Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

Taking a Page from a Fellow Swede

January 16, 2011 – Antananarivo

I got back to Madagascar on Wednesday in the wee hours. I have felt barraged with one frustration after another since about New Year’s. I won't get into the details because when I list them off they all sound so petty, but we all know what it is like when things build up each day, you don't think you can take another hit - and that's about the time your toilet breaks and no repair man can come until after the weekend (true story).

Since I have been back, I see again the beautiful things here for which I am thankful and that make being here an experience worth having. I was also reminded when running through the village today that most houses here don't actually have toilets - and that this too shall all pass. I am, therefore, incredibly frustrated at my own lack of grace in handling these problems that are being constantly thrown at me.

I have a few thoughts that I’ve been mulling over in response (between my other responses of foot stamping, fist shaking and the hand wringing):

First (1), I don’t understand why God doesn’t just make me nicer.

There’s the minute possibility that is my responsibility though…

Secondly (2), we really weren’t designed to be hermits. Even if for purely self-preservation reasons, we need people around us, to help us, to protect us, to tell us when we’re being unreasonable and to laugh with us about it after we’ve managed to stop telling them where to shove it. We need people who we can trust so that we don’t always have to shoulder the burden of moving apartments alone or letting the plumber in when you’ve done it the last four times and need to be at a work meeting. I am convinced that I need to be more grateful and kind to my past roommates than I have been. They are true prizes.

Thirdly, (3) I picked up Dag Hammarskjöld’s Markings today – it’s a bit like reading Gandi or Martin Luther King or Paul’s epistles from prison. I mean, I don’t know of any great suffering in his life, but I can imagine being Secretary-General of the UN for 10 years, especially during things like the Korean War and the Suez Crisis would be a life that had its fair share of stress, and yet here he is, saying all these gentle, wise things. So it is convicting stuff. Two quotes I’ll share: “ Never measure the height of the mountain, until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” Followed later by “life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible – not to have run away.” I don’t believe for a second that Mr. Hammarskjöld was one of these self-help gurus that believed that if a person just tries really hard, and thinks positively, all would be well. I think he knew that we come up against some real tough stuff sometimes, but we also have a tendency to think we’re the only ones to see trouble. When I read the latter quote, I was reminded of Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians – “ no temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”

I remember the first time I ever lived overseas there was another person talking to me about mountains in a similar way. At the precious age of 18, I did a study abroad program in Guatemala. I remember talking with my friend Jenn about something that I had to do that week of which I was truly terrified – it was some new step out of my comfort zone or other. She said to me that this was “the first hill in a series of foothills and then mountains – don’t look at the mountains, because that will be too overwhelming. Just get on with this hill and you’ll be surprised at the end.” For whatever reason, I’ve been in stuck somewhere in the Kootenays for the last little while. I am far too easily angered that it’s not more like Regina.

Third-point-fifth (3.5), I was talking with some friends over the holidays about faith. One friend was relating conversations she has with a very bright friend of hers who is an atheist and presses my friend on her faith. As the three of us discussed these conversations, we came to the point that you can’t convince someone of faith – as Hammarskjöld says “only through the self-knowledge we gain by pursuing the fleeting light in the depth of our being do we reach the point where we can grasp what faith is. How many have been driven into outer darkness by empty talk about faith as something to be rationally comprehended, something ‘true’.” I told my friends that my faith has sometimes been comprised of moments: moments of complete assurance of God’s presence, conviction of God’s truth, confident of God himself – not in an intellectual way, in a way that you simply can’t explain. Those moments are enough.

Fourth, and final: I am not impressed with the “self-knowledge” I’ve gained this week. I’m cranky and not always cool when things break and I’m alone and tired. I asked God to throw me a bone (literally, I used those words in prayer). I got a whack on the snout from Dag and Paul as my answer – but, it’s actually quite comforting. That one about not running away and the connection to Paul's point on God's faithfulness when you don't run away are swirling around each other nicely in my head. Ah ha! In this instant, it all makes so much sense! D & P, your reminders are moments enough for me today.

posted by Kiki @ 9:10 a.m.