At one point the voices of Shane and Shane were singing a mantra-like chorus of, “Be near, O God, be near.” I couldn’t figure out how this was possible and repeated it a couple times, pleading for His help to know nearness, when feeling but mere distance. I was standing sandwiched between three people at this point, with increasing aggravation at the half-asleep man to my side, bobbing his sweaty old head on my arm at every curve. I kept pushing him off, sickened and weary. At some point in these minutes, it became clear that this man was the nearness of God trying to meet me. In the utmost of simple tasks, I let him rest his head on my arm. When he woke some time later, he spoke enough English to look at me with deep compassion and say, “Oh woman, I am so sorry. I do not mean to cause you bother. I have traveled from 3am and am too tired to stand my head.” “Sir,” I replied, with an inward sympathy that overwhelmed me, “it is the least I can do. Please rest your head on my arm.” When he got off the bus about an hour later, he shook my hand and with a rich sincerity said, “Safe travels, my friend.” Stiff, tired and still shaky with fear, I realized this day that love and knowing the nearness of God’s love share themselves in illogical and uncanny ways. At times they will be exhausting and in many territories, take interruption to my space.
Our final connection required a motorcycle. After having a foot run over by one in Europe, I vowed to never ride one again, but out of desperation the broken vow felt minimal. I just wanted to be home. We returned to the house filthy, having not showered or changed clothes in four days. Arriving in Jinja felt like a five-star hotel. To feel safe for a full night’s sleep, not wondering when the next rat would dance over my legs, or heart would skip hours of rhythmic beat for fear of not making it to the next second, was indescribable. A mosquito net, running water, toilet and roof over my head were luxuries.
These days have clearly offered a lot regarding the complexity of true love and true interaction with another culture and heart. I want to say this translates into a “process” of learning about love, but I think it’s more than that. I think it’s about realizing there is no proper, or sensical, process to love. Love lacks a set plan, proposal, or agenda. You can’t read a book about its depth, or expose a map covering its height. There is not a shape to sacrifice, or a defining of sacrifice’s risk. Love knows no bounds or boundaries and yet bears boundless consequences. It isn’t always fun. It is less about feeling, I think, and more about action and choice. Or maybe about willingness. Willingness to discern God’s unconditional will on a conditional basis—that basis being a fallen world, held by an unfallen God. Sara Groves sings that “Loving a person just the way he is, that’s no small thing—it’s the whole thing” and I think she’s right, but I think that rightness means “to love” must be the hardest concept we could ever grasp. Or learn to not grasp, realizing its possibility as only capable through a strength detached from our selves. I have never been so challenged by the following words from Jesus:
“As the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep My commands you will remain in my love, just I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be complete in you and your joy may be complete. This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. There is no greater love than this, that someone would lay down his life for his friends.” John 15.9-14
Nothing in me would want Mama Grace or Santa to be coerced into the North American life. Their minds couldn’t comprehend it and I think it would kill them in many senses. But nothing in me would want my family and friends to be coerced into Ugandan life, either. Our minds couldn’t comprehend it and I think it would kill us, too. Neither world is right and, in fact, both are incredibly deformed. At its most intrinsic translation, love means sacrifice. It means pursuing blind outcomes, or even no outcomes at all. But this weekend unveiled how much of my sacrifice is "me based," or based on the response I receive. Either way, I am the key player. There is so much of me to love, taking captive my ability to truly love another. My only ability to sacrifice, then, must involve another’s. I know not love without the cross of Jesus Christ.
“If I speak the languages of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy, and understand all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy; is not boastful; is not conceited; does not act improperly; is not selfish; is not provoked; does not keep a record of wrongs; finds no joy in unrighteousness, by rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for languages, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophecy in part. But the perfect comes the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” I Corinthians 13:1-13.