let them eat cake

when i arrived in the kitchen this morning, blurry eyed and in need of coffee, to begin a day full with the things it's full of, hoping to carve out some time to be still, i found a mass of ants. there were so many ants that i thought the counter was moving.  hundreds of ants, tiny ants everywhere, working so hard together, in constant motion, busily finding and licking and hauling whatever they could scavenge from the counter.  i think today it was mostly licking because i couldn't see any crumbs.  perhaps those had already been removed, but they were eagerly devouring the left-over spilled chicken broth, which had already been wiped up the night before. i watched for a minute, spilled some water on the counter and watched them quickly disperse. it was impressive.

the first foreign missions experience i had was in pucalpa peru when i was 15.  i remember one afternoon we went to the home of some missionaries who had been kind enough to loan out all the mans t-shirts and boxer shorts for the 17 of us kids to wear, as our luggage had been lost en route. we must have been quite a site- visions in plaid underwear and white t-shirts. 

when we arrived at their house, the wife had made a chocolate cake for us.  it was perfectly propped up on  several overturned cups that lay in a larger pan, filled with an inch of water.  that was for ant protection.  then several toothpicks had been placed in the cake and a cloth dishtowel was draped over the cake.  that was fly protection. the woman seemed thrilled with her contraption.  it was her masterpiece. her victory over the pests of her life in the tropics.  man vs. wild. 

most of my memories of those three weeks were of impressive poverty.  the filth of it, the stench of it, trash and dirt and ripped t-shirts over protruding bellies, and bare feet. or the intense relational issues that arose between our group of 14 teenage boys and 3 teenage girls- dealing with hormones and internal conflict over true disparity.  but this memory of the cake stuck with me as well. i think because as i tried to process the incredible differences of my american upper-middle class teenage life, and the level of poverty in rural peru in 1986, it was surprising to me that something as irrelevant as a cake, could matter so much to this woman. that her victory was over insects.  there was so much there to fight against- to strive for.  there were so many big things to put energy into- why take the time to bake a cake and protect it so thoroughly?



but i kind of get it now.  not just because of this mornings ant fiasco, or because of my sincere love of chocolate cake.  i get it because sometimes life is best lived in the small things, maybe always.  i get it because the big victories, the 'solving' of the worlds problems, the issues that scream at us, the injustice and the wrongness and the disparity, - achieving those things and fighting those things are what lifetimes are made of- sometimes even many lifetimes. many generations.  improving health, educating people, building self-efficacy, sharing the love of God in spite of the distrust religion has created,  connecting with a very different culture-  those things take much time.  those things can suck energy- can bring seasons of great discouragement- or, in their success, can bring pride and arrogance.


but cake is cake.  it takes less than an hour, and it tastes good.  it revives.  for her, it was 'home'.  her making it and protecting it was living out hospitality, and generosity, and teaching us that it's okay to have small victories.  it showed her acceptance of her reality- there will always be ants and flies- but we do what we can.  there will always be poverty and injustice too, but we do what we can. 


i saw one sliver of her life.  one afternoon.  i'm sure she didn't bake cakes every day- or draft plans for their protection.  i'm sure most of her days were out in that filth and stench.

maybe she didn't even like cake- maybe she is not a baker- maybe she just listened to a still small voice that told her that morning to get up and bake a cake for a bunch of impressionable teenagers.

maybe she fought it for a while. maybe she argued with it and said she should show us instead all the big things she was doing. maybe she thought she'd even be judged for being a missionary who eats chocolate cake when there are more important things to be doing. but maybe she was obedient and baked a cake anyway because her years of big things had taught her to listen to that voice, even when it made no sense. 


maybe she made that cake because twenty five years later one of those impressionable teenagers would be living across the globe in the tropics too- with ants and poverty- with small annoyances and big tragedies,  and would need to know that sometimes, you need to bake a cake.  that sometimes the lessons come in the baking of it, or the eating of it, or the protecting of it, or even in the ants themselves. that sometimes it's about obedience, or tasting sweetness, or accepting our realities, or innovating, or learning from our challenges- even the very small ones. that sometimes big things happen because of the small things. that life is lived in our little moments.


a few months after arriving in uganda, a college student group came through lead by my second cousin, and they wanted to meet with us and learn about our life here- about what we did and thought as missionaries.  i knew they would come with lots of questions, and i thought of what we should say- about what would be most important to share.  but instead of preparing, i baked chocolate chip cookies.

i wanted them to enjoy their hour with us, to feel revived and cared for as we talked about the big issues.  i wanted them to know it's okay to be surrounded by poverty- and allow yourself to still taste sweetness. that life here should be lived in the gray- not in black or white- not in stark contrast to life in the US, when you'd never think twice about baking a cake.  i wanted them to know that there are times for fasting and times for dessert.  that Jesus cared for the poor, but allowed perfume to be poured on his feet.  that our years are made of our days and our hours, great movement requires stillness, action requires rest. 

i wonder if that missionary lady in peru is still alive.  if she's still there- fighting the big and the small things.  i wonder what she did in her life, what she's most proud of and most humbled by. and i wonder if she knows the value of her chocolate cake, baked that august in 1986.