Advent 2021 Day 23

Washing dishes. 

This is how I remember Momadu. 

Washing dishes was a chore, you know. 

Unloading a dishwasher still is.

In the pre-dishwasher days at my house, mom put 'wash the dishes' on my chore list every day and I washed them, obediently albeit begrudgingly. 

Here in the pre-dishwasher days in Mali, though, Momadu washes the dishes with joy.

How can he do something as mundane as washing dishes and do it with joy? 

Perhaps it's because joy is a fruit, a fruit that takes root in the heart.

Perhaps it's because Momadu has eyes that see and ears that hear, eyes and ears of the heart.

He always wore tattered t-shirts with imprints from some churches in the Deep South that some missionaries gave him a long time ago. 

They were stretched and holey.

So was he.

Stretched and holy. 

He is a farmer trying to eek out an existence for his family and for himself on a harsh and broken land. 

He is a parson trying to love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, trying to love his neighbor as himself, trying to love his enemy.

He is my friend who would go to the ends of the earth and back again with me. (And many times we WERE at the ends of the earth among people who’d been overlooked, forgotten, and/or oppressed)

He is.

He just is.

That’s what makes him special.

That’s what makes him beautiful, ingenious, wonderful and courageous.

He is Momadu.

Once, his worn, dirty flip-flops were on the ground in front of the door of the community house at our mission station. 

How much is he like his flip-flops? 

He is worn from much serving, worn from much trying to live out the second part of the great commandment. 

To love his neighbors.

To know his neighbors.

To know everyone is his neighbor.

Everyone.

In Mali, flip-flops cost less than one U.S. Dollar. 

That doesn't seem like much money to me. 

If my flip-flops were like his flip-flops, then I would throw them away and buy a new pair. 

But one dollar can buy three days worth of vegetables to put into his families supper.

So when Momadu's flip-flop strap breaks, he repairs them and keeps wearing them until they are worn back into the dust from which they were made, from which we were all made.

In the same way, Momadu will keep on loving until hecis completely worn out. 

That will be his mark when he limps toward God.

He will limp on busted flip-flops.

And God will hold him until hie and his flip-flops are whole again.

I often wonder, "Who is a saint in our world today?”

We surely need them, don’t we?

Well, one time, my flip-flops were filthy dirty, caked in mud and tainted with cow manure. 

I took them off at the back door of our house and went inside to take a shower. 

After I dressed, I walked over to the window to watch the dusking of afternoon into evening with Robin as the sun hung on the edge of the African sky like a giant, red-ripe tomato. 

I looked at the sky.

Then I looked at the ground.

Momadu was washing my shoes. 

He was kneeling beside our water spigot as if he were in prayer and was washing my shoes with the simplest of elements, water and his hands. 

He still had mikes to go before he slept, as Robert Frost so eloquently wrote.

He washed my shoes.

And that, my friends, is the most eloquent thing I’ve ever read.

I know for sure that Momadu is not perfect, but I know equally for sure that he is a saint. 

"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the blessed community,” says the good book.

That blessed community is in good hands in Momadu's hands.