too good to get our hands (and feet) dirty for the sake of others?  

Women In God's Image

So God created humankind in his image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
– Genesis 1:27

A husband cheated. A pastor perpetrated sexual assault. A teenager fell pregnant. A daughter cared for her abusive father. We have strayed so far from God’s living-giving intentions in creating us… Before I came to South Africa, gender-based violence, sexism, abuse and broken families were issues “out there.” Listening to the stories of women here, I am unexpectedly learning to confront this same sense of brokenness within myself. Issues of gender, the relationships between men and women, is no longer something out there, but real and present “in here.” Though separated by the gulfs of culture, language and life experience, South African women are teaching me that I too am a woman, sharing in the experiences of a fallen humanity. And I too am a woman created in God’s image.

Over a weekend in March I had the privilege of participating in a workshop called Women in God’s Image (WIGI). The purpose of the workshop was for a group of twenty-odd women to ask two questions. What does God mean to me? And, what do I mean to God? Women of diverse races, mother tongues, and ages interpreted these questions through art, poetry, and prose. To put pen to paper and brush to canvas was a courageous act, a risk that required copious amounts of honesty and vulnerability. For many, including myself, the creative process was also healing, a moment of catharsis. It was powerful to prod often definitive, traumatic moments as things no long inside oneself but out. There was freedom in making those experiences one’s own, to transform something ugly and broken in something beautiful, a work of art. It was a birthing process that required large dollops of grace and trust.

As a woman, and now something of a gender activist through my work at PACSA, I was surprised that I had never considered that my womanhood could contribute to my understanding of God. If God is Spirit, beyond the human definitions of male or female, can God be understood as Mother as well as Father? The comparison of God to a mother hen sheltering her brood under her wings is often overlooked (Matthew 23:37), as well as many images from the Old Testament. God “knit us” together and “hemmed us in” even as we were being made in the womb (Psalm 139). I was challenged to consider life as a birthing process, that God, in agonizing pain, is delivering us to eternal life (Romans 8:22-23). And yet like little children we bang away with rebellious fists. For me this is an exciting new understanding of God.

The WIGI workshop was a powerful affirmation that women too are created in the image of God; that they too are holy and set apart for God’s purposes. Throughout history and today, half the world’s population, in ways both subtle and obvious, has been told that it is “less than.” How are Christians living out the great commandment to love one another in this reality? Perhaps new understandings of God are part of the answer.

Below is a poem I wrote during the WIGI workshop.

Meditation on Psalm 139

Embrace from the womb,
Hemmed in,
Behind and before,
Known, yet restless.
Kicking.

Wrapped in a dark, watery blanket
Then torn into light.
Hands folded in prayer
And a sucking thumb
The day you went home from hospital.

Little banging fists.
A nipple offered—
Rejected.
To know better,
Put off childish ways.

To be a child to enter the Kingdom…
Naked.
First born.
Known flesh from Mother God.