I see the cutest black babies everyday here in Uganda. In their high pitched kid voice they shout
“Muzungu, how are you?! How are you? How are you?” …about fifty times and they throw out their hands in the air waving hello. Most likely in the crowd I always find a dirty naked baby (and when I say baby I mean any age up to about 5 – maybe even older sometimes). If the children aren’t clothed – girls in bright pretty, yet dirty dresses, then most likely they have on clothes that are so thread baren, full of holes, that barely stay on the kids and wouldn’t even be good enough to be considered a rag in the States. Other young children most likely have just a shirt on with their bare butts hanging out.And then you’ve got the naked ones. Dirty and naked. Just hangin’ out with everyone else. Standing their with their swollen bellies protruding out (malnourished) and quite often with an outty belly button sticking out in the shape of a 3 or 4 inch cone (apparently born with a hernia). These naked dirty children are sitting on the dirt, or playing with their toys, or yelling Muzungi, how are you! … not minding the fact that they’re in their birthday suit. In fact, it doesn’t really phase them. There seems to be no difference to them or anyone else if they’re clothed are not.
Every time I see them I just want to scoop them up in my arms out of the dirty pile they were playing in, love them, then wash and clothe them. Then I want to give them an education, a home. I want to give them Jesus. I want to give them hope. A future without malaria or AIDS. I want to give them a better way of life.
But the other day I started to think, ya know what? we’re actually not much different from these naked dirty kids. We’re not. We’ve just mastered how to cover our dirt. Sure, we walk around with often our cleanest clothes, those designer jeans that cost more than $100 and quite often more than what a family will earn in 1 year. We wear the latest fashion from Urban Outfitters. We add Puma, Converse, Adidas and Solomens to our collection. We have boots and every style and color of shoe for every season. And some of us pride our trendy selves on wearing or acquiring the latest fashion before anyone else. If it’s not our clothes, then we, in a sense, wear our gadgets. We never leave home without the Blackberry, iphone, Smartphone, GPS, watch, purse, or leather bags that are ridiculously overpriced. Most of which we use for “survival” right? But I think if we were honest with ourselves we also use those things to express ourselves. To express who we are by what we wear and what we carry with us. To be unique.
Don’t get me wrong, I love fashion. It does make it quite difficult to consider spending money on some of these things after seeing people live without and knowing that one of these items would feed families for a long time. But that’s not what this is about.
I think we draw peoples’ attention to our clothes, gadgets or fashion because we want peoples’ attention to those things. Maybe we want people to base their decision about us based on what they see on the outside because we don’t want to expose some of the dirt that’s inside. So we’ve mastered how to divert attention, even our own attention, from the things that really matter. Matters of the heart.
A quick and easy way to feel dirty and naked (or exposed) is communal living.
Even some of our best and well formed communities of families, close-knit friends, co-workers are great. But even in these communities, we can get distracted. We live so independently from each other that we may live in the same house, share meals, share the same space, we share friends, interests. We serve and work together. We may even share the same struggles and issues – we even watch the same TV at the same time and yet be closed off. We can live so independently from each other that all we’re really doing is cohabitating. 
No, the community I’m talking about is a community that prefers each other. They not only live together, share meals, space, time and even their budget. This community also works together and serves together, worships and loves God together. This community doesn’t have much to distract themselves with except for maybe a book, a few minutes alone, or plugging into an ipod. The difference in this community is you can’t hide. Well, maybe for a short time, but not for long. You can’t hide behind any outfit or fashion or electronic because you don’t have any to show off. You can’t hide behind things like your intelligence, busy-ness, careers, or life experiences, street smarts, maturity, education, or self-reliance. You can’t hid behind beauty or your individualism because sooner or later the people in this community see some of your dirt. In fact, they become like mirrors to you.
Living in this community doesn’t provide a way of escape. You can’t just jump in your car and drive off to be alone for a while. You can’t easily distance yourself when there’s a conflict or disagreement or if you’ve just had enough of that person. You can’t just go home and not see them for a while and let a few days pass until you or they have a better frame of mind and you meet each other again, fresh and the past forgotten. Nope. In this community you all go home together. There’s no car to drive away in. Even if you tried you might get lost or need one other person with you anyway. This kind of community forces you to deal with things that you’d normally like to brush off, escape from, or sweep under the carpet.
This kind of community, if it’s the right kind of community- again, one that loving, prefers one another over themselves, and provides safety and grace, along with the truth, will eventually expose some of the dirt hidden inside that you maybe knew was there, but maybe not.
You quickly begin to feel exposed before them. You can’t really escape or hide, especially the parts you don’t want anyone else to see, like the fear, the insecurities, the loneliness, the feeling of inadequacy, the need for love. But then you find that once your exposed and have the freedom to be exposed and not judged, and shed light into others dirt without them raising up their walls of defense and ending their friendship because they feel offended or slighted – you realize you’re not the only one with the dirt. We all have dirt that we hide – it’s just different dirt.
But, it doesn’t have to end there. You’re not left feeling dirty and naked and exposed with all of your crap and feel like a loser. No, instead the whole reason why this community thing works and lasts is because this community loves you regardless. And you love them too, no matter what, because you’re committed to each other. You’re committed to make each other excellent. You’re committed to love each other, and give grace to each other, to speak truth into each others lives with love, to receive it and to encourage each other. You’re not there to tear each other down but to build each other up. You prefer each other. You’re quick to forgive and quick to accept. This kind of community speaks life into each other, not death. They choose to honor and listen to each other. Seems like a perfect world, I know, but it is attainable.
So maybe we’re not much different from those dirty naked African kids after all. Or maybe we should be more like them. Be more willing to open ourselves, be vulnerable with each other, let others speak in to our lives, and maybe, just maybe, we’d find healing, acceptance and the very thing we’re longing for to begin with…
Love.
