What do you know?

I know nothing.

I have been enjoying these past weeks at home. After a time to be with family and friends, I have also been trying to find some time to process all that I have experienced while I was away. On my first extended trip to Kenya, I seemed to be more in touch with my thoughts and feelings; more connected to a spiritual life, possessing a decent prayer life. I was more structured and centered. On this trip, I was less focused on living a “Gospel” life, and let things flow more than before. That had both positive and negative aspects. In one sense, I let my prayer life suffer, did not always see God’s presence in the things I did (not that I always did). But I was also more at ease with my self; while less focused, I think I was more real and lived more day-to-day, as I did back at home. Now, as I reflect on my time and experiences in Africa, I can see that there was some inner growth; there was some small movement in my journey toward knowing God in a real way.

I initially went to Africa desiring to meet God in the faces of the poor and join in their struggles and pain. As I was warned, I probably went there with a high degree of ego. This last trip was more realistic and I think I can honestly say there was no ego involved, or at least very little. The romanticism of working and living a simple life in Africa has worn off and I think I am more realistic regarding its attraction and my role there.

I have been thinking about the variety of people I have met. Of course many are from the Kitui / Nairobi area. They are for the most part, Christian or Catholic. But I was also able to meet some terrific Muslims in Lamu and Kiwayu towns along the coast. I met some who believed in traditional Kamba or Masai tribal practices and some who had no strong religious connection at all – though they had quite a spiritual center. These peoples who initially were so “foreign” and perhaps frightening to me, became my good friends. These friends have caused me to think about how/why God created us all so different. Some of us have been fortunate to know Jesus and participate in an organized church. Others of us know nothing of Jesus but know only the God worshipped by primitive cultures and traditions. What is God thinking? Are we Christians the fortunate ones and the others simply out of luck? I was taught that Jesus is the "way" and it is through Him that we meet the Father. I know that's true but even more, Jesus is the strategy, the Way of Jesus, the Way of the cross is our destiny - if we set out to follow Him. We need to be prepared to have our lives taken away and only in losing our lives canwe begin to see the bigger picture. We have to know how to "die". That is what Africa is teaching me. I was taught that God is within each person. But I never took it seriously and as the base of my belief system. God dwells within the Muslims I met, within the tribal peoples in east Africa, within me. And . . . perhaps that is the main vehicle of each of us knowing God. Within these strange and exotic peoples lives another snapshot of my God. To the degree I can know you, my friends, my colleagues, my family; to the depth I can love and experience love – that is the depth with which I can know God. We need each other and we need others who are not like us. In God’s becoming a person, God has truly saved us.

I have learned that I/we have made God so small. Nowadays, when I am asked what I learned about God on this trip, I respond, “I learned that I know nothing.” It’s not false humility to say that I know so very little. I had thought that I knew God or at least knew so much about God.

But I know nothing, or at least very little. I am learning more daily. And what I know – I love.