Despair?

(a reflection by Charles Anderas on his experience abroad in Uganda)

I know it is a common problem of Americans to feel overwhelmed by news: war, AIDS, poverty, disease. As sons and daughters of the Enlightenment, we view these as issues to be solved, progress to be made. If you look at the world this way, you will die. Spiritually, emotionally, socially, you will die. I can relate to this on many levels-- I want to change things. I don't want to see people go on suffering. But what am I to do, not just to do about things, but to do with things? Does joy in suffering exist, as Paul promises?

Well, things changed for me yesterday. I went to the Mukono Health Clinic with my host brother Stephen, who is a medical therapist/counselor. Tuesday is the day when AIDS patients come to be counseled, tested, and treated. Before yesterday I had had hardly any experience with HIV/AIDS. I cared about it in a sort of nebulous sense that comes from unfamiliarity, but enough familiarity to care. Stephen's first words as we arrived on the compound to see people in lines waiting even to get into the clinic: "Everyone you see here is HIV positive."

He showed me his work as he interviewed patients to prepare a report to give doctors a preliminary understanding of how to treat patients. AIDS, as Stephen told me many times, affects every person differently, and each person reacts differently to ARVs, making it all the more difficult to treat. He introduced me to people that have been affected in different ways.

Now, when I think of AIDS, for the rest of my life, I will think of the orphan I met yesterday, whose giant eyes stared up at me as I held his hand. His parents dead, leaving him only HIV as an inheritance. I will think of the woman who had an Opportunistic Infection that caused large growths on her ears that were so painful she could hardly speak or interact with us.

So I will return to the Mukono Health Clinic on Tuesdays for the next semester. I will pray with people, talk to people, help out with whatever they need done. For this, I know, I am woefully inadequate. How could I possibly be any comfort to people whose pain I cannot begin to grasp? I know, however, that I owe something to them now. I can never go back to who I was before yesterday. That is simply not an option. I know, also, that there is not despair in AIDS because AIDS is not an issue to be solved, progress to be made. People live with AIDS, and people can love and be loved, can serve and be served. So I will love and serve those living with AIDS in Mukono, Uganda. I don't know how I will do this, but I will not go alone, knowing there is joy in suffering. And, there is nothing if there is not hope.

This (in part) I believe

View (or listen to) the link, then read Dr. Borgman's brief response below:

http://www.thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=57258&topessays=1

"Breaking bread together," says Jim Haynes. My favorite times are just such times of breaking of bread, whether inside or outside of church. Jim Haynes is what I'd call a true old-fashioned liberal: liberality of spirit, expansive and inclusive in his view of individual persons, and, I daresay, of nations, religions, and-the-so-forths that follow. I so like a generous spirit, being too often a bit of a crank myself (though very much wanting to be like and do like this here fellow in France).

- Paul Borgman