As is the case with most people, I’ve been pretty much confined to my house for the past few weeks and likely will be for the foreseeable future. I had a bacterial skin infection on my foot that required me to go hospital every day last week for intravenously administered antibiotics. Fortunately, the antibiotic cycle seems to have worked and my foot improves with each passing day. With my hospital visits hopefully behind me, my only reason to go out of the house now is to buy food, which I do sparingly. I stocked up on a lot of canned and dry goods, but these won’t last forever. Unfortunately, there is no supermarket close to me and I have to go to “town” if I need something from the market. As it is not safe to take public transportation, which translates to stuffing into a minivan and ignoring all social distancing guidelines, I have to take a taxi. Other than things which I can only get from the supermarket in town, I buy other food like fruits and vegetables from a local street vendor who I have bought from since I moved here. I suppose the supermarket food is safer, but to shop there, I would need to travel back and forth to town and be in the midst of many more people. Everything is a tradeoff. I can’t control everything, but I hopefully I’m making good decisions to minimize my potential exposure to the coronavirus.
The most frustrating part for me of this whole situation is the fact that I can’t really do much in the way of ministry work. My ministry is why I’m here in Kenya. If not for the pandemic, we would be preparing for the three weeks break between the first and second terms of the three-term school year here in Kenya. During school breaks, we run tutorials four times a week. As I’ve mentioned before, tutorials are my favorite part of my ministry job. I love working with the children and getting them to think in new and different ways. My focus is typically with the secondary school students working with them on math, chemistry, biology and physics. I not only work with them on their standard curriculum, but I also try to nurture in them a desire to understand how the physical world works. I try as best I can to prepare the students to pass their tests, but I also want them to understand the underlying concepts and how they apply to everything we see in the world around us.
Maryknoll gave us the opportunity to go home before travel back to the US would no longer be possible. Much to the chagrin of my family, I chose to stay in Kenya. This was for two reasons. First, if I left, it may be very difficult to travel back to Kenya for quite a while. I want to be here when it is safe to resume my ministry and be working to get things back to normal for the children and their families who we serve as quickly as possible. I also want to be in a position to help my ministry children and their families in any way possible during the crisis. Secondly, while in Kenya, I try as best I can to live in solidarity with the Kenyan people. I’m blessed to have a stipend and health coverage that continue during the lockdown. These types of benefits are completely out of reach of any of the families with whom I work with. However, as a whole, I try as best I can to live like and among those I work with. For me, just leaving was not consistent with the solidarity I strive for.
I didn’t make my decision lightly. The healthcare system in Kenya is fragile at best. They don’t have the technology and resources that are available in the US and other more developed countries to deal with a pandemic. Also, social distancing is an impossibility for many Kenyans. They live in overcrowded, small dwellings and settlements. Many live in informal settlements or slums. While I can isolate myself, I do need to come out to at least buy food. This requires some contact with others and I’m sure those I encounter are not all practicing social distancing best practices. I’m also concerned about social unrest and what will happen as time goes on given that people can’t earn a living and therefore afford to buy food and water. Many people here barely earn enough money in a day to buy food to eat that day. With the government restrictions enforcing closures and lockdowns, many people’s livelihoods are shut down. Many of these people do manual labor or sell things on the street, which is very difficult with the restrictions in place. No one has savings accounts to dip into. The country is not going to pass a stimulus package to help those in need. Kenya has just implemented a dusk to dawn curfew and there have already been instances of police brutality enforcing the curfew.
For now, the number of COVID-19 cases in Kenya is relatively low. However, the reason for this is not really known. It may be that there are a lot more cases than have been reported as there is no robust testing capability here. It also may be that Kenya, and Africa in general, is still behind the curve (as compared to the US, Europe and Asia) and that things will get much worse before they get better.
All I can do is try to stay as safe as possible by limiting contact with other people, which is especially important here as social distancing for many other people here is not a practical reality. Luckily, the electrical power, which can sometimes go off for a day at a time, and my cell phone data, which is my only access to the internet, have been pretty reliable since I’ve been self-quarantined. Being confined to home, I’m using a lot of data on my phone (no home internet, only hotspot from my cell phone), but it’s my only link to the outside world
I know that a lot of people question where God is during the pandemic. To me the answer is simple, although some people may sarcastically say simplistic. God is right here in the midst of it. I believe that God created everything out of love. We, as human beings created in God’s image and likeness, as well as all God’s creation, are a manifestation of the abundance of this love. Thus, the underlying principle governing the entire cosmos is love. This is obviously often hard to see in our sinful world and difficult to comprehend in the midst of a crisis like the current pandemic. So, if the underlying principle of the universe is love, why does it at times not appear that way and how does a pandemic fit into the framework of a universe based on love?
First, love is only love if it is feely chosen. You can’t force someone to love you. I would take this a step further and say that love, where there is no possibility to not love, is not truly love. From this perspective, sin is choosing not to love.
I also believe that suffering follows from love, at least in the currently as yet imperfect world in which we live. Surely no one wants someone they truly love to suffer, but suffering follows from vulnerability and vulnerability, like free choice, is also a prerequisite for love. In fact, vulnerability follows from love specifically because love must be freely chosen. If love requires free choice, there is always the possibility that love is rejected. Thus, in order to love, you must become vulnerable. And vulnerability leads to suffering both in our lives and in creation as a result of our not choosing to love. As C.S. Lewis put it:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. … To love is to be vulnerable.” – C.S. Lewis
I’m certainly not going to try to answer the question of why there is suffering in the world. People have pondered this question since the beginning of time. Our faith tells us that God uses suffering to bring about a greater good. While I believe this is true, all you have to do is look at a crucifix, suffering remains a great mystery. However, in some way, I believe the mystery ties back to vulnerability as a perquisite for true love.
I firmly believe that God is eternally perfect and unchanging love, who does not need us to be more perfect. However, at the same time, in some sense, he makes himself vulnerable by loving us. I don’t mean to imply that this makes God any less than perfect, but rather, somehow mixed into the infinite love that is God, is a giving of himself with the possibility that the gift is not accepted. Why does God do this? Because he is love and can do nothing other than love with an infinite love. He loves to the point of giving entirely of himself. He loves us more than we love ourselves. And after lavishing all this underserved love on us, he allows us to freely choose, because without free choice there is not true love. He allows us to accept or reject his love, which necessitates a constant and continuing, not one time, answer from us. At any time, we can choose not to love God in return. But God still loves us infinitely and unconditionally at all times, regardless whether or not we love him back. In some sense, God makes himself vulnerable to our reciprocation of his love because he allows us to make a choice. But God takes things a step further. When we fail to love him in return, when we chose not to love others, God calls us back. For God is all merciful. This follow directly from the fact that God is love, for mercy is what love looks like when directed at a someone who rejects that love. Because we are sinners, who at times don’t choose the path of love, God loves us through the lens of mercy. Mercy follows from God’s infinite love for us and the fact that our love often falls short.
But God’s inexhaustible love for us extends beyond just being merciful. Look at the famous parable of the Prodigal Son. The father spotted the son when he was off in the distance. The reason he was able to do this is that he was out there looking for the son. So, it is with God. God doesn’t just passively wait for us to return to him, but rather is always calling us back. He is always anxiously waiting for us to come back to him. In some sense, God is again making himself vulnerable to our return to him. He wants so much to forgive us, that he proactively nudges us back towards himself, but always respecting our freedom to choose.
In his great poem “The Hound of Heaven”, Francis Thompson beautifully describes how our loving God persistently pursues us, calling us back even as we flee him. Who does this? Only one who loves without limit and makes himself vulnerable to our response.
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years;I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
– Francis Thompson
As Christians, we know that God’s love comes to fulfillment in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who is “the image of the invisible God” (Collosians 1:15). Jesus tells us that “whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Mt 16:24). Jesus, the Son of God and through whom everything that is came to be, took up his cross and suffering for us until he had given entirely of himself in death. The challenge for us, is that Jesus asks us to follow him and do the same. Jesus asks us to seek out our crosses and actively take them up. This does not just mean resignation with respect to any tragedies or suffering that we may encounter in life, but rather a willingness to carry our cross as he carried his. However, it even goes further than this. I think Jesus is also exhorting us to help carry the crosses of others. As he helps carry our crosses, he asks that we also help those who are suffering and in need our help. How can it be any other way? As Jesus carried his cross for us, we are asked to carry the crosses of others. We all in this together with and through Jesus.
This idea of taking up our cross is so counter cultural in today’s secular world where happiness means immediate gratification and satisfying our every desire for pleasure – a world where there is no sin and suffering is to be avoided at all costs. However, God calls us to something more than sensual and intellectual gratification. We are called to love God and love our neighbor, which at times entails suffering.
Why I can’t say I completely understand suffering, I do believe that God allows suffering because it enables us to participate in the redemptive work of Jesus and become more like him. As St. John Vianney said
“Nothing makes us more like Our Lord than carrying His Cross.”
St. John Vianney
Suffering enables us to know our Lord as he knows himself. How do we possibly accomplish this? Our Lord gives us the answer “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mt 11:28). Jesus doesn’t leave us to fend for ourselves, but is with us every step of the way if we give ourselves to him.
In final scheme of things, there are two paths which lead us to God: the path of great love and the path of great suffering. However, if you think about it, these are both really the same path. For if you truly love, it will eventually entail suffering.
So where is God during this coronavirus crisis? Where is God with all the suffering that is going on in the world at the current time? He is right in our midst. He is right here loving us, pursuing us, calling us back to him, urging us to pick up our crosses, to accept any suffering that comes our way and through that suffering to become more like Christ. God is right here exhorting us to love our neighbor during these times when we need each other most, loving them the way Christ loves us. By loving like Christ, by suffering willingly like Christ, we become like Christ and more fully approach what it means to be truly human, to be what God intends us to be.
Mungu ni mwema. God is good.
Please consider donating to my HOPE ministry project, which provides educational assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children, particularly those impacted by AIDS, in Mombasa, Kenya. The work we do makes a real and lasting difference in the lives of the children we serve. Although schools are currently closed during the coronavirus crisis, the needs don’t go away. Once schools reopen, we need to be in a position to move as quickly as possible to resume a sense of normalcy and help those who have fallen behind catch up.
You can learn more about the HOPE project on our website.