There was a moment… As I was sitting down to write the post, to relax from numbers, reports, French, suffering - there was a sharp crack! and I thought, Gunshots.
It was the first time I’d ever thought that. I didn’t think of fireworks, of the chime of bracelets dancing, of the heat of cayenne and closeness. I didn't smile at silvery memories of a childhood brilliant with magic spells and house colours. I thought of violence. And realized something had changed. Certainly someone had.
There was a moment… As our young guard and our psychologist carefully watched the Central Prison just below us, flinching and spinning at the shots that tap-danced across our senses – that I was scared that they were scared. A moment when I remembered my teammates telling stories of weaving to school between carefree bullets and careless bodies.
There was a moment… As we watched a soldier dragging a man back to the Central Prison, as we watched one push the other to the ground, as we heard him cry out – that I realized we were watching a man die. I devoured the sight of him splayed brokenly on the ground before a pointed rifle. I, who resolutely avoided the sight of accidents – not out of fear or distaste, but so that I could pray and respect the pain shattered and or seeping across the street – I couldn’t let go of this man. He was going to die in my crosshairs… until the gun was lowered and I could breathe again. The Lord had mercy and I was one of the lucky ones – to escape death so narrowly. After the soldier let him get up and walk away, I did too, carefully stepping on the lines between the tiles and the roles of perpetrator, victim, and accomplice. My skin felt too loose, watery for my tightly wound veins of precious life. I heard the gunshots break out again but didn’t look back. I wanted to cover my ears in case I would hear that man cry out again; I was Orpheus, an unknown prisoner my very own Eurydice. Is this love?
There was a moment… As I watched a short, stocky, middle-aged man smiling at the front of the church with his very pretty, very solemn, very much younger, willowy bride-to-be – that I felt so guilty. Roughly one year ago, he’d asked if I wanted to be in a relationship with him. I thought justice had been served; now I was sentenced to watch this lamb being led to the altar. I hope I’m wrong – perhaps all her dreams have come true. But if this is love, I want none of it.
There was a moment… As a kind churchgoer solemnly greeted me saying, “I saw you walk in. You look like Jesus.” - that I wondered if I should try a closer shave. There was no stopping the laughter in that moment, because you take it as and when it comes. But I appreciated the reminder that we were all one in Christ – the family resemblance is never so great as when we laugh and when we cry.
There was a moment… When I was giggling with the young housemaids outside our building, with plaster raining on my head from above, as they teased the way we spoke, the way we stood – that I remembered how much strangers could love. A moment when I learned why I wore so many earrings – it’s because she’s beautiful – and why my hips sway – it’s because she’s proud! I wonder if they see the family resemblance too?
There was a moment… When I came home from an evening church service, expecting to have missed the half-hour of power to heat my bathwater – that I found a bucket already waiting for me. I would not have asked for this small favour, and perhaps it was equally small in the eyes of my neighbour, but it is so easy to love others and so hard to bend to wash their feet. These are the moments I see God so powerfully in others that it calls me back home from wandering where my words and will have taken me - when my lips are burned by the Spirit in others, so bright that it has apparently blinded them to the holiness of it, of them. Will we ever see the beauty of the flames, or just the loss?
There was a moment… When my roommates agreed to do a Bible study every Sunday night – that I felt like God had pressed a pearl into my palm. I could feel it, warm and perfect and sweet, even when the words we said might have been brittle or jewels buried so deep that they’d remained unseen.
There was a moment… When we decided to read the Bible every night and it was as if that same pearl that I’d been clutching so desperately was on my tongue, in my throat, warm in the centre of me. And it stayed there, every night that we sat together in the gray dullness of fluorescent light at a hard table and wooden cushions – reading, wondering, laughing.
There was a moment… As I interrupted this post to answer a worried phone call suggesting I go home because of the events at the Central Prison. As I took a minute to listen to my coworkers laughing over war stories and convinced myself that it was going to be okay. As I scrambled to answer another terse phone call that informed me to go home because the prison had been broken open, as wide and irreparable as my day. Despite the fact that the next street was bustling with vendors and buses and children, despite the fact that my coworkers were staying at the office, despite the fact that I had plans. A moment when I heard, “You know this is a perfectly justified response to the security situation. So what is really making you so mad? Control? From men specifically?” and I realized just how furious I really was and why. Because care can be contained in an iron fist and I never wanted to see that coming near me - not ever again. And it can’t be explained, the reason I twist and rage against restraints of love and responsibility that pull me to safety. I was always told I was stubborn and proud; I suppose somewhere in the attempt to break these traits, they were strengthened and purified. My will has become my god and perhaps I’m blind enough to follow it to the end – unless a tongue of flame bearing white-hot questions leads me on a level path.
These were moments in which I stepped outside myself, outside what I saw and felt there and understood that they were shaping me, changing me, flooding my eyes and my skin. They changed the things I saw, and the way I looked – adding a sharp edge to my smile that hadn’t been there when I was 16, brushing my hair with silver fingers when I wasn’t looking. They are worn from where they have cut me and sharp where I don’t expect.
I am more careful now.
And I laugh louder.
There was a moment… As we watched a soldier dragging a man back to the Central Prison, as we watched one push the other to the ground, as we heard him cry out – that I realized we were watching a man die. I devoured the sight of him splayed brokenly on the ground before a pointed rifle. I, who resolutely avoided the sight of accidents – not out of fear or distaste, but so that I could pray and respect the pain shattered and or seeping across the street – I couldn’t let go of this man. He was going to die in my crosshairs… until the gun was lowered and I could breathe again. The Lord had mercy and I was one of the lucky ones – to escape death so narrowly. After the soldier let him get up and walk away, I did too, carefully stepping on the lines between the tiles and the roles of perpetrator, victim, and accomplice. My skin felt too loose, watery for my tightly wound veins of precious life. I heard the gunshots break out again but didn’t look back. I wanted to cover my ears in case I would hear that man cry out again; I was Orpheus, an unknown prisoner my very own Eurydice. Is this love?
There was a moment… As I watched a short, stocky, middle-aged man smiling at the front of the church with his very pretty, very solemn, very much younger, willowy bride-to-be – that I felt so guilty. Roughly one year ago, he’d asked if I wanted to be in a relationship with him. I thought justice had been served; now I was sentenced to watch this lamb being led to the altar. I hope I’m wrong – perhaps all her dreams have come true. But if this is love, I want none of it.
There was a moment… As a kind churchgoer solemnly greeted me saying, “I saw you walk in. You look like Jesus.” - that I wondered if I should try a closer shave. There was no stopping the laughter in that moment, because you take it as and when it comes. But I appreciated the reminder that we were all one in Christ – the family resemblance is never so great as when we laugh and when we cry.
There was a moment… When I was giggling with the young housemaids outside our building, with plaster raining on my head from above, as they teased the way we spoke, the way we stood – that I remembered how much strangers could love. A moment when I learned why I wore so many earrings – it’s because she’s beautiful – and why my hips sway – it’s because she’s proud! I wonder if they see the family resemblance too?
There was a moment… When I came home from an evening church service, expecting to have missed the half-hour of power to heat my bathwater – that I found a bucket already waiting for me. I would not have asked for this small favour, and perhaps it was equally small in the eyes of my neighbour, but it is so easy to love others and so hard to bend to wash their feet. These are the moments I see God so powerfully in others that it calls me back home from wandering where my words and will have taken me - when my lips are burned by the Spirit in others, so bright that it has apparently blinded them to the holiness of it, of them. Will we ever see the beauty of the flames, or just the loss?
There was a moment… When my roommates agreed to do a Bible study every Sunday night – that I felt like God had pressed a pearl into my palm. I could feel it, warm and perfect and sweet, even when the words we said might have been brittle or jewels buried so deep that they’d remained unseen.
There was a moment… When we decided to read the Bible every night and it was as if that same pearl that I’d been clutching so desperately was on my tongue, in my throat, warm in the centre of me. And it stayed there, every night that we sat together in the gray dullness of fluorescent light at a hard table and wooden cushions – reading, wondering, laughing.
There was a moment… As I interrupted this post to answer a worried phone call suggesting I go home because of the events at the Central Prison. As I took a minute to listen to my coworkers laughing over war stories and convinced myself that it was going to be okay. As I scrambled to answer another terse phone call that informed me to go home because the prison had been broken open, as wide and irreparable as my day. Despite the fact that the next street was bustling with vendors and buses and children, despite the fact that my coworkers were staying at the office, despite the fact that I had plans. A moment when I heard, “You know this is a perfectly justified response to the security situation. So what is really making you so mad? Control? From men specifically?” and I realized just how furious I really was and why. Because care can be contained in an iron fist and I never wanted to see that coming near me - not ever again. And it can’t be explained, the reason I twist and rage against restraints of love and responsibility that pull me to safety. I was always told I was stubborn and proud; I suppose somewhere in the attempt to break these traits, they were strengthened and purified. My will has become my god and perhaps I’m blind enough to follow it to the end – unless a tongue of flame bearing white-hot questions leads me on a level path.
These were moments in which I stepped outside myself, outside what I saw and felt there and understood that they were shaping me, changing me, flooding my eyes and my skin. They changed the things I saw, and the way I looked – adding a sharp edge to my smile that hadn’t been there when I was 16, brushing my hair with silver fingers when I wasn’t looking. They are worn from where they have cut me and sharp where I don’t expect.
I am more careful now.
And I laugh louder.
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At the risk of sounding desperate - PLEASE WRITE TO ME!