The Secret of Everything

 

This is how I know you. Comfortable... talking on the phone, making plans in a language I still can't manage to understand.  Arms length from your whistle that still calls the cows home no matter what city we are in, no matter how far.

You are always mythic in my mind.  I forget you are real.  Then I see you again and you ask me to come sit beside you and listen while you play the music you learned as a boy herding the cows in the wide open plains of Uganda.  I go over the stories in my mind and try to imagine what it could possibly mean to be seven or eight or nine and possess nothing but this whistle and the confidence that comes from knowing undeniable love in the face of unimaginable suffering.

To be together is to erase a thousand sorrows, you tell me.  And I know from the whistle, it's true.

You pull out a neon orange mouthpiece you sawed off a recorder I brought to Rwanda so many months ago.  See? you gesture as you attach the plastic to the crude black plastic tube.  I listen, but it's not the same.

How can anything improve on what you already possess?  How could anything compare to the secret of everything, the power of together being all you've ever known?



Getting Schooled

Jen and I are here in Arusha, Tanzania on our second Picture Hope assignment this week. We've so enjoyed sharing time with Mama Lucy, founder of Shepherds Jr. School; kind teachers; and more than 350 children ages 3-12 thanks to our friends at non-profit Epic Change. As in Rwanda, I'm finding that relationships hold great value.  It seems that connections between people are stronger here in Africa, or perhaps these connections are just more visible when you strip away unnecessary physical possessions – when you cut away the clutter and focus on the person seated before you or beside you.

Africa is flattening me. She's taking me back to the basics. Asking me in a gentle and honest whisper to question long-standing assumptions about my life. She makes me cry. She brings me great joy. She makes me want to rebuild a better me. I'm eager to let the images speak to you over the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for sharing this journey with us.

Wondering

Two weeks from today, I'll be on the ground in Rwanda with Jen for the start of our Picture Hope dream assignment. The idea of this leaves me a little breathless. I wonder how I'll feel. I wonder how the people I meet will feel about me. I wonder if we'll find the hope we seek. I wonder if I'll be brave in spite of fear. I wonder if I'll feel at home... or lost. I can only assume that the visions before my eyes will change me in a profound way. I wonder who I will become.