beautiful

it's beautiful outside.  this place is beautiful.  i'm alone in the house which is fantastic. i made a salad, swept the floor, cleaned up, and am listening to the avett brothers.  which brings me back to the good old south- and of course to my porch.  those were beautiful days too. i'm so thankful for memories.  for how capable our minds are of recalling the details.  light on leaves, the sounds of movement when the air is dry, the chipped paint, the smell of winter, the slight metallic taste of snow.  i love that we can collect pieces with our senses and carry them with us.  that we can pull them out when we need them- when the light on the wild plants isn't familiar, although it's becoming known.

next week i'm going to kenya for a medical conference.  i haven't been to kenya since i was 17 and fell in love with africa. when i didn't like curry and lived off of cadbury chocolate bars and bitter lemon and had my hair braided into cornrows.  when i listened to paul simon and wrote in my journal as i walked through the tea fields looking for mambas.  when all the shops looked dark and smelled like wood and spice and people acted annoyed because we didn't give money away because we were american. when we road the 'lunatic express' train to mombasa and i was eaten by bedbugs all night.  where i got to learn windsurfing on the bathtub hot indian ocean.  where i saw wild animals and the rift valley and the enormous african sky. 

i'm meeting my dad in kenya, and we are going to the same conference we went to in 1988- we are even going to the same conference center.  it's a medical meeting for medical missionaries all around the world and it's perfectly timed. because i need to hear their stories.  to learn how they frame disparity- how they do what they can with little.  how they live it. 

i've been thinking about poverty and it's many faces.  fiscal poverty is obviously very present here- but i used to think that poverty of spirit was not.  that it was more of an issue in america.  the poverty of spirit being loneliness, or lack of community or lack of joy.  here people often have these things- so i saw their happiness as a richness that we often lack.  but poverty of spirit is what Jesus is talking about when he says- blessed are the poor in spirit.  it implies an awareness of helplessness, a lack of control, a sense that nothing can be done.  i think Jesus was talking about the importance of appropriate humility, of understanding our ultimate lack of control. but he also met the needs of the poor, heard  their voice, and advocated for justice.  fiscal poverty and poverty of spirit are linked.  and it's the loss of voice, and self worth; the idea that you have nothing so don't expect anything, that i have the hardest time with, because we all have worth.  more than worth- we are deeply loved by the God who made us- and it doesn't matter how much money we have, or give, or don't have, we are equal, and it breaks my heart how this is forgotten, or ignored, or not believed.

so i'm hoping in beautiful kenya to hear stories of hope and empowerment from other doctors who've done this longer, who've seen more and cried more and loved more.  to revisit the neighboring beautiful land that spoke to me so many years ago, and called me to come one day.  this day.