Uganda: "I wish you much suffering"

Monday, July 30, 2007

I believe we’re waiting for the bus. I say believe because you can’t always distinguish when you’re waiting and when you’re relaxing. Either way – you’re in Uganda and building relationships and working and serving.

It’s good to be dirty. I probably smell. It feels more real than perfume in New York. That said – I love the cultural opportunities in New York – just as there are very different cultural opportunities here.

We drove into the campsite where the college group from First Pres Berkeley was staying yesterday. The poverty was more prominent than anywhere I’ve seen first-hand. But I’m not shocked. Mom and Dad made it very clear to us that there was a place called the Bush. Where children were happy playing with sticks and mud. Where houses were built with sticks and mud.

I’m trying to wrap my head around a “standard of living.” What’s “fair.” What’s “right.” There are many people who would be severely unhappy with my modest living. But they could be clean. And eat. And get health care. And a stellar education. And various kinds of experiences. So how unhappy would they really end up being? People adapt. I can’t really tell how happy or unhappy people are here. How unhappy could you allow yourself to be?

Lord! What’s happy anyway? And what is my obsession with happiness as an American? Feeling good? Is it our entitlement or the fact that many of us don’t know it’s not about feeling comfortable. Jesus, if anything, calls us to suffer for him. That in suffering we find grace. We find growth. Rudolf Ungvary, a freedom fighter in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, wished me much suffering in life. I keep thinking about that. And about Bonhoeffer saying we are blessed to suffer. But we are not to call ourselves to our own suffering. And as much as we might “suffer” watching others suffer here – we have no idea. We have no idea what that kind of suffering feels like. And absolutely no idea about the potential for grace that accompanies.

This is not meant to justify suffering for man, woman, or child. Or to make it right. It’s simply about the spirit instead of the body.

Job 28:12-28