vincent called

Vincent called. He left a message in his rolling accent, hesitating only now and then to find the perfect word. He speaks six or seven languages fluently - and is constantly translating from one to another. I imagine he is often thinking in several languages at once. With so many words to choose from.

He is calling from another world. He is calling from his township in South Africa - Mamelodi. And I can picture him pacing his small cinder-block house (because he is always on the move) 9,000 miles away - where it is already late at night. My sun is just starting to set. He ends his message the same as always: You are blessed, he says.

Vincent is hosting our friend, Nate, for a few weeks. Nate is working on a documentary about the impact of AIDS on the world, and Africa is part of the story he hopes to tell. He says to us: I went to Vincent's church this morning. It was incredible.

And I know what he means. Because when I walked into that church on the other side of the world, I had the distinct feeling of coming home. Having arrived at last. An answer to a longing I didn't even know I had. A part of me was born in that church, and for this reason, I will always miss Vincent and Gloria and Busi and Edna and all the rest, when I am not with them. My Mamelodi family. On one of my last Sundays in South Africa, Vincent pulled me up front with him – and together, we looked out at rows of African faces, gathered in the makeshift church, a dusty township schoolroom. "She is a daughter of Mamelodi,” he said to his congregation. "She is our daughter." I looked out at my Mothers and Fathers, and they nodded at me, with love, claiming me. There are very few moments when you believe, really believe - without a doubt - that you are accepted. Claimed. This was one of those moments in my life.

And now, being back, if I allow myself to really consider my time in Mamelodi, I feel a sort of confusing ache, and the closest description is: I feel homesick. So, I don't allow myself to consider my time in Mamelodi often. For now, I’m working hard to avoid the tension of Here and There.
But I know soon, I will have to revisit my experience, and let it be all the love and grace and sorrow and freedom and belonging and loneliness I felt at once. It seems too much for one stunted heart (mine) to absorb. And with all the grace and freedom I remember, there were also moments and stories and faces that break my heart over and over again. Still.

Even now, I wander through the days, a reluctant keeper of one woman’s confessions – she who has endured more than is bearable for one human heart or body. If I told her secrets, you would wonder how she has survived. And in my weakness, I can hardly even bear knowing the truth of what happened to her, yet it is the story of her life, the story that she carries with her always. And another woman I loved is lost to us now - she was buried in May – in a graveyard that is overwhelmed by the deaths of the young, that cannot sustain the sheer number of burials taking place. Every single day.

Where do you keep these stories? Because they don’t fall into place, into a reconciling order, now that I am Here. And I don’t think they ever will. It's become a matter of abiding in the tension, letting it pull at the edge of my day. Whether I like it or not.

I believe in full joy, full sorrow: to live life fully, you have to open yourself up to the full sorrows for the sake of experiencing - and drinking in the mercy of - the full joys. And the full joys are what I'm after - the full joys are what I want to re-experience when I think about Mamelodi - because the joy I knew there was deep and rich and indelible. It was a season of singing.