Catching Idle Butterflies

It's a big world, and here I am sitting on my ass.

Driving to and from church today, I took my time, enjoying the glassy waters of the Missouri River as it reflected the cloud spotted blue sky and the bright yellows and oranges of the turning trees reaching heavenward along its banks. I opened my window and breathed deep the clear, crisp, and cool autumn air.

A perfect day to not just enjoy but revel in, for few days like these remain before the temperatures drop along with the leaves of the trees, and the sparse white of snow covers the brown ground and naked branches.

But I am discontented.

Some books do that. They open a door and suck you into a world you never dreamed existed. They coat you with sights, smells, tastes, and feelings, twisting and molding your heart into an unrecognizable and impossible shape. Your eyes now see things differently, as though you suddenly wear blue-tinged glasses instead of red.

In late December I went home to my husband and to my children and to the post-Christmas chaos of a resort town, but instead of feeling glad to be back, I was dislocated and depressed. It should not be physically possible to get from the banks of the Pepani River to Wyoming in less than two days, because mentally and emotionally it’s impossible. The shock is to much, the contrast too raw. We should sail or swim or walk from Africa, letting bits of her drop out of us, and gradually, in this way, assimilate the excesses and liberties of the States in tiny, incremental sips, maybe touring up through South America and Mexico before trying to stomach the land of the Free and the Brave.

Because now the real, wonderful world around me – the place where we had decided to live with our children, because it had seemed like an acceptable compromise between my Zambia and my husband’s America – felt suddenly pointless and trivial and almost insultingly frivolous. The shops were crappy with a Christmas hangover, too loud and brash. Everything was 50 percent off. There was nothing challenging about being here, at least not on the surface. The new year’s party I attended was bloated with people complaining about the weight they had put on over Christmas. I feigned malaria and went home to bed for a week.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to join in the innocent, deluded self-congratulation that goes with living in such a fat, sweet country. I did. But I couldn’t. And confining myself to the house didn’t help. Now I felt like a trespasser in my own home with all its factory-load of gadgets and machines and the ease of the push-button life I was living . . . ~ Alexandra Fuller from Scribbling the Cat

Part of the reason my sister will never drive the 800 miles to visit me is because she’s a burrower. While I don’t know why, she doesn’t like to travel, except a few hundred miles up into the Colorado or Wyoming Rockies to hunt and fish with her husband.

My mother also enjoys not having to travel far.

In comparison, I’m the adventurer of the family. If I could afford it, and if my husband also didn’t have ‘burrowing tendencies,’ I would love to travel. Israel, Alaska, Washington DC, New Zealand, Australia, and parts of Europe top my list of places I want to see. Thanks to zwisis and Alexandra, Africa has now jumped to the top. Though I have been in my life from the north to the south and on both the east and west coasts of the United States, I haven’t seen a fraction of a percent of what my country has to offer. I long to see more.

Life is too short not to experience as much of God’s creations as possible.

But there’s more than that, and this is the change Alexandra Fuller’s books have awakened in me. I have much to offer. I’m not talking about my money, my time, or my talents. That’s the easy stuff. What about my labor? What about stepping into a country where people struggle to live day by day? How about adding my labor to theirs, so their burdens no longer seem so heavy, even for a short time?

While the most generous nation, Americans still don’t do enough. Many figure by tossing a few dollars in an envelope once a month or once a year is enough.

I count myself among those, and it’s no longer enough. It’s safe. Sometimes I don’t want to be safe, and making a difference sometimes means taking chances most people would label you as insane for trying.

I don’t know when, and I don’t know where, but when the opportunity presents itself, I want to go on a missionary. I hope this want, this need sticks with me, because I do have much more to offer than what’s in my checking account.

Imagine also what more I could learn about life and about people outside the edge of the horizon I see every day.

BTW! For a glimpse into someone else's world, be sure to check out the latest addition of "Invalid Item" , the September issue, "Invalid Entry" , is now up!