Saturday, I find myself at the bottom of a very very steep and quite slipper slope, grasping with all my might to the roots of fragile spear grasses, and hoping that they will hold my weight long enough for me to hoist myself one step higher. And wondering, why did I decide to do this today??
The beauty of Uganda is sustaining. We are privileged to live only about 20 minutes from Ngite, an enormous 270 foot waterfall that provides the clean water that our engineer, Michael Masso, pipes in to serve our local villages. Once you drive those twenty minutes, to reach Ngite you must make a steep climb up a short hill, then around some ledges until you catch sight of the waterfall. Now we are at a height about one quarter way up the falls and the spray manages to reach our faces though we are still some distance. We pause to make sure everyone is together, then start descending what is once again a steep and slippery path to the pool at the bottom of the fall.
We dive in to the icy water - I am fully clothed. Though I wore pants for this excursion, fearing for my legs in a skirt on the rough jungly path, I am certainly not comfortable to wear a bathing suit around Ugandans. And some are with us today. The water is not deep, chest-high in the deepest parts. The floor of the pool is covered with sharp slippery rocks and I am thankful for my Keens, waterproof and lightweight. They quickly fill with sand from the power of the falls and I feel leadfooted. This will serve as ballast. Directly under the fall there are several wonderful seating spots, where I place myself against the rocks and throw my head back to feel the incredible power of the water falling such a distance. After months of our seriously wimpy water pressure at home, this is heaven. I should have brought shampoo!!
We dive and splash and play for some minutes, enjoying the glory of God’s creation. The roar and pull of the water is loud enough to drown out our voices and our thoughts. What bliss.
Now as we ascend back up the steep slope after rinsing sand out of shoes and mud from our clothing, I find myself once again challenged by the height combined with steep and narrow ledges. I am pushing to keep up with others and comparing myself with them. Wondering what they think of me. I catch sight of my orange Keens, soaking, muddy and think “if only I shoes with better traction I would be quicker!”
What an apt metaphor for the way we live our lives. No matter the life situation, how steep our slope, how slippery, how muddy; we must needs compare ourselves with others and find either us or them lacking.
I was grateful to meditate for the rest of the climb, each time I caught sight of those orange Keens, that each of us faces our own challenges in life. We can compare our situations, but even though our situations are the same, each of us will encounter them differently. In the climb we all have different heights, different leg lengths, different body weights, different centers of gravity. We have different shoes, different pants, and different amounts of food and water having supplied our bodies. In our lives it is the same. None of us faces any situation alike. Each of us comes to it with unique challenges and unique gifts. We have only one life to live, our own.