"Even the Congo has tried to slip out of her old flesh, to pretend it isn't scarred. Congo was a woman in shadows, dark-hearted, moving to a drumbeat. Zaire is a tall young man tossing salt over his shoulder. All the old injuries have been renamed: Kinshasa, Kisangani. There never was a King Leopold, no brash Stanley, bury them, forget. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
But I don't happen to agree. If chained is where you have been, your arms will always bear the marks of the shackles. What you have to lose is your story, your own slant. You'll look at the scars on your arms and see mere ugliness, or you'll take great care to look away from them and see nothing. Either way, you have no words for the story of where you came from." The Poisonwood Bible - Barara Kingsolver
I recently read The Poisonwood Bible, a book I had been meaning to get to for years. I was not disappointed. Barbara Kingsolver tells a compelling story of American missionaries caught up in the drama of the Congo's precipitate independence from Belgium. The story is masterfully told, or rather revealed, through the voices of five women, the wife and daughters of a brash, passionate, tormented southern Baptist (not to be confused with "Southern Baptist".) As a child of a Baptist minister I found some elements did not ring true (can there be a Baptist on earth who actually uses the Apocrypha?), but these were not enough to detract from the narrative, or from the author's considerable skill in creating five consistent personas with distinct voices.
There were several pages I dog-eared, but the passage I have come back to several times is this one. Kingsolver is commenting on the wholesale renaming of every place in the Congo/Zaire when the country was finally emancipated from Belgian control. In an effort to erase all vestiges of colonialism the new government apparently abolished the old place names and created new, African names to take the place of any names that made reference to Europe or Europeans.
I don't believe renaming is really the issue here, though it is a fascinating subject - how the ways in which we name things do or do not alter how we think or feel about them -. People have always chosen new names at baptisms, confirmation, taking Holy Orders, and other life changing moments in order to affirm that something new is beginning.
But I think the real question this passage deals with is what to do about wounds, injuries, injustices suffered in the past. Is it better to try to forget, to wipe out the memory, or to allow it to see the light of day; is it better to efface or to embrace our pain, our history, the scars that have made us who we are today.
A case can be made for either approach. Scripture itself encourages us through the example of the Apostle Paul to forget those things which are behind, to run the race before us; yet it also tells us to boast in our weaknesses, and reminds us to not forget what we used to be; to remember that we have been washed, cleansed, healed, made holy.
While there is nothing necessarily wrong with renaming places, people, events, (contemporary historians make a regular practice of it), we need to understand when dealing with our own history that calling something by a different name does nothing to change the underlying reality of what has been and what is. God is still the only one who can speak things into existence.
And I believe there is something to be said for scars. Even Jesus in his resurrected body retained his scars. They became part of his glory. We might do well to learn to love our own scars, even as we embrace our Lord's. If we forget, if we try to cover up where we've been, if we whitewash the past or hide it somehow we are left with the choices the narrator of this passage gives us: seeing ourselves a maimed and ugly, or spending a lifetime turning our faces away.
Christians have a quaint word for "the story of where you came from" - it's called your testimony. It's a story we should not be afraid to tell; a story we should embrace; a story we need to remember to know who we are today. Christ made it clear that he came as a Physician for the sick, the lame, the halt (I love that archaic term), the blind, the lepers. There is no inherent virtue, no glory in being uninjured, in having escaped somehow.
In The Poisonwood Bible Kingsolver describes an African man whose face is covered with ritual scars which are unpleasant to the the narractor at first, but come to seem so much a part of who he is that they become beautiful in her eyes. I like to think that we might all come to the place where we can treat our own scars, and those of others with reverence and tenderness, since they remind us that chained is where we all have been.
*The present Democratic Republic of the Congo has changed its names several times throughout history. It has been Congo Free State (1855-1908), Belgian Congo (1908-1960), Congo-Leopoldville/Democratic Republic of the Congo (1960-1966), Congo-Kinshasa (1966-1971), Zaire (1971-1997).
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
on our own in Malaysia
Last week I was sitting in traffic (again) behind a car with an intriguing bumper sticker in the back window - which is where bumper stickers go in Malaysia. It had a picture of a golden buddha on a blue-sky background and announced, "Anyone can go to heaven. Just be Good! " In small print it said justbegood.net.
I mused about this cheery announcement the rest of the way home. Although it was meant to appeal to me by its egalitarian, affirming message, I find the exhortation to "just be good" extremely depressing. What person over 12 years old actually labors under the delusion that he can "justbegood." "If that's the way to Heaven", I decided, "I'll never make it . Of course, I'll be lucky to make it home in this jam."
As I navigated the LDP highway, watching carefully for signs for Puchong, Putra Jaya, Taman Tun Dr Ismail (T.T.D.I. to locals), I found myself idly concocting a theology based not on bumperstickers, but on the trafffic itself - like, it doesn't matter which lane you choose; we'll all end up in the same lane eventually. . . . unitarian, I suppose. It's true for traffic, at least.
A few days later our family embarked one morning upon a long-planned trip to the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. We had several errands to perform there: changing my husband's new passport to read "Male" rather than "Female", registering our presence as Americans in Malaysia , getting a NH residency form notarized for a college application, and correcting a piece of misinformation on my daughter's passport. KL is not far when considered in kilometers, but it can easily take over an hour to drive there (not allowing for any wrong turns) and nearly as long to find a parking space. So we decided to avoid the traffic and take the train into the city. We would then hike the few blocks from the train station to the Embassy.
My husband took the day off work and we left the house at 9:30, carrying all our critical documents. I found I was inordinately excited about the prospect of setting foot on an outpost of the US; I was all ready to be thrilled by the sight of the Stars and Stripes flying in the hazy tropical sky.
We drove to the LRT station near our house, purchased tickets to Ampang Park and sat down to enjoy the ride. Since our station is the last one on the line we can nearly always find seats. We arrived at our stop about 10:15 and got our bearings. We figured the embassy was about a 1/2 mile from the station and we guessed at the direction in which to head. Everyone immediately noticed how many non-Asians were about in the embassy district. We see very few non-natives in our neighborhood. It's a funny thing but Westerners tend to pretend not to notice each other here; if you accidentally make eye contact you both look away as if there is nothing notable or interesting about the other person. I'm not sure why.
When we arrived at the Embassy after walking the half mile from the monorail along a busy road in the blistering sun, we found it shut and barred. There was no sign of Old Glory anywhere. We quickly checked the time to make sure we had not missed the window of opportunity. The US Embassy is open all of two hours a day, five days a week for any business any Americans in Malaysia might have. (I hope there is never an emergency. . . .) But we were well within the 9-11 AM time frame. Apparently there was a little booth you had to register at first. My husband approached the Malaysian (how disappointing) manning the desk and was about to ask which entrance to use, when we saw the sign, "Closed for Martin Luther King Day, January 15th, 2007"
But it's not even Martin Luther King Day in the US yet, we wailed. It's still Sunday night!! Then we saw the other sign noting that the US Embassy closed for ALL public holidays, Malaysian and American! When you consider how many holidays the two countries celebrate, the place must be open an average of 8 hours a week, not even 10!! I was ready to renounce my citizenship then and there, except I probably couldn't do it until the embassy opened! We felt annoyed that all our efforts were for naught, but we also felt abandoned here on foreign soil, as if we didn't matter anymore. "That's what you get for moving to the other side of the world, you ingrates," was the message the locked gates and unwelcoming signs seemed to convey.
So, we went to the Canadian Embassy instead, which is open 35 hours a week, where we picked up applications for Certificates of Canadian citizenship for all our children, (I was born in Canada, so they all can claim citizenship), and they even offered to give the kids all 1 year passports while their Citizenship Claims were being processed!! So there. (We didn't go out of spite; we had planned to do this anyway.) We lounged around in the air conditioned Canadian waiting room for awhile before we headed back out to the hot sun and the train and the traffic. We felt slightly less offended; at least some country wanted us!
Then we went to the beautiful old Central Market for shopping and lunch, where we avoided eye contact with many more Westerners and ate wonderful clay-pot black pepper chicken and rice. We were back home by 3 PM, though we felt as if we'd been away a lot longer. We turned on the air-conditioning, sent the little girls off to the swimming pool and decided we'd let some time go by before we tried to visit our Uncle Sam again. Maybe he'll decide he misses us after all.
I mused about this cheery announcement the rest of the way home. Although it was meant to appeal to me by its egalitarian, affirming message, I find the exhortation to "just be good" extremely depressing. What person over 12 years old actually labors under the delusion that he can "justbegood." "If that's the way to Heaven", I decided, "I'll never make it . Of course, I'll be lucky to make it home in this jam."
As I navigated the LDP highway, watching carefully for signs for Puchong, Putra Jaya, Taman Tun Dr Ismail (T.T.D.I. to locals), I found myself idly concocting a theology based not on bumperstickers, but on the trafffic itself - like, it doesn't matter which lane you choose; we'll all end up in the same lane eventually. . . . unitarian, I suppose. It's true for traffic, at least.
A few days later our family embarked one morning upon a long-planned trip to the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. We had several errands to perform there: changing my husband's new passport to read "Male" rather than "Female", registering our presence as Americans in Malaysia , getting a NH residency form notarized for a college application, and correcting a piece of misinformation on my daughter's passport. KL is not far when considered in kilometers, but it can easily take over an hour to drive there (not allowing for any wrong turns) and nearly as long to find a parking space. So we decided to avoid the traffic and take the train into the city. We would then hike the few blocks from the train station to the Embassy.
My husband took the day off work and we left the house at 9:30, carrying all our critical documents. I found I was inordinately excited about the prospect of setting foot on an outpost of the US; I was all ready to be thrilled by the sight of the Stars and Stripes flying in the hazy tropical sky.
We drove to the LRT station near our house, purchased tickets to Ampang Park and sat down to enjoy the ride. Since our station is the last one on the line we can nearly always find seats. We arrived at our stop about 10:15 and got our bearings. We figured the embassy was about a 1/2 mile from the station and we guessed at the direction in which to head. Everyone immediately noticed how many non-Asians were about in the embassy district. We see very few non-natives in our neighborhood. It's a funny thing but Westerners tend to pretend not to notice each other here; if you accidentally make eye contact you both look away as if there is nothing notable or interesting about the other person. I'm not sure why.
When we arrived at the Embassy after walking the half mile from the monorail along a busy road in the blistering sun, we found it shut and barred. There was no sign of Old Glory anywhere. We quickly checked the time to make sure we had not missed the window of opportunity. The US Embassy is open all of two hours a day, five days a week for any business any Americans in Malaysia might have. (I hope there is never an emergency. . . .) But we were well within the 9-11 AM time frame. Apparently there was a little booth you had to register at first. My husband approached the Malaysian (how disappointing) manning the desk and was about to ask which entrance to use, when we saw the sign, "Closed for Martin Luther King Day, January 15th, 2007"
But it's not even Martin Luther King Day in the US yet, we wailed. It's still Sunday night!! Then we saw the other sign noting that the US Embassy closed for ALL public holidays, Malaysian and American! When you consider how many holidays the two countries celebrate, the place must be open an average of 8 hours a week, not even 10!! I was ready to renounce my citizenship then and there, except I probably couldn't do it until the embassy opened! We felt annoyed that all our efforts were for naught, but we also felt abandoned here on foreign soil, as if we didn't matter anymore. "That's what you get for moving to the other side of the world, you ingrates," was the message the locked gates and unwelcoming signs seemed to convey.
So, we went to the Canadian Embassy instead, which is open 35 hours a week, where we picked up applications for Certificates of Canadian citizenship for all our children, (I was born in Canada, so they all can claim citizenship), and they even offered to give the kids all 1 year passports while their Citizenship Claims were being processed!! So there. (We didn't go out of spite; we had planned to do this anyway.) We lounged around in the air conditioned Canadian waiting room for awhile before we headed back out to the hot sun and the train and the traffic. We felt slightly less offended; at least some country wanted us!
Then we went to the beautiful old Central Market for shopping and lunch, where we avoided eye contact with many more Westerners and ate wonderful clay-pot black pepper chicken and rice. We were back home by 3 PM, though we felt as if we'd been away a lot longer. We turned on the air-conditioning, sent the little girls off to the swimming pool and decided we'd let some time go by before we tried to visit our Uncle Sam again. Maybe he'll decide he misses us after all.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Far away is only far away if you don't go there. . . .
I am finally feeling uprooted. All week my dreams have been about packing up houses in time for moving trucks to arrive, taking long rides on buses which were headed for airports. My children were always with me, and they were usually more on task than I was. I was always caught up doing something else and then feeling unready when the time for the truck to arrive or the bus to leave came.
I am surprised to be dreaming these things now, now that the move is "over", but I guess it's not over after all. I am still coming to terms with what we have done and where we are and what it's all about.
I have always been a dreamer. It's probably the only thing I have in common with John Lennon. I used to love waking up in the morning to my own stories, so real they sometimes seemed more like memories - I still do. I have always felt sorry for people who claim they never dream (though experts say we all do); I have always dreamed vividly and frequently, sometimes several times a night so it feels like I have been asleep for days when the clock tells me I woke up just an hour ago from a different dream.
Sometimes I try to go back to sleep to reenter the dream if it was a particularly wondrous one, if it gave me a feeling I did not want to lose in the light of day, but that seldom works. Even if sleep comes, the dream I am seeking is usually gone.
I have finally gotten over the habit of repeating my dreams to other people (usually the first person I see when I wake), since I know how completely bored I am by other people's dreams,
but I always want to hang onto them, knowing how quickly they will fade if I do not reinforce them in my memory by repeating them over and over. Even when I do, I find that most times the details are gone within minutes;later in the day I may not even remember the subject matter, but only retain the strange feeling the dream gave me.
For a while when I was in graduate school I kept a dream journal by my bedside where I recorded things immediately when I woke up. Later the stories surprised even me: I no longer remembered the things I had done and seen in my dreams, but there they were on the page, recorded in blue or black ink in my own hand.
When I reread the accounts, the details then seemed oddly important - the things I would forget even if I remembered the main story of the dream. One week, for example, my two brothers were in every dream I had; they were usually on the sidelines, maybe just walking through a scene, but they were always there. What did that mean? I never figured it out, but I feel sure it meant something.
So I am not sure what my dreams of moving, packing, trucks, buses, airplanes and children mean, but I suspect they have something to do with the fact that deep inside I realize I am not at home, I am still in motion. I don't know if Malaysia will ever feel like home, but then I don't know if New Hampshire will feel like home after our sojourn here. Someone has said that, "travelling in the company of those we love is home in motion," and I agree. I may never feel settled in a particular place again, but that's not all bad, as Mr. Baggins discovered.
I am surprised to be dreaming these things now, now that the move is "over", but I guess it's not over after all. I am still coming to terms with what we have done and where we are and what it's all about.
I have always been a dreamer. It's probably the only thing I have in common with John Lennon. I used to love waking up in the morning to my own stories, so real they sometimes seemed more like memories - I still do. I have always felt sorry for people who claim they never dream (though experts say we all do); I have always dreamed vividly and frequently, sometimes several times a night so it feels like I have been asleep for days when the clock tells me I woke up just an hour ago from a different dream.
Sometimes I try to go back to sleep to reenter the dream if it was a particularly wondrous one, if it gave me a feeling I did not want to lose in the light of day, but that seldom works. Even if sleep comes, the dream I am seeking is usually gone.
I have finally gotten over the habit of repeating my dreams to other people (usually the first person I see when I wake), since I know how completely bored I am by other people's dreams,
but I always want to hang onto them, knowing how quickly they will fade if I do not reinforce them in my memory by repeating them over and over. Even when I do, I find that most times the details are gone within minutes;later in the day I may not even remember the subject matter, but only retain the strange feeling the dream gave me.
For a while when I was in graduate school I kept a dream journal by my bedside where I recorded things immediately when I woke up. Later the stories surprised even me: I no longer remembered the things I had done and seen in my dreams, but there they were on the page, recorded in blue or black ink in my own hand.
When I reread the accounts, the details then seemed oddly important - the things I would forget even if I remembered the main story of the dream. One week, for example, my two brothers were in every dream I had; they were usually on the sidelines, maybe just walking through a scene, but they were always there. What did that mean? I never figured it out, but I feel sure it meant something.
So I am not sure what my dreams of moving, packing, trucks, buses, airplanes and children mean, but I suspect they have something to do with the fact that deep inside I realize I am not at home, I am still in motion. I don't know if Malaysia will ever feel like home, but then I don't know if New Hampshire will feel like home after our sojourn here. Someone has said that, "travelling in the company of those we love is home in motion," and I agree. I may never feel settled in a particular place again, but that's not all bad, as Mr. Baggins discovered.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
two poems I like by Stevie Smith
Valuable
(After reading two paragraphs in a newspaper)
All these illegitimate babies...
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little cheap things,
Why do you not put some value on yourselves,
Learn to say, No?
Did nobody teach you?
Nobody teaches anybody to say No nowadays,
People should teach people to sayNo.
0 poor panther,
Oh your poor black animal,
At large for a few moments in a school for young children in Paris,
Now in your cage again,
How your great eyes bulge with bewilderment,
There is something there that accuses us,
In your angry and innocent eyes,
Something that says: I am too valuable to be kept in a cage.
Oh these illegitimate babies!
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little valuable things,
You should have said, No, I am valuable,
And again, It is because I am valuable I say, No.
Nobody teaches anybody they are valuable nowadays
Girls, you are valuable,
And you, Panther, you are valuable
But the girls say: I shall be alone If I say
‘I am valuable’ and other people do not say it of me,
I shall be alone, there is no comfort there.
No, it is not comforting, but it is valuable
And if everybody says it in the end
It will be comforting.
And for the panther too,
If everybody says he is valuable
It will be comforting for him.
Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
(After reading two paragraphs in a newspaper)
All these illegitimate babies...
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little cheap things,
Why do you not put some value on yourselves,
Learn to say, No?
Did nobody teach you?
Nobody teaches anybody to say No nowadays,
People should teach people to sayNo.
0 poor panther,
Oh your poor black animal,
At large for a few moments in a school for young children in Paris,
Now in your cage again,
How your great eyes bulge with bewilderment,
There is something there that accuses us,
In your angry and innocent eyes,
Something that says: I am too valuable to be kept in a cage.
Oh these illegitimate babies!
Oh girls, girls,
Silly little valuable things,
You should have said, No, I am valuable,
And again, It is because I am valuable I say, No.
Nobody teaches anybody they are valuable nowadays
Girls, you are valuable,
And you, Panther, you are valuable
But the girls say: I shall be alone If I say
‘I am valuable’ and other people do not say it of me,
I shall be alone, there is no comfort there.
No, it is not comforting, but it is valuable
And if everybody says it in the end
It will be comforting.
And for the panther too,
If everybody says he is valuable
It will be comforting for him.
Not Waving But Drowning
Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
ambiguity and faith
"Ambiguity tolerance describes how a person perceives, interprets and reacts to ambiguous situations. These are situations that are unclear either because of lack of information or because of incoherence in the available information. "
I remember my family doctor telling me that I apparently did not have quite enough ambiguity tolerance to serve me in good stead as a mother. Whenever one of my children was ailing in any way - fever, rash, intestinal distress, swelling or wounds - I would follow an identical course of action. I would question my husband incessantly about whether he thought the child was OK, whether a doctor's visit was in order, whether he thought I could wait till the morning, whether he thought things were looking better, worse or the same. Very often I would wake him in the middle of the night to request his expert opinion. Amazingly, he nearly always obliged and did so without using any bad language, though I nearly always suspected his motives if he thought things were improving. I thought he would say anything to shut me up. . . I don't know now why I even bothered to ask since the only answer I believed without question was, "Yes, I think she looks worse."
Then, waiting till daybreak, at least, I would call another mom who had children near the same age and rehash the whole condition with her, asking what she thought I should do; what she would do if her child looked/felt/acted like this. If it was a Thursday night or a Friday morning these conversations had an added urgency to them, since no one wanted to make the wrong call with the weekend looming; no one wants to end up in the emergency room with a sick child because they neglected to visit the doctor's office when they had the chance.
Finally, I would call our family doctor, request the first possible appointment, and wait anxiously for the time to pass. Then it would happen. Invariably, the child would take a turn for the better during that period of time. The fever would break, the swelling would go down, the rash would begin to fade, the vomiting would abate. So when we arrived at the appointment I had spent two days deciding upon, the child would be on the mend and I would be left saying, "She started to get better right after I made the appointment. It always happens that way." If I were not so relieved my child was on the mend I would probably have been annoyed with her for making me look like an idiot.
That is when our doctor, who was also a friend of mine, would smile and tell me I did not have quite enough tolerance for ambiguity. That if I had been able to wait just a bit longer things would have resolved themselves. She was not reproving me, just making an observation.
Things have not changed much since those days. A few weeks after we moved to Malayasia I was mentally preparing myself to send our 16 year old to boarding school in the US since she could not apparently find a suitable ballet school here; two days later she was established in a good studio not ten minutes drive from our house. The same week I "finally" hit the bookstore in desperation, spending many tens of ringitt so that I would "at least have something to read," and the next day our shipment of books arrived.
One night in December I nearly slept on the couch because I was SO unhappy with my long-suffering husband over the uncertainty of our eldest daughter's travel plans from the US to Malaysia. We had only twelve hours left to lock in her reservations, and I could not understand or tolerate my husband's equanimity in the face of a looming crisis. He assured me that he had made the proper phone calls and the travel agent would let him know when things were settled. I would have called the corporate agent and harassed her myself had I any standing to do that, but being only the spouse I could not do anything, and my husband was not inclined to breathe down her neck. (You would suppose I would think that was a good thing. . . )
When my husband arrived at the office the next morning (we are thirteen hours ahead of the US office) he found that Emily had purchased the tickets while he slept and I fumed, and everything was taken care of. Once again, I saw the "low tolerance" light flashing on the dashboard. After the fact, the crisis suddenly shrank to tolerable size and I was left thinking, "I wish I knew then what I know now."
I wrote the first part of this post a few weeks ago. Many things which appeared ambiguous at that time are now clear - but one ambiguity is only resolved to make room for another; some are never resolved. Has a day ever dawned in which nothing is "unclear because of lack of information or because of incoherence in the available information." In fact, I think this phrase fairly well describes life; certainly it describes the future, the outlook for the new year. We lack information about almost every aspect of the new year - where the next earthquake will strike, what plots and intrigues will succeed, which wars will end and what new wars will break out, which disesases will be declared cured and what virulent new strains will emerge.
There is only one individual to whom nothing is unclear because of lack of information, and He, for His own reasons, does not always choose to lift the fog in which we find ourselves groping. He does, however, offer the antidote of faith - the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This is not an easy solution, nor usually a comfortable one, but it is often our only choice. We can lose sleep over the uncertainties of the present and the future, or we can learn to tolerate, and even embrace, each ambiguous, trying situation as an opportunity to exercise something far better than tolerance - faith.
I remember my family doctor telling me that I apparently did not have quite enough ambiguity tolerance to serve me in good stead as a mother. Whenever one of my children was ailing in any way - fever, rash, intestinal distress, swelling or wounds - I would follow an identical course of action. I would question my husband incessantly about whether he thought the child was OK, whether a doctor's visit was in order, whether he thought I could wait till the morning, whether he thought things were looking better, worse or the same. Very often I would wake him in the middle of the night to request his expert opinion. Amazingly, he nearly always obliged and did so without using any bad language, though I nearly always suspected his motives if he thought things were improving. I thought he would say anything to shut me up. . . I don't know now why I even bothered to ask since the only answer I believed without question was, "Yes, I think she looks worse."
Then, waiting till daybreak, at least, I would call another mom who had children near the same age and rehash the whole condition with her, asking what she thought I should do; what she would do if her child looked/felt/acted like this. If it was a Thursday night or a Friday morning these conversations had an added urgency to them, since no one wanted to make the wrong call with the weekend looming; no one wants to end up in the emergency room with a sick child because they neglected to visit the doctor's office when they had the chance.
Finally, I would call our family doctor, request the first possible appointment, and wait anxiously for the time to pass. Then it would happen. Invariably, the child would take a turn for the better during that period of time. The fever would break, the swelling would go down, the rash would begin to fade, the vomiting would abate. So when we arrived at the appointment I had spent two days deciding upon, the child would be on the mend and I would be left saying, "She started to get better right after I made the appointment. It always happens that way." If I were not so relieved my child was on the mend I would probably have been annoyed with her for making me look like an idiot.
That is when our doctor, who was also a friend of mine, would smile and tell me I did not have quite enough tolerance for ambiguity. That if I had been able to wait just a bit longer things would have resolved themselves. She was not reproving me, just making an observation.
Things have not changed much since those days. A few weeks after we moved to Malayasia I was mentally preparing myself to send our 16 year old to boarding school in the US since she could not apparently find a suitable ballet school here; two days later she was established in a good studio not ten minutes drive from our house. The same week I "finally" hit the bookstore in desperation, spending many tens of ringitt so that I would "at least have something to read," and the next day our shipment of books arrived.
One night in December I nearly slept on the couch because I was SO unhappy with my long-suffering husband over the uncertainty of our eldest daughter's travel plans from the US to Malaysia. We had only twelve hours left to lock in her reservations, and I could not understand or tolerate my husband's equanimity in the face of a looming crisis. He assured me that he had made the proper phone calls and the travel agent would let him know when things were settled. I would have called the corporate agent and harassed her myself had I any standing to do that, but being only the spouse I could not do anything, and my husband was not inclined to breathe down her neck. (You would suppose I would think that was a good thing. . . )
When my husband arrived at the office the next morning (we are thirteen hours ahead of the US office) he found that Emily had purchased the tickets while he slept and I fumed, and everything was taken care of. Once again, I saw the "low tolerance" light flashing on the dashboard. After the fact, the crisis suddenly shrank to tolerable size and I was left thinking, "I wish I knew then what I know now."
I wrote the first part of this post a few weeks ago. Many things which appeared ambiguous at that time are now clear - but one ambiguity is only resolved to make room for another; some are never resolved. Has a day ever dawned in which nothing is "unclear because of lack of information or because of incoherence in the available information." In fact, I think this phrase fairly well describes life; certainly it describes the future, the outlook for the new year. We lack information about almost every aspect of the new year - where the next earthquake will strike, what plots and intrigues will succeed, which wars will end and what new wars will break out, which disesases will be declared cured and what virulent new strains will emerge.
There is only one individual to whom nothing is unclear because of lack of information, and He, for His own reasons, does not always choose to lift the fog in which we find ourselves groping. He does, however, offer the antidote of faith - the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. This is not an easy solution, nor usually a comfortable one, but it is often our only choice. We can lose sleep over the uncertainties of the present and the future, or we can learn to tolerate, and even embrace, each ambiguous, trying situation as an opportunity to exercise something far better than tolerance - faith.
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