I worked for 12 hours today. Did you read that?! It said to-DAY...as in DAY TIME!!!!...as in, I worked during the DAY, while the sun was UP!!! definitely a treat. And my patients were treats too. love that.
After work, I caught the Metro to Busch Stadium where I watched the Cards CRUSH the Cubs (huge rivalry for those of you with the double misfortune of not being from the midwest and not being baseball fans) and Pujols managed to add his 2,000th career base hit to the excitement. Webaleh free ticket Sara!
I came home, checking email before bed and came upon a host of new WHM Africa blog posts. This is like icing on the cake of a good day. The sweetness of getting a peak into the lives of the people I love doing work that I love in places that I love but am so far from, is priceless. Pouring over their words imagining them going about their days, soaking in their insights and wisdom, imagining I'm sitting and chatting with them, or walking next to them, I wish I was there with them, but also glad to be here...all in the same moment...one of those life in two worlds moments.
Another dual-world moment - Tuesday night I arrived home from a quick trip to Chicago. Still glorying in the wonders of the Art Institute of Chicago and deep dish pizza, old friends and new ones, I walked into my brother's house. (I'm living there now, have I mentioned that? it's true.) Jeff has sacrificially allowed his older sister to take up residence (with all her crap!) in his minimalist bachelor pad. There has been the exchange of groceries and cooking to sweeten the deal for him a bit, but it's a sacrifice no matter how you slice it.
Anyways, because he has given up his room for me to live in, he's sleeping on a mattress in the living room which means that as I walk in the door late at night, I try to stumble past him quietly, usually unsuccessfully, in the dark. Tuesday night he stirred and I apologized, quickly remarking that it felt like the air conditioning wasn't on. (After freezing my tail off in the frigidly air conditioned rooms of most everywhere in Chicago I was very temperature aware). He sleepily agreed that it wasn't. To which I replied in a slow, puzzled, way - "well...why?"
"Someone stole the air conditioner today."
We are not talking about a little window unit folks, we are talking about what I have learned is called a "condenser"...that big metal box that whirrs outside the back of your house as it turns on and off to cool your whole house...somebody stole it, in the middle of the day, from the back of Jeff's house.
I was PO'd. and no, not taking things "by mouth" for all you medical people...PISSED OFF! Pardon my french. I realized that this was not the time or the place to continue this particular discussion, considering I had woken Jeff from what is now precious sleep in a house where at night the air is warmer than the air outside, so I went into my room, got ready for bed and went to sleep fuming.
Unfortunately this is a familiar fuming for me...you can probably search on the world "stolen" on this blog and find a fair bit about my experiences with theft in the last year or so...these are not some of my better moments, folks. I won't go into the details but I was mad. Mad on behalf of my hard working, sacrificial brother.
Turns out I was more angry than he was. The next day I learned from my brother, that it is possible to be more thankful for what you have than you are mad about what you don't...that it is possible to focus on what you've been blessed with instead of on the ways you've been hurt. I'm not sure how to give validity to the feelings of violation and the wrongness of things like theft and still choose to focus on more helpful things. But evidently it's possible.
Life in two worlds? Who knew theft could unite my two worlds for me. Who knew my anger could unite my two worlds for me. Who knew God would continue to drown me with His grace and show me His perspective. Who knew I'd be experiencing a taste of Sudan as I sweat with my brother in our little house in St. Louis this summer? People here are dying in this heat, but we have windows and fans and a cold shower and ice and strong-ish young-ish bodies, and so much to be thankful for.
Only by the grace of God go I.
P.S. - This is NOT to be read as a sly and/or underhanded way of generating sympathy points or pity or even a new A/C condenser - we really are just fine albeit warm - but rather as the rambling confessions of an anger-prone young woman who desperately needs her Savior (and her brother, it turns out - but not necessarily A/C)!
1 comment:
very interesting insight that the feeling of violation united your worlds. Perhaps the feeling is worse in places where you already sense you are an outsider, or suspect your welcome? Come to cold Kijabe if you get too hot.
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