Meeting Mama Africa, Seeing Father God
by SusanGetting to know people well is like a treasure quest to me. Meyers-Briggs notwithstanding, we’re all uniquely talented, quirky, marked by experience, and it’s my task to discover the special qualities of the people who cross my path. But the quest doesn’t always end with the person in front of me. Sometimes I get to meet the parents, and then the real fun begins:
So that’s where he got that verbal expression.
No wonder she’s paranoid about germs.
Ah, his dad is artistic, too.
And so on.
On April 1, as I sat outside the KLM gate in the Amsterdam airport, I saw the best example of a Bahiana (by-uh-nuh) that I have ever seen with my own eyes. The epitome of a traditional Bahiana is a large black woman from the state of Bahia (bah-ee-uh) in Brazil who dresses in a sumptuous dress and turban that enables her to carry a basket on her head. Because I was getting ready to board a flight to Uganda, East Africa, it dawned on me that I was not looking at a Brazilian, but an African. That was my first clue that I was about to meet Mama Africa.
Having spent eight years of my childhood in Brazil, I was intimately aware of the unique attributes of that country. It was obvious from history that the years of importing slaves had marked the culture in profound ways. However, I hadn’t expected the deluge of comparative details that assaulted me when I woke up the next day and began exploring Africa. I noticed similarities in architecture, engineering, clothing, handwriting, geology (red dirt=iron!), crafts, meals, plants, and so on. How wonderful to know the child and have the opportunity to meet the mother!
Jesus left heaven to dwell among us in order to give us a similar Aha! experience. He even uses the parent-child analogy, saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” All people reflect God to a certain extent, since we are all made in His image, but the goal of a Christian is to grow more and more like God the Son, and thus, God the Father.
Do people look at you, just being yourself in your everyday activities, and think, “I know why she’s behaving, speaking, dressing, concluding in those unique, counter-cultural ways. It’s because she lives under the influence of her Father.”
Do you look at those around you and wonder, “I’m hearing certain language and seeing certain behaviors and observing certain thought processes in him that make me think he is a child of God.” Then what do you do?
May 5th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
Often we see the child through the parents, but in the case of Jesus we see the Father through the Son. It seems to me that we are not as adept at that, or at least not as practiced.
Seldom do I see a person who is old enough to be their own person (let’s say 15, just to put a number on it) and wonder what his or her parents must be like. Of course if I already know the parents of the child, I can readily see how the child resembles them.
That makes me wonder now if this was part of the problem the apostles had. They knew Jesus very well, but perhaps they didn’t think to grasp all the understanding of God they could from that knowledge.
Starting from the other side, and answering your question a bit better, I can see something of God in most people. The more I see, the more I feel an affinity with that person. Sometimes I act on that and sometimes I don’t, but it always makes me happy to get a glimpse of God.
May 7th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Have you ever had the experience where you met the parents of a friend and thought, boy do his/her parents look alike? It’s because we can see the traits of our friend in his/her parents, I think.
Wouldn’t it be great if people were to look at us and think, wow, they really look alike because they can our Father in each of us?
Disclaimer - but I don’t really want to look like Lewis. Well, okay, in some ways I do.