This morning, we made the mile and a half walk to St. Philips school of theology to attend Sunday morning services. I hate to say it, but the more I attend church, the more I find myself not believing it. The whole compound is covered in goats, which I think is sort of ironic because sheep go to heaven and goats go to hell. I guess it never helps when English is the second language, but I realized today I liked the services better in Swahili, because at least I never know what I am saying.
Today’s service was in 100% English and attended by 90% old white ladies, which meant that the singing was completely off key and anemic. We received a new batch of Nzungu today (the Kenyan word for “White people”) from Wisconsin, Ohio, and Minnesota. One of these ladies is a dead ringer for Sarah Palin and I promise you before she leaves I WILL have her on film saying “I can see Russia from my backyard dontyaknow?”
The liturgy was like a “choose your own adventure” book - constant page flipping, holding fingers in pages in case you were asked to turn back to them, alternating between books… it was completely all over the place in content. The theme of the service was “we are the salt of the earth, and the light of the world”. While I did manage to clandestinely tape part of the horrible singing of the service, which was compounded by the fact that they had “quaint” African Percussion instruments that the frail white people picked up and beat vigorously and without semblance of rhythm or shame, I failed to tape the liturgy. It was amazing, the passage that was read was about how we are the salt of the earth, then another passage about how light should not kept under a bowl, but shared with the world. Instead of treating it like a metaphor, the minister took it literally.
“Salt makes food taste good, and preserves it more than 3-4 days. If we all had more salt in us, this would be a better world”.
This turned into a 40 minute diatribe that included the world “salt” no less than 40 times. The minister said that the reason we have wars, corruption in the government, and so much godlessness is because we are all lacking in salt. Being a health conscious person, I have been maintaining a 2 gram Christian sodium restriction diet to help prevent holy hypertension and angelic atherosclerosis, but I guess to have sodium salvation, I should be pouring salt on everything I eat.
The next part of the service regarded the “sharing light of the world” passage. Unfortunately, the minister was incapable of saying the world “bowl” and instead said “bowel” every time.
“Do not keep the light in your bowels. Share it with everyone in the world!”
Over and over again, she repeated the message of lighting our bowels and sharing it with the world. How could I possibly take this seriously? Meanwhile at this exact time, David, our excellent ENT nurse practitioner excused himself and discovered firsthand how Kenyans use the bathroom. It isn’t more than a hole in the ground - no seat, no flowing water, no toilet paper. David ended up using insect covered leaves to wipe himself, then asking a random household if he could wash his hands, which leads me to interject how absolutely kind most Kenyans are.
If someone came to your house asking to wash their poop covered hands, what would you do? The first household he went to welcomed him in with open arms, but that’s really how things are here. On my walk to the church, I was accompanied by a teenager who said he would show me the way there. Folks will just come up to you and help you out here and won’t ask for a handout or anything. It really is incredible.
Towards the end of the service, I heard something truly surprising. There were passages in the Anglican Bible that were specifically about HIV/AIDS (see below). More concerning is the fact that it refers to HIV as “uncurable” and while that may be so, it certainly is so treatable that most people can live completely normal lives now. As I referred to before, HIV medications are not in short supply here. Maybe it was an old book, but it sort of made me wonder though.
Reading the passage, could they actually be benefiting from the existence and spread of the disease? If much of the funding comes for HIV relief in these parts, wouldn’t it be beneficial to keep it as prevalent as possible? By not encouraging condom use, it seems to be that way.
On the way back from the service, I had a long discussion with Helen, our fervent Christian medical student. I asked how she was able to deal with the contradictions of the new and old testament, the message that all those who do not accept Jesus (namely those of the other world religions) would be rejected from the kingdom of heaven. I tried to incorporate other religions, such as Hinduism which actually appreciates and reveres the gods of destruction as much as creation - that death and suffering help one appreciate how much good there is in the world. I find this is lacking in contemporary Christianity. Sin is simply scrubbed from existence, redemption handed out like candy on Halloween.
The one saving grace from me ending up in the land of goats is the Swahili service we have on weekdays. The service is for the medical staff, so it always has a medical spin to it. The service is completely improvised and is MUCH more passionate than the pre-prepared “salt sermon”. In fact, today the service was in BOTH Swahili and English translation. The preacher took the SAME passage (Matthew 5:13 for those reading along at home) and made it great without even using the words “salt” or “bowels”! I left the service feeling in a much better mood than I did yesterday, and the singing is much better because there’s only 3 white people!
Anyway, all is well under the sun here, and hopefully it is wherever you may be reading this. I hope your bowels are filled with light and that you may be using much salt in your diet.
Yay for salt! Oh, and burning bowls, too.
ReplyDeleteI love a cappella singing, especially male voices! What is the composition of the congregation in terms of gender (mostly female, equal parts male & female, mostly male)?
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