After spending 3 and a half hours in an Anglican Church service in Saltpond, Ghana, we walked to the beach. I snapped this picture of Little Rosina who looked so beautiful gazing out on the ocean. I walked out there with her and pointed over the horizon. "My home is way over there, across the ocean." When I spoke this sentence, it hit me in the pit of my stomach. I'm looking toward my home from a totally different perspective.
I've had quite a few experiences that have completely changed my perspective on things. One of the most memorable was a friend's funeral. I wrote about it awhile back. Her funeral took place in the mountains, buried in a cardboard box that my children had helped paint. After that day, I knew things could be different. I knew I wanted things different.
I knew that my trip to Ghana would be life changing. I guess I was naive as to how hard it would be to come to terms with that. I lived in a house for 13 days where only one person knew me, and I knew I could trust her. She had brought me there to see her culture. I think what I did was see myself in it.
I spent 13 days seeing myself in other people's eyes. These were not American eyes. These were Ghanaian eyes. These were eyes that knew how to look into another person's heart. These were people who never asked me "Who are your people?" "What do you do?" "What is your degree in?". They didn't need to know any of that. I was a guest and a family memberT . hat is all they needed to know in order to love me. I looked for days to find a flash of contempt for me. I searched people's face to see if they judged me. I never saw this. Never. What I saw was love and generosity. At one particularly exquisite moment, I saw pure compassion. I finally started to quit expecting or looking for that flash of contempt. It wasn't going to happen. I relaxed and became a person who felt accepted and loved. I started looking for that love. This was new for me.
Another gift I was given was the gift of having no past. No one could remind me of what I had done wrong or shame me for a mistake. If I had made a mistake, they would have told me immediately and moved along with the day. Grudges don't exist there. Life is too precious. Survival is too important. There is too much work and too little money. Yet they never feel overwhelmed or sorry for themselves. I watched closely a couple of people who had every reason to feel trapped and resentful. They were exhausted from caring for a very, very sick baby. Not a second of self pity, not a second.
I had a hard time understanding why a church service would last so long in a country so mired in poverty. My last Sunday there, the answer came. In the chapel, an older woman sat in front of me. She had had a very scary, long and exhausting week. She had handled it with extreme Grace. I watched her shoulders sag and her start to sob. This was the one place she could feel the weight of her work. It was the one place she could share her burden. I began to sob also.
In Ghana, there is no room for bull. None. Do it, don't do it. Whatever. Life is too short and too busy. Say what you have to say and keep it moving. There are no personality tests that give you excuses of needing closure or being introverted. Your well being depends on the people in your community's well being. If you isolate yourself from others, you don't survive.
I'm pretty sure I could never reside in Ghana. I like facebook and netflix. I like having frozen pizza and 16 acres to play on. However, I'm pretty sure I'll never shake this feeling that I'm really missing out on something. I loved being in community with others.
So, standing on that beach, it started to sink in that I was looking at my country from a different perspective. Slowly, I am coming to terms with the fact that I came away looking at myself from a different perspective.
