broken pots and new flowers

i finished the book 'cutting for stone' the other night and i cried like a baby.  i cried because it had many sad parts in the last 100 pages. and just as many beautiful parts.  and i cried because i had a cold so wasn't feeling great anyway.  and i cried because it felt like i'd finally left ethiopia, and this beautiful story was over.  it was symbolically sad. it was a great three weeks of transportation- of being elsewhere- in another time- in another place.  i love all the memories in my head, from that story and from that trip.

a friend once said it's not the place, it's the people in the place. so true, but they're hard to separate.  we met so many amazing people. the other adoptive parents were such an incredible group- so diverse-so interesting.  musicians, writers, designers, explosives analyzers, art teachers, professors, carpenters, social workers- all with different lives and stories and all with a similar love of ethiopia and a love for their new children.  the people we met at the hotel- friends from sweden and saudia arabia and ethiopia via usa- and the people who served breakfast and dinner that we got to know- all of them-lovely. the nurses at the orphanage- and the children- beautiful. all the way to the people who sold things at the market.

on one of the last days we went to the market- the mini merkato- a place to buy traditional ethiopian wears.  i hadn't been feeling great- but really wanted to go and see it.  as soon as we got out of the car and into the first little store- i realised this might not have been a good plan. i think i had that gray look that comes on when you feel cold and clammy and hot all at once.  the store owners let me sit on a little leather stool and asked me what was wrong. i told them my stomach wasn't feeling so well.  immediately they ran off to buy me some 'royal tonic'.  i sat there for an hour- i drank that royal tonic- which they wouldn't let me pay for- and it worked.  i felt much better.  during that hour we had great conversations in english and sign language about ethiopia and HIV and health care and family structure.  i was so amazed at their hospitality. here i was, a stranger, in their little store for an hour, blocking half of their merchandise- literally and they are buying me soda.  it was a beautiful memory. 

the other day my mother-in-law sent me a story about an old woman who carried water from a well in two pots- one on each side of her.  one pot was whole and the other pot was cracked and half the water leaked out each time she returned from the well.  the whole pot was very proud of itself for getting the job done correctly and the broken pot felt badly that it could only get half the water back each trip.  the old woman said to the cracked pot- look at your side of the path- see the flowers there? i planted seeds because i knew you'd be able to water them and now the path and the house are filled with flowers because of your brokenness.

the world is full of broken pots- i am one. we each have a job here to do- sometimes our brokenness changes what our job is- and what we think we are doing is only half of what we're really doing- and it's not even the most beautiful or meaningful part.

in cutting for stone, marion, the protagoinst, has a twin who reminds me of zoe.  he's different, he's a pot that brings flowers. but as the story goes on- we see that marion, who goes about things the right way, who's life is normal- he has cracks too- he doesn't always get the water back either- there are some flowers along his path as well. 

i think we're all like that. the more you see of the world, the more people you meet, the more insight you gain into yourself- the more you see the imperfections and the beauty in them. zoe see's the world differently- it's a more literal version- it's in some ways more pure, and as she learns to carry a bit more water- i hope she'll keep watering the flowers on her path.

ethiopia means new rose, new flower.  ethiopia is full of spectacular flowers- even flowers that grow up through little cracks in the midst of extreme poverty.  i can never help but wonder if all that beauty in the center of such poverty is God's way of reminding us that there is grace in our brokenness.

my book is over, my tan is fading. but each night i sleep under my ethiopian blanket- that i bought from that little store, and in the morning i wear my bracelets and one of three scarves and sometimes a lalibela cross- and i think of the flowers there and the people and the grace.