africa, i came to change you, but instead you changed me.

so it was a year ago today

that i set foot upon your red dirt

for the first time.

and i still haven't figured out

what you've done to me or

why you call to me. 

and i don't have words to express it. 

or even colors to paint you, or

chords to play.

but no one understands why i'm intense

about you. because i can't get you out of me. 

or the smell off of me. 

i guess you feel like home. 

and you're a long way away. 

a really long way. 

so bring me back to you. let me feel

the dirt between my toes. lose my

head in the vastness of sky.

get washed in the electric rain.

in the colors of naivasha's sunset.

in bunyonyi's storm. 

but, for now, show me how to remember

how to make you part of me here. 

how to balance.  

you know it's so easy for me to 

forget all you taught me

to forget me.

and show me how to turn those things

into love. kind of like how, in you

we saw love. 

because this world here is broken too

so until i return to you, here i should

try to love.

and i know i say that a lot, but i really

believe it, and if i live it, 

i'd try and bring it back to you. 

until then, my friend, don't ever leave

my heart or my head. i'll keep believing

that i'll see you soon. 

"if you come to help me, you are wasting your time...

 but if you come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then

let us walk together."

purple

i guess it was like fingers of color that were reaching past 

the tops of the trees and resting upon the top of all saints. 

and the clouds were a solid wall of fire. 

an endless purple... brilliantly deep.

and the purple melded into oranges and yellows

competing for the glory of the color 

that was able to grace the spires of the cathedral

but i think the purple won. 

and as i watched...the sky went dark. 

turned black. 

because it knew that no one cared. 

i am because you are.

i see you. in black and white. 
i promise i remember you. in color. 
we are.

"if i ever want proof

i find it in you

yeah i honestly do

in you i find proof.

light and dark

a bright spark

light and dark

and then, light..."

-coldplay

mbutu, mboto

I like it how sometimes, all the little strands in different directions in our lives sorta find each other and get woven through one another. 

The other night, I was reading something that one of my friend's wrote. It was about music. And basically it's power. To fill a room with power and passion and build itself into something so beautiful that you lose yourself in the midst of the music and everyone in the room. And after it's over, you don't really remember anything specific about the song, just the transcendental power of the music. That's probably not exactly what she was talking about but anyway...

Tonight...I found myself sitting in a chair in St. Luke's Chapel staring at a grand piano, paintings of Episcopal Saints, and a man with hair like Einstein and a voice like gold. He wore a pair of Levi's, a black shirt, his wild hair, and a guitar whose wear and tear had been patched with pieces of wood and what must have been love. And if his voice was like gold, that guitar played like silver. The small crowd of people who gave up their Saturday night to come and listen sat entranced by this man--foot 'a tappin' and head 'a rockin'. 

And it wasn't like his words or playing was genius in and of itself. Or, at least, what might be considered genius by any music critics. And I don't know what it would sound like on cd but... in person. It was indescribable. 

Songs about love. About fear. About our hearts. About journeymen. Mixing with the fingerpicking of smooth sweet notes bouncing out of strings in the light glintin' off the worn finish of his guitar. How I wish I could put it into words for you; lending that experience to posterity, but alas, that was a slice of time, a specification of space and place and experience and memory in my life that wasn't captured by anything (yay for photography class) except the words I scribbled on my hand with carson's pen. 

sawabona...sikahona...though evil may be near, it was love that wrote the play...we may be walking a long, long time... so put your hand in mine...circle of love... oh circle of love. 

Some of us couldn't help but stand up and dance... some of us teared up at different times... some of us found our heads bobbing up and down up and down to the rhythm of his moving up and down up and down across those strings. 

And I'm sitting there blown away by the community the music brought in that sacred place. And then he stopped and mentioned Desmond Tutu. And his ideas about humanity. 

I am, because you are. 

"and the hair it stands on the backs of our necks. heaven must be just like this."

He then asked this girl to stand across from him and told us how people in South Africa used to greet one another during apartheid... The first one says, "Sawabona," which means, "I see you." And the second replies, "Then, I am here." 

Sawabona...I see you...

Sikahona...Then I am here. 

I am because you are. 

And we caught pieces of stardust, and yes, Shannon, the sky is yours, and yes there is proof that love always wins...

and then we saw sparks and touched the sky,

to grab a piece of the rainbow...

like tolstoy we want excitement

and danger

and the chance, oh how 

we want the chance 

to sacrifice ourselves for our love. 

then mad scientist hair flew 

and his eyes closed

because he didn't need to see us 

to love. 

a circle of love, he said

he felt one night on an irish coast 

'neath the stars. 

we felt it. smelled it. breathed it. heard it. saved it. 

and sent it back. and all of it together brings those tears you get when those chills of pure life grace the hairs on the back of your neck, and you feel pure love... the kind that inspires and heals and burns and saves and just. loves. 

i wish that we would all feel so connected. to one another. to ourselves. to this world. that we would realize that "i am here because you are here." that you see me. and because of that, i am here. maybe then we wouldn't hurt each other. kill each other. and shoot one another. maybe then i wouldn't be rich, and you poor. i strong, and you weak. i healthy, and you sick. i full, and you hungry. maybe we'd just be. 

i dream that for us all. it's a little piece of stardust caught, a segment of the rainbow i have grasped. 

you may say, i'm a dreamer, but god i hope i'm not the only one. so... go out and tell someone that you love. and someone that you don't. 

"i am because you are."

peace be with you. and i am because you are...

"A friend of mine who is celibate makes it very clear that her vow of celibacy is not to go without love, but it's a vow to what she calls "universal love." I've realized over time that she is a deeply connected person. There is a certain potency to her presence that is hard to describe. She owns no property and she lives as simply as she possibly can because she committed early in her life to give everything she had to making the world the kind of place God dreams it could be. It is a joy to be with her because EVERYTHING MATTERS IN HER LIFE. Nothing is shallow or trite or superficial. [...] Because she's been exploring her own soul for so long, she knows herself inside and out. She's at peace and it's contagious."

-Rob Bell in Sex God

we live in a beautiful world. tonight, at least.

So basically, I'm waiting for my laundry to dry before I can go camping. And what better way to spend one's time than to toss words out into cyberspace? 

But... tonight was a beautiful night here in Sewanee, TN. Full moon. Soft wind that tosses your hair around and makes music in the trees and is just cool enough to wake you up with the freshness. Midnight blue sky. 

And tonight was one of those nights where you just can't help but feel ridiculously alive.

Maybe it's that high on life that makes you wanna dance.

Or that song on the tip of your tongue. 

And then you get a glimpse of how life was meant to be lived. 

Just divinely aware, unabashedly passionate life

Then, in that, you live. 

And begin to dream. 

Tonight, I ended up on the very top of Walsh Ellet, amongst the gravel of the roof and the breath of the wind.

Lately, I've been falling back into old patterns of frustration and cynicism at our culture in general and a lot of the overwhelming things that come with North American Universities. And I let it get to me tonight, manifested in my silence. Alone in the crowd, seething and crying inside. All at the same time. But then I walked out of the room and found myself taking off my shoes with a friend and setting out through the grass. 

And you see, the beauty of the night came from the beauty of this friend's passion and love of life. I am completely astounded by contentment and inner peace, because sometimes those things are so foreign to me. 

After ending up on the roof, watching the shooting stars blaze their way across the cosmos, I talked into the wind for a while, my friend listening and letting me get frustrated. Silent. Listening. And then out of the silence I hear, "Ok Will, sometimes you just need to be quiet and listen. Because you're probably drowning out God with all that thinking and talking." 

oh. 

Boy, do I do that all the time. I'm so easily cynical. And bitter. That I let the beauty get sucked out of life. But tonight, I got the deadness in me sucked out by the pure ecstasy of someone who was alive. Someone who probably doesn't often worry about "what it means to be alive." Or how to be alive. But rather, just lives. 

And I was reminded of the beauty of silence. God speaks in the silence I think. And I so often don't let him and wonder why I can't hear him even when there's so much noise in my life. 

And after this conversation, we stood up and let the wind blow us as we stared at the moon. Somewhere around there, I felt the weight on my shoulders gone and the joy inside of me started to dance. Tonight, I think it was a beautiful waltz. For it was peaceful. And lovely. Not too fast, but not too slow. And it didn't have to be that technical, just some simple repetitive steps. 

But it was a dance. And it was beautiful. 

Emily Dickinson said, "Find ecstasy in life, the mere sense of living is joy enough." I think, thanks to a friend, I saw that joy again, and my soul started to sing and dance once more. 

"We are traveling together like companions on a quest--and going slow enough to notice our surroundings... Perhaps it is in the journey, not the destination, where we will unearth our vital connection to God and one another. And surely this is a quest we were made to embark on together."

-Mark Scandrette

So here's to life. And jazz music. 

lovewill

wednesday, january 30th, 2008

I opened up my journal from Burundi tonight. And as I glanced across the pages... gazing upon my heart on paper, I was amazed by all that I have forgotten. Or try to forget. And as you'll see if you keep reading, the sentences are short. Simple. Brief. The flowing, eloquent verbosity present in my journals from Kenya is gone. I was becoming completely overwhelmed. I pray that as you read these words, that you'll let yourself go to the green fields of maize... between a ridge of mountains. On the shores of an ancient lake.

I told the people in this story I would tell the people of my country about them. And this is a beginning. 

6:55 PM Bujumbura, Burundi

Yesterday, I walked past a little girl with no arms and no legs. Lying in the street. And that made me think a lot. 

We had to go back and forth yesterday between the bank and immigration. Bujumbura has got to be one of the poorest cities on earth. I am completely overwhelmed by all that I see and feel here in this city. Right now, it is so hard to balance the ideas of just enjoying God and being dazzled by the world and creation with all the death, pain, and poverty by which I am surrounded. 

I have somewhat become dead again. Numb to feeling things for these people. When we walked by that little girl on the street, I barely looked because I'm so used to it and because it was just easier to glance away like all the other mzungus do rather than take it all in. Let the emotion hit me. And now, that breaks my heart. I'm having trouble shaking the discouragement from the last couple of days. 

The girls and I just got back from visiting two places today with Rev. Felicien Juma and Rev. John-Baptiste Sigoma. The first place we went was about 15km from Bujumbura. The area was a farming community before the war with over 500 families. But then, it became a battleground. Homes were destroyed... people fled... and the entire generation from my age to age 40 was completely wiped out. Gone. I talked to a young man the other day that had 25 siblings before the war and has 8 left. 

In 2005, the men started coming back to try and rebuild. It has taken three years and the community is half the size that it was before the war began. We walked around and tried to love on the

 kids a bit and listened as Jean told us the history of the war. 

What do you do with things like this? With stories of people whose lives have been so destroyed. My God... they have nothing. Nothing. Sometimes I make excuses about people being ok with where they are and how

 development like we understand it is such a negative thing. Yeah, ok it is. But no matter what, wit modern technology and medicine, people should not have to live like this. These people are not happy... they are hurting. They struggle to survive. Their world is one of hunger, disease, pain, and survival. Or the lack thereof. 

The second place we went was different.... It was a little place on the shores of Lake Tanganyika that was a repatriate community. These people had fled Burundi at some point during the five or six wars since 1968. Many of them don't know where they are from because they were born somewhere else or they were too little to remember. One joked with me that if we ever write a book, we should entitle it, "Rivers run through our houses." or "Lost in our own country." Yeah, not funny. 

The children. Were starving. These people have little hope. Do we even understand what that means? The children broke my heart... distended bellies, protruding belly buttons, sad eyes. These kids didn't even beg for money. They just wanted to rub my hair... hold my hand... and be next to me. 

These people have nothing and are getting help from no one. All they have is that which they grow or catch. And there is a problem with lots of kids because obviously there's no money or education for any sort of 

birth control. One family recently lost a little boy from sickness. They said his entire body was swollen as he died. It is so sad. 

At the end of our time at the repatriate camp, we all stood outside the door to one of the houses... Jill, Bethany, and I each said something to the people. I told them that I would tell the people in my country about them and that we would never forget them. I was at a loss for words. How do you talk to people like that when the camera in my hands is worth more than their entire community. 

While we were leaving, I felt like the worst person in the world. Walking away, back to a bed, and a roof, and food... leaving them with words like "I'll never forget you."

For those of you who have gone. Who have seen. Who have felt. May you NEVER forget. May you feel it once more. Let it hit you again. I wrote this tonight to reconnect to the big picture. May we never forget where we have been and what we have seen. The people we hugged and loved. For them, and for us, may we never forget them... Instead, let us be people of purpose with intentional lives. 

Though I may try and push it away, when I come across these words, and the images roll over me like a rogue wave, I know I must turn around and go back. To be with people and to love them. Never stop dreaming that we can fill this world of ours with love... that we can make a difference. And today, love someone who isn't expecting it or doesn't want it or isn't used to it. May we make it our passion to be the change we wish to see in the world... making the world the kind of place God dreams it could be.

grace and peace to you. 

"what is life?

it is the flash of a firefly in the night,

it is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime,

it is the little shadow which runs across the grass

and loses itself in the sunset."

-crowfoot, blackfoot warrior and orator.

"the truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt."

-thomas merton

nancy hagg...

a few weeks ago, i received a letter from a friend that opened with this quote: 

"and when nancy hagg was there, she sat in the same sun, and combed her long hair, which was marvelous red-gold, and i hope she never cut it short for it gave glory to God."

-thomas merton

the letter was beautiful. i read the letter while driving and could hardly see the road because of the tears in my eyes. whatever it was in my life that was red-gold and marvelous, i had cut it short. forgotten. pushed it down and away. did that because it was so real and alive and pure and passionate that it definitely fluctuated between that place where "the hardest thing and the right thing are the same." there were days that it killed me, this burning deep inside. and rather than let the flames get out and be seen, i closed them up and just let them smoke somewhere inside. 

i got home from africa in march. it's a pretty big deal in my life. i feel as if everything in my life led up to that place and everything since goes back to that place where the sky is huge and the dirt is red. and somewhere along the way since then, i pushed it down and away because i can't figure out how to handle what i saw... what i felt... and what i learned. all the joy, the beauty, the death, the pain, the heartbreak, and the passion that i went through from september 29th to march 8th. 

and i tried to start this blog in may to keep it alive. but then i cut off the marvelous red-gold and stopped. 

so here we go again. i found a friend's blog this morning that said something about the sky is yours and it made we want to be alive once more... full of love and hope and joy and peace. this place, this sewanee, needs that just as much as any other place. because sometimes these huge old buildings can seem cold, dark, even if they are beautiful. and i know it scares people... this big place where we're all supposed to "find ourselves" and grow up. i see the girls walking around all straight-backed with eyes directly forward, dressed in their finest and cutest, scared shitless of what someone might think. the guys that goof off and run around crazy. in the midst of each other, we're all scared of being alone. and we all want to be full of that love, that hope, that joy, and that peace. 

maybe if we're all real to one another and let the smoke come out and the light of our blue sky come in, we'll find those things in each other and be inspired to fill this world of ours with love. 

for, as jon foreman sings, "for a seed to give birth to life, first it must die."

so nancy hagg... let's grow that hair back.