It was late, I was tired, and then I wondered: what is it that’s so special about this time. (Why is it that these questions come up when I’m trying to sleep?) Someone said that everyone who comes back from studying in Uganda is never quite the same. Maybe that’s true? But no matter where you are for four months you are going to change, right? But I began to wonder what things might I see differently returning to Eastern and picking up life in America again. I pictured myself stopping all the time to look at things. I could see how even the marble floors and carpet at Eastern would look different after living on concrete and mud floors for a couple months. Eastern’s library would be a shock from what I’ve gotten used to. The trees, the whether, the smooth roads, the people, even the language seem like they could all be reasons for me to pause and look. I doubt this would actually last for very long, but none the less, I hope that simple things I took for granted would catch my eye and tell me something new. I don’t know what they would say, probably to keep moving and stop being a weirdo, but maybe not.
I’m sure there are a thousand things I’ll find enthralling and a thousand more that’ll slip by as my mind recalibrates to life as it has always been. But what is so special about being here (in Africa)? I thought that it might not be the novelty of stopping to look at the unnoticed details of everyday life, but the ability to stop at all. Life is so busy no matter where we live. I was busy everyday in Uganda (mostly), and when I wasn’t busy I’d find stuff to do. There were the initial shock factors that seemed to break up my doings because they were novel, like red dirt everywhere or people carrying loads on their heads (especially when they had two free hands), but for the most part I kept busy. There were things that were different here, but I didn’t have any epiphanies about the color of the ground, it was just the way it was. I found it interesting enough to take note of on my walks to school for the first few days because it was new to me, but it soon became normal and unworthy of my attention, overcome by the demands of schoolwork and pressures of adapting to the culture. But what I decided to give up by not bothering to notice something as trivial as dirt was not the wonder of the dirt but the ability to notice it. I was able to stop.
It takes effort and time to notice things like dirt, as silly as it sounds, but it’s true. There are too many things as trivial as dirt that if we were to stop and take note of all of them we’d never get anywhere or do anything. We must overlook the dirt in order to get things done. But when the dirt changes from what we normally consider unspectacular it momentarily takes on that which is worthy of notice. It forces us to stop for something we’ve trained our selves to pass by for the sake of efficiency. Because of its difference we allow ourselves inefficient moments to appreciate what’s new to us. Of course we can’t constantly register something as mundane as dirt so we quickly adapt our sensors to accept it as normal, insignificant, and unworthy to pause for so that we can get back to doing things again. This is how we operate. This is how things get done.
But perhaps what living in Africa has taught me is that there is value in living in a new place. Not because the dirt is a different color or the people act differently, or it is filled with novelty, but because I have learned how much freedom there is when all that is around me asks me to stop. Not for very long, for I still have many things to do, but when efficiency and productivity can be paused for a moment I am free to notice the unspectacular that surrounds me, and watch as it becomes, only for a moment, something truly spectacular. This means that it is not the carpet or marble floors, or the overstocked florescent supermarkets or the seamless highways that will be the wonder, but the true change and true epiphany is when I learn how to stop for the sake of stopping. Perhaps it is the art of pausing that God was excited to show me during my time here. Maybe this was a time where I stopped just enough to realize the freedom in it.
I may continue to discern when to stop and when not to, but may I never loose the freedom to be able to stop. For if this is something God really did want to show me, then it is worthy of all my notice.