Sand

I often struggle to love like Christ and sometimes am aware of it. A client not paying a bill, children fighting, people asking so much of us every day in all of our lives. Yesterday I was aware and praying that God would enable me to love people like He does, believing that this can only be possible through a power much greater than my own. Shortly after finishing my prayer I learned I was to be the driver to a funeral that day. I would carry the coffin of a woman I did not know and only because I had a vehicle big enough to do so. It was a rare day that I had nothing else pressing so it seemed to work out. Even then I saw only the work God had given me to do for the day but not yet connected it to a prayer offered with apparently so little faith.

She had three sons and her husband had died years ago from HIV. Her youngest was 17, the others a bit older. I walked toward the mortuary where I heard the family was to see how I could be of help when I met the pastor coming to my door.

“Now?” Yes, the procession is leaving now and I was needed. How did they know I was available? Frustration creeps around my edges. I don’t know about carrying a coffin, will it even fit? I have not had a shower, just out of bed an hour ago. I go back in the house, throw on some pants, tuck in a shirt and head over.

People are there, mourners singing and preparing the body, church members, family, community. We wait for more to come and after some time they are ready.

The men carry the coffin out and towards the car, the women singing and holding their hands in the air making a tunnel the men pass under with the coffin. I bite my tongue to check the emotion of the scene. The seats have to be laid down in the back of my land cruiser, even the front passenger seat to make room for the long, gray, plywood box. There is talk of using ropes to secure things if the tailgate won’t shut, but it does. A woman asks me if I have 4 wheel drive, and as I reply “yes”, I wonder at the question and pray silently that this man made machine can can hold up today against this God made world.

Nine women from the church fill in as they can around the cargo and driver’s seat. They never stop singing hymns. One man sits up near the front to guide me. The smell of embalming chemicals hints even with the windows down, our attempt to slow down the speed of death long enough to say goodbye. We drive off and I bite my tongue again at the beauty of the singing and the respect and love it reflects.

We go in a procession like the US, about 9 vehicles with flashers on. The few other vehicles on the main road pull over and stop out of respect. I have always been moved by this too and remembered being on farm calls when my tech (who hardly respected anyone living) would pull over for a funeral procession and curse young college students driving past in a hurry. He has had his own procession now, but I always liked him for that.

We turn toward the church and I see the sand. It is a foot deep and the vehicle in front of me has to be pushed up the hill. I put it in first gear and we slip like in snow but make it up to the church all together. We wait for everyone to get up that hill at the church and then the coffin goes in under a bridge of hands like before. I enter the small packed church and try to stand in the back but the people will not have it and I am offered a seat up front that I quickly decline and am thankfully left alone. I am just a driver and the respect given due to skin tone is embarrassing and makes me sad.

Four women stand on each side of the coffin and hold candles throughout the service that lasts about an hour and women from the congregation replace them ever 10 minutes or so through some unseen signal I suppose. As they sing in Silozi, “ On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand…”, I sing in English sitting in a building made of sand and watch a chicken outside pecking in the sand, and think about that hill.

We finish and load back up and now I see a flatbed has arrived to carry villagers to the grave site. We go out and back down the hill singing and sliding. We cross the main road and go into the bush, more sand, more vehicles stuck, pushing, but not ours. We push on and on and I think we are lost. Now there are just two vehicles that can continue and we have found a man that has pointed the way and is now running across the plain ahead of the vehicle I am following. I don’t ask, just drive and the women never stop singing. The plain is a classic African landscape and I begin to think the man must be getting tired but where could he fit in either truck? A few miles later we come to some trees and a place prepared. It is an unmarked village graveyard on the edge of the floodplain. I back the truck up and all but one exit and we sit in the shade while for the next 30 minutes people walk into the scene.

There is singing, another service, mourning, a viewing. The 17 year old breaks down and I bite my tongue again and put on a hard face. He is alone with his brothers now and my heart breaks for him. He is taken off into the trees and we can hear him for some time. I sit to the side in the sand and shade. People are everywhere now. A mentally ill man goes around being loud and distracting but is beautifully accepted and allowed to be by the people. I think about my wife, my children, our families, these people here and friends back home. People are the greatest gift on this earth God has given us. Relationships and most importantly the one with Him through which we can love others in ways we cannot do on our own. Life is wonderful, beautiful, a gift, quick and dangerous. Only now do I suddenly realize God’s response to my request that morning. My day has been like a dream where I watched life go on in front of me from a spectator’s seat.

The service is over and the people sit quietly in groups among the scrubby trees. The men begin to use their shovels and the women begin to sing, “On Christ the solid Rock I stand…”

And the sand rained softly back into the earth.