Some Words on Suffering

Okay, so this blog post is not words from me, but they are words sent to us by Paul Robinson, the director of the HNGR program, and I found them to be really thought-provoking and applicable to a lot of the things I have been seeing and thinking about. They come from a book People of the Lie by Scott Peck.

Perhaps the greatest problem of theodicy is the question why God, having created Satan in the first place, didn't simply wipe it out after its rebellion. The question presupposes that God could wipe anything out. It assumes that God can punish and kill. Perhaps the answer is that God gave Satan free will and that God cannot destroy; He can only create.

The point is that God does not punish. To create us in his image, God gave us free will...Yet to give us free will God had to forswear the use of force against us. We do not have free will when there is a gun pointed at our back. It is not necessarily that God lacks the power to destroy us, to punish us, but that in His love for us He has painfully and terribly chosen never to use it. In agony He must stand by and let us be. He intervenes only to help, never to hurt. The Christian God is a God of restraint. Having forsworn the use of power against us, if we refuse His help, He has no recourse but, weeping, to watch us punish ourselves.

The point is unclear in the Old Testament. There God is depicted as punitive. But it begins to become clear with Christ. In Christ, God Himself impotently suffered death at the hands of human evil. He did not raise a finger against His persecutors. Thereafter in the New Testament we hear echoes of the punitive Old Testament God, one way or another, saying that the 'wicked will get what's coming to them.' But these are only echoes; a punishing God does not enter the picture ever again. While many nominal Christians still today envision their God as a giant cop in the sky, the reality of Christian doctrine is that God has forever eschewed police power.

Of the Holocaust as well as of lesser evils, it is often asked, 'How could a loving God allow such a thing to happen?' It is a bleeding, brutal question. The Christian answer may not suit our tastes, but it is hardly ambiguous. Having forsaken force, God is [powerless] to prevent the atrocities that we commit one upon another. He can only continue to grieve with us. He will offer us Himself in all His wisdom, but He cannot make us choose to abide with Him. 

...It may seem to us that we are doomed by this strange God who reigns in weakness. But there is a dénouement to Christian doctrine: God in His weakness will win the battle against evil.  In fact, the battle is already won.  The resurrection symbolizes not only that Christ overcame the evil of His day two millennia ago but that He overcame it for all time. Christ impotently nailed upon the cross is God's ultimate weapon..  

pages 204-205

and

...we are all in combat against evil. In the heat of the fray it is tempting to take hold of some seemingly simple solution - such as 'what we ought to do is just bomb the hell out of those people.' And if our passion is great enough, we may even be willing to blow ourselves up in the process of 'stomping out' evil. But...although evil is antilife, it is itself a form of life. If we kill those who are evil, we will become evil ourselves; we will be killers. If we attempt to deal with evil by destroying it, we will also end up destroying ourselves, spiritually if not physically.

...we must begin by giving up the simple notion that we can effectively conquer evil by destroying it...It is in the struggle between good and evil that life has its meaning - and in the hope that goodness can succeed. That hope is our answer: goodness can succeed. Evil can be defeated by goodness. When we translate this we realize what we dimly have always known: Evil can be conquered only by love.

So the methodology of our assault...on evil must be love. This is so simple-sounding that one is compelled to wonder why it is not a more obvious truth. The fact is, simple-sounding though it may be, the methodology of love is so difficult in practice that we shy away from its usage.

[It is as if God says:] 'Through the transforming power of my love which is made perfect in weakness you shall become perfectly beautiful. You shall become perfectly beautiful in a uniquely irreplaceable way, which neither you nor I will work out alone, for we shall work it out together.'

It is not an easy thing to embrace ugliness with the sole motive of hope that in some unknown way a transformation into beauty might occur thereby...How does this work?...

I don't know how because love can work in many ways, and none of them are predictable. I know that the first task of love is self-purification. When one has purified oneself, by the grace of God, to the point where one can truly love one's enemies, a beautiful thing happens. It is as if the boundaries of the soul become so clean as to be transparent, and a unique light then shines forth from the individual.

The effect of this light varies. Some on their way toward holiness will move more swiftly by its encouragement. Others, on their way toward evil, when encountering this light will be moved to change their direction. The bearer of the light (who is but a vehicle for it; it is the light of God) most often will be unaware of these effects. Finally, those who hate the light will attack it. Yet it is as if their evil actions are taken into the light and consumed. The malignant energy is thereby wasted, contained and neutralized. The process may be painful to the bearer of the light, occasionally even fatal. This does not, however, signify the success of evil. Rather, it backfires...'It was evil that raised Christ to the cross, thereby enabling us to see him from afar.'

...To quote the words of an old priest who spent many years in the battle: 

'There are dozens of ways to deal with evil and several ways to conquer it. All of them are facets of the truth that the only ultimate way to conquer evil is to let it be smothered within a willing, living human being. When it is absorbed there like blood in a sponge or a spear into one's heart, it loses its power and goes no further.'

The healing of evil...can be accomplished only by the love of individuals. A willing sacrifice is required. The individual healer must allow his or her own soul to become the battleground. He or she must sacrificially absorb the evil.

Then what prevents the destruction of that soul? If one takes the evil into one's heart, like a spear, how can one's goodness still survive? Even if the evil is vanquished thereby, will not the good also be? What will have been achieved beyond some meaningless trade-off?

I cannot answer this in language other than mystical. I can say only that there is a mysterious alchemy whereby the victim becomes the victor. As C.S. Lewis wrote: 'When a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.'

I do not know how this occurs.  But I know that it does. I know that good people can deliberately allow themselves to be pierced by the evil of others - to be broken thereby yet somehow not broken - to even be killed in some sense and yet still survive and not succumb. When this happens there is a slight shift in the balance of power in the world.                                                pages 266-269

A Village Wedding

My friend Shelby had already been in Tamale for 2 months when I got here and she was kind enough to let me spend time on the weekends with her and her Ghanaian friend, Dorcas. Dorcas has a job in Tamale but her family is from a village about a 45 minute motorbike ride away. Dorcas and Shelby go to Dorcas' church in the village every Sunday. Dorcas is a great friend and she loves to give and give. As white friends, we seem to hold a special kind of importance, especially in regards to important events. This last weekend was the wedding of Dorcas' older brother and we were specially invited as two additional "sisters of the groom." This was an honor to us and our presence was similarly considered an honor to those present.

Dorcas had outfits made for all the sisters of the bride to wear for the wedding. She was kind of going for a modern feel and we ended up looking like this:

Let me assure you, we got many compliments from Ghanaian men throughout the day reminding us just how gorgeous we looked.

The wedding itself was definitely an interesting cultural experience. We showed up late which wasn't a problem but it did mean that we missed the processional. However, we heard the vows which were the same as the ones we say. There was music and dancing interspersed. Nearly 30 ministers were present for the event. And I think that most of the village was there too. The church was packed out and people crowded around windows outside and under a tent outside the door. Near the end of the service came the climactic moment: the lifting of the veil. It was funny. The groom started stretching his arms out and  then best man wiped his hands off with a handkerchief. Meanwhile, the maid of honor was carefully wiping away the sweat on the bride's face under the veil. Finally, after several warm-up partial liftings of the veil, he finally did it. And then they hugged. The end!

Unfortunately, the defining experience for Shelby and I (and probably most people there) was sweating more than we had ever sweated before. It was an extremely hot day and we struggled to drink enough water to keep from passing out. We made it and afterwards we were all handed our lunch which contained a nearly boiling hot orange fanta. Not bad actually... haha. After the service, we went back to Dorcas' house and were seated in a room along with the bride and groom. I'm not sure how many pictures we ended up on the edge of!

Shelby and I aren't sure we are up for another wedding anytime soon but it was definitely an experience that we won't forget!

Hair Braiding

For awhile I've been tempted to get my hair braided in the African way. It kind of started when I met another white girl here who had gotten her hair braided and really enjoyed it. She had kept it in over a month and it seemed low maintenance. So when I got to Tamale, the American girl who I'm living with, Shelby, and I decided to do it. We thought it would be fun. Unfortunately we were wrong.

After getting to the hair braiding place at noon, we realized that they were already busy with several costumers but we didn't have a problem with waiting. When they finally started with us, they gave us these huge bunches of synthetic hair to hold in our laps that would eventually be on our head. Then they began the 7 hour process of taking small little chunks of hair and adding synthetic hair to make 121 braids on my head (we counted later when we took them out!). This process was extremely painful as it felt like they were ripping my hair out of my head Furthermore, they conveniently placed all my unbraided hair in a large clip dangling in front of my face throughout the process. But, no worries. Yes, my butt was falling asleep after sitting in that chair so long. But I had been reading Compassion for one of my HNGR readings and so I kept reminding myself "patience...patience, solidarity...solidarity, compassion."

Finally, the braids were done! But then they dipped all my hair in a pot of boiling water. Then they covered the top with shea butter, I think. Then they lit a flame on a can of kerosene and basically torched the top of my head which was mildly terrifying. However, I made it out unscathed! Finally, I thought it was done but a lady montioned me to the back where she yanked up my new, waist-long braids into an updo. It was so painful that when Shelby and I got home, we took a picture, took out the updo, took an ibuprofen, and tried to sleep.

Over the next five days, we got many wonderful compliments from Ghanaians who just loved our new hair. We kind of enjoyed the new look, but we just couldn't stand the itchiness. Apparently your scalp gets itchy both when you have a ton of synthetic hair attached to your head and when your hair has almost been yanked out of your head. We had sores all over our head and finally after 5 days we just couldn't stand it any longer. We took it out and it took 9 hours! We ended up with very frizzy heads. Now our hair is back to normal but I swear I've lost at least a quarter of my hair! Feeling much thinner these days after pulling out so many loose chunks of hair. Pray that I don't come back bald! haha

Got your shock absorbers?

This morning I woke up to my phone ringing. At 7. Okay, its true that a lot of Ghanaians get up and about at 5 or 6, but I prefer not to. Anyway, I answered the phone and ended up hearing that there would be a composer coming to the Dagbani Language Project for me to meet at 8:30. I said I would be there. After jumping in the car with my host father, I let out a complaint about why they couldn't give me just a little more notice! He reminded me that patience is necessary to survive in Africa. He always has a million things to do, yet he manages to do them gracefully until it reaches a certain point. He told me how you can get really worn out if you don't put on your "shock absorbers." It's so true. You need some heavy duty shock absorbers to deal with life here sometimes.

Funny. Shock absorbers sound a lot like God. "Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall." Psalm 55:22

I think I've been learning to let my shock absorbers take more of the shock instead of trying to absorb it all myself!

Lessons at the University

The most fun thing I've been doing the last 2 weeks has definitely been my music and dance classes that I've been taking at the University of Ghana: Legon. Since I'm kind of in an in between phase right now, we decided it would be a good idea for me to get some ethnomusicology experience by taking some private lessons at the Performing Arts School! I've enjoyed every minute of it!

I signed up for xylophone, drumming, and dancing lessons for each day for the past 2 weeks. I didn't really know what to expect, but I've gotten so much out of it. Everyday, I headed out to the University around 8:30. I bargained for my taxi and directed them to the place and mostly didn't get ripped off! And I've gotten really good at explaining to my taxi drivers why I won't give them my phone number or buy them a ticket to America! haha. When I got to the University, I didn't have specific locations to find my teachers at or specific times where I knew I could find them! So I would look around and ask for help until I found my first teacher, and then look around for my 2nd, etc. It was actually not that annoying to track down my teachers everyday, and I met a lot of people in between!

Xylophone
My xylophone teacher was a young guy (I think a graduate student). Each day we carried the heavy xylophones outside under a big tree in the back for my lessons. The xylophone here has wooden keys with gourds of corresponding sizes situated under them to amplify the sound. Each gourd has some holes in it covered with spider web which helps create the buzzing speaker effect. It is a really interesting instrument. And it is pentatonic. At my lessons, I got to learn several traditional songs which I played with my teacher. One person does the lead part while the other person does the accompanying parts. The music is really beautiful! Here is a picture of us playing together:

Drumming
My drum teacher taught me the drum patterns to 3 traditional Ghanaian dances. These were definitely the most difficult lessons I took because I both don't have a lot of drumming experience, and I often found my Western rhythmical training blocking me from easily picking up the African rhythms. I worked really hard though and came out triumphant! It's been a nice challenge to have to throw out so much of my musical education in order to learn this music. A good reminder that musical knowledge is incredibly broad. Much of the drumming I learned was done with both sticks and with hand drumming so I (mostly) learned how to effectively hold two sticks in one hand while hand drumming with the other hand! Tricky. Here's a picture of me playing the drum:

Dancing
I learned the corresponding dances to the drum patterns I learned which was very useful since it both gave me a better understanding of the dancing and the dancing gave me a better understanding of the drumming! I was most excited about dancing because I've always loved African dance. It was no disappointment. My teacher was really fun and she taught me well. She also taught me the songs that are sung during parts of the dances. So we spent a lot of time dancing and singing together! On the side, she even taught me some traditional songs on the flute here too! Here are some pictures of me dancing in the corresponding costumes for each of the dances I learned!

Bima

Gota

Gahu

A long-awaited Update

Hello friends!
I've had many intentions of writing blog posts, but I've failed miserably. I see it's been a month now! Sorry for the long wait. You deserve a bit of an update.

Near the end of August, I left Nkwanta to spend a week and a half in Accra. I needed to see the doctor about a potential blod clot in my arm and then I was going to join up with the Wycliffe Discovery Team for some of their debriefing talks. My visit with the doctor did confirm that I had a clot in my arm so I got passed on to a specialist to see whether it was serious or not. After a 4 hour wait, an hour long ultrasound, and another few hours wait for the results, I found out that my deep veins were fine. It was only my superficial veins that were not working because of damage from the IV at the hospital and the medicine injected into my arm. Fortunately, nothing too serious. Unfortunately, my veins are still not working. Guess it takes quite awhile to heal... (No pain anymore, though, so that's good.)

With all the medical issues I was dealing with, we decided to have me spend a longer time in Accra. Eventually we decided that it would be better for me to move on to a different project instead of going back to Nkwanta. God has been incredibly faithful through this transition so far. When I left Nkwanta, it was actually right after finishing the recording of the newly composed Akyode worship songs. Therefore, I had already a finished a big project there. Right now we are planning on me continuing to Tamale to do similar work with a different ethnic group there. More on that when I know when I'm leaving and where I'll be staying!

In the meantime, I've been staying at a missionary family's house in Accra. Ed and Dayle Lauber are both working at the new GILLBT office here and so I've been able to spend some more time with GILLBT staff which has been valuable since it has taught me much more about the organization that I am interning with. I've spent some times at the office and have gotten to speak with the director about some possiblities of creating an ethnodoxology related program as a part of GILLBT. It has been very encouraging to say how he and others here see this music and arts work as so exciting and so crucial to the further development of the church in Ghana! It is exciting to be here at this time!

At home with the Laubers, I've gotten lots of time to rest and recooperate! They have welcomed me in as part of their family which has been wonderful. Dayle and I have enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan and Cribbage together many times! I've learned a lot about missionary life while being here and it has been really interesting. It's amazing how much there is to learn no matter where you are! Thanks for all your prayers during these past few months!

Food Poisoning

I’m very sorry for how long it has been between posts! I’ve been wanting to blog for a while, but life has been unpredictable and blogging has suffered as a result. Anyways, I hope to eventually update you on some of what has been happening and it all starts with this post!

I got to have my first experience of a third world hospital which is probably an experience I could have done without. However, it’s just too good to deprive you of some of the highlights. About two weeks ago I got violently sick after eating something and started throwing up. A lot. After throwing up several times at 5 minute intervals, I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to go to the hospital. I might have been wrong about that. Anyway, I went to the hospital and the doctor looked at me and had me brought to a solitary room to give me some shots and hook me up to an IV. They also gave me a bowl to throw up into which should have been bigger. In some ways, I was rather lucky. I had a room to myself instead of having to share it with about 6 other women. And I had my own bathroom. The plus was that the toilet flushed. The minus was that the sink and shower did not have any water coming out of it. The following might be a more fun way to describe some of my experiences:

8- number of times I threw up

2- number of days that I had an incorrectly placed IV in my hand which was effectively pumping liquids into my tissue instead of my vein

13- number of times that the nurses tried to insert the IV without success

1- number of bugs that might have crawled up my leg while trying to use the bathroom while also carrying my IV

23- approximate number of visitors I had at the hospital, several of which I had no memory of ever meeting

0-number of times I was offered water to swallow my pills given to me by the nurses

3- number of nights spent at the hospital

2-number of doctor visits in Accra as a result of damage from the incorrectly placed IV in my hand

Worst advice given to me by the doctor: When you have diarrhea, it is very bad to eat bananas. Instead you should eat fried yams.

I’ll be honest and say that the hospital was a horrible experience. I would strongly hesitate before going to the hospital again. However, I do think I learned some important things!

1) Remember how the Bible said something about visiting the sick? Well, even though it can be tiring, I don’t know how I would have handled 3 days in the hospital without all the visitors. It was so nice to have people stop by and spend time with me to make me feel better and remind me that I wasn’t alone.

2) The experience gave me a new found appreciation for doctors and hospitals in the US.

3) As my advisor, Paul Neeley, wisely said: “Serving with the rural marginalized poor means that the health care, education, training of pastors, and more may also be marginal. Serving the marginalized poor is glamorous for about 2 minutes each day!