Week 11 - "I'd risk a fall just to know how it feels to fly..."

As I mentioned at the end of my last blog, a pilgrimage of about thirty people from my home diocese spent days in South Africa! With some much-appreciated help from my friend Greg, I was able to meet up with them during their time here.  There were a few people in the pilgrimage whom I’d met briefly, whose names I’d heard around the diocese, or who I’d had to call as a part of a diocesan phone survey I did while interning for the diocese a few summers back. For the most part, I didn’t know the travelers… but that didn’t reduce my excitement at their presence here or my eagerness to meet up with them! Last Friday, my fellow YASCER Amanda and I enjoyed dinner with the group at the Protea Hotel, where they were staying. We got to talk with a handful of the Jersey folk in the lobby before enjoying an inspiring conversation with Bishop Councell, Bishop of my home diocese – the Diocese of New Jersey, and The Very Rev Rene John, Dean of New Jersey’s Trinity Cathedral. It was nice to share stories and talk about our impressions of this beautiful place we’ve all gotten to explore. While I’m deeply enjoying my adventure here as a missionary, it has been hard to give up a year’s worth of things like family dinners and late night conversations with friends. The evening was a refreshing and renewing taste of home. One moment that stuck out to me was the key line in a story of Henri Nouwen’s that Bishop Councell repeated about the thrilling magic of trapeze; “The flyer has to fly and the catcher has to catch.” See, if the flyer tries to catch the catcher, he could break the catcher’s wrists and they could both fall.  The flyer just has to let go and fly, all the while trusting that at just the right moment the catcher will catch him. Think about how many situations that this applies to and all the risks we take in life to fly away on an adventure to a new place or with a new person or for a new experience – or maybe all of the above! It makes missionaries sound like trapeze artists.

Another adventure this week was a short trip down to Hout Bay for supper last Saturday. After running a few errands, Suzanne and I decided to go for an earlier supper. I must say there is definitely never a bad time to take a ride along the coast. The town is just a bit north of Simons Town, which Amanda and I explored the Saturday before and which you can read all about in my last blog.

Now it’s time to acknowledge another less scenic adventure I had this week: my ongoing journey with my computer screen.  I’ve never pretended to be anything other than a computer geek; my dad built me my first computer when I was five or six. This past week, I’ve had to look my inner geek straight in the eye - because I was unable to read the bottom half of my computer screen.  While my screen is currently working (when disassembling it, checking the connections, and reassembling it didn’t work, I figured out the right angle at which to shake my computer to fix the problem – ridiculous) and I think I’m finally getting to the bottom of this technical issue, I can’t help but feel like I rely more on technology for communication and entertainment purposes than I had previously realized. It makes me think that maybe my use of technology bare more resemblance to Luke Skywalker and his cybernetic hand than I’d like to admit.

A hardedar made an appearance in the yard last weekend!