Rainshower

Usually when thunder echoes in the narrowing distance and the first tentatively falling scouts open up the sky for a coming torrent, people who are outside go inside. Yesterday I stayed out.

I was four days into a continuing plumbing drought, and had just finished my second evening of rather intense sporting activity and, although I couldn’t smell myself, I could see the grimaces of my friends. And I grimaced back. So as the thunder neared my friends and I looked into dripping sky with childish anticipation.

The storm came slowly. The drops grew but not much; they drew closer together but not much. It was no shower. But as I wondered if I should give up and go inside I noticed four pipes peeking out from patio roof. They gathered all the water falling on the overhang, divvied it up rather evenly and emptied it in four even streams onto the ground. And after a few minutes the streams weren’t brownish red anymore. They were perfect.

I ran inside for my shampoo and conditioner, Kevin got the Old Spice Red Zone body wash, and three of us took a pipe apiece. The steady trickle was just enough, until the wind picked up. Then the flow was broken and scattered, hardly enough to rinse conditioner from hair like mine.

So I climbed onto the banister surrounding the patio, held onto one of the slick pillars and stuck my head right up to the pipe. Soon I was clean. And cleanliness – in water-deprived, hot, dusty Gulu – is next to miraculousness.

In a Manger, Far Away

Far away in a manger
Another babe is born tonight
A little black boy
Wrapped in cloth and statistics

And laying in my bed I
Know crying he makes
Over latenight airwaves
Over hunger and fear
Seeping into dreams
Of featherbed darkness and suburban sunbeams

This couldn't be the child of angels' songs
Or could it?

His mother, like Mary, had no husband
When the seed was planted in her
And she longs for the for the Virgin Mother because
Seven pounds is the weight of death when carried alone
And because this virgin's conception was not immaculate
Torn from her by a lieutenant
Quiet and terrifying on the banana leaves

No, he couldn't be like the Lord of lords
Or could he?

The brightest stars shout his birth from afar
Letting the glory of their celebrity
Fall thin over his village, his country, his life
Mentioning him numerically in statistics like
Fifteen million AIDS orphans

For the prophets have seen his death
A new Isaiah calls for crucifixion
On a cross built by pharmaceutical lobbyists
And erected on a mountain of debt

But he couldn't be the Greatest of Teachers
Or could he?

Choirs of pop angels sing his song once a year
Proclaiming his existence to the herds
Though the herdsmen make them lie down
In greener pastures, safer fields, around stiller waters

The wise men visit him briefly
A daytrip from Herod's palace
But don't bring gifts
Instead they take pictures and take notes and take off

This new little black boy couldn't bless the nations
Could he?

This hashmark in a mountain of millions
A line-item on the UN's annual report
About who should be doing what and isn't
A sterile, mathematical birth among millions
Doesn't merit the same attention

Because that Infant of Old grew in stature with God and man
Teaching the teachers and training the preachers
To spread a Gospel of sacrifice and redistribution
And this new one waits for the News to get Good
To come to him in its promise and power

The Infant of Old in his simple wisdom
Taught us to love the others just like oursevles
But I don't want to be loved like this new child
From afar, with t-shirts

And that great Infant of Old showed us
How to love like that
Saying that our actions and thoughts
And glances and jokes and whims and
Plans and sacrifices and ignorances
And life toward the least of all
The least of little black babies
Were actually toward Himself

Perhaps he is the One
After all