01 August 2016

GOD'S PROTECTION

NJENJE - HUNTINGTON SPIDER

     When I worked in the dry heat of Toposaland in S. Sudan we had many Hunting spiders that usually came out in the evenings and moved extremely fast.  A visitor came and I gave her my bed.  Since it was unbearably hot I was sleeping on a mat on the floor without a mosquitoe net.  I wasn't wearing much either. I turned off the light and was laying on my stomach when I felt something scurry down the left side of my back from my shoulder to my foot.  I was pretty sure it was this spider but just lay there thinking about it.  When it happened a second time I jumped up, turned on the solar light, grabbed one of my flip flops and, while standing on one foot with the other flip flop, I clobbered it in the corner of the room and smashed it to smithereens.  So much for the nonviolent pacifist in me.

     Since I've returned to Kenya the nominations for the presidential candidates have been receiving wide coverage on the BBC and in the local press. Many Kenyans have asked me what is going to happen.  They are mostly terrified that the next President will have a bad effect on their lives.  There is no question that the President of the USA will affect people in the rest of the world one way or another.  Our Archbishop seems to be the calmest about the matter.  He said that, regardless of who is elected, we will just have to adjust to him...or her. 

     The other thought that comes to my mind this month is the anniversary of the atomic bombs which the USA dropped on the 6th of August 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  They killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and almost completely destroyed the landscape.  But today Japan has rebuilt the cities and survived the horror.

     A while back I was staying in a small room for the night while doing a clinic away from home.  It was a dreadfully hot night but I had a bed, a mosquito net and a fan.  Again, I wasn't wearing much in the way of clothes.  I awoke at 3am and while laying on my stomach I felt something scurry down the left side of my back from my shoulder to my foot.  It sure felt like a Hunting spider but I had never heard of them on the coast in hot, humid Mombasa.  I lay there in a daze and then I felt the same scurry go up my right leg.  I jumped up, turned on the solar light and right there in the bed next to me was a Hunting spider!!!  I jumped out of bed but this time I was about 20 years older so the jump was more like a spasm as I had to get my leg over the spider and my body under the net in one fell swoop.  After that I turned on the light and groped for my glasses as the eyes aren't what they used to be.  I grabbed my flip flops...one on the foot and one in the hand and thought, "How am I going to find this critter?"  To my surprise s/he was sitting, clearly visible, in the corner of the room.  With the swiftness of my youth I clobbered it with my flip flop and made sure it was dead.  I didn't pulverize the poor thing as I had in the past.  Otherwise you wouldn't have this nice picture to verify my story.

     So, you may be wondering what is the point of all this meandering thought?  The point is... that after two very close encounters with a poisonous spider that can cause illness and sometimes death I am still here.  Despite the immense violence and suffering that happened in Japan they have rebuilt their cities and become a nation of pacifists.  Article 9 of their constitution outlaws war as a means to settle international disputes involving the state.  "The Japanese people forever renounce war and the threat of use of force."

     I will certainly vote in our elections using an absentee ballot as I have done in every election while oversees.  I hope every US citizen will do their duty and participate in the electoral process.  And then we will adjust to the change of leadership and carry on.  If we make the wrong choice there will be suffering and hardship.  But we can learn from it and become a better nation. 

MAY THE PEACE OF THE LOVER,

THE BELOVED

AND LOVE

PROTECT AND GUIDE US ALWAYS