A Theme Song

"The music of goodbye again..." Out of Africa Theme Song

I sit thirty-five thousand feet above terra firma. The odd shaped portal to view the world from is quite familiar to me. Not quite large enough for a grand view - but one sized to remind me I am looking out at a bigger picture, one I often don't understand as I leave one place to head for the next.

I struggle.

My eyes fight back the tears, and the napkin that accompanied my airline meal serves to stifle the cries that long to escape. Erupting into a primal roar of grief would hardly be appropriate on a 747.

And so...

I kept my face turned toward the view, the vastness of the horizon, the clouds held by nothingness, the shrunken landscape, the issues and problems now dwarfed by my departure.

Leaving... my thoughts return to the unrequited love a Karin Blixen (Out of Africa) and the plaintiff theme song written for her life's experience in Kenya for the move: "The Music of Goodbye Again".

My life is filled with great joy, kingdom rewards, His strength when I am weak, but thousands of goodbyes. I confess they take their toll.

"Faith is the thing hoped for, as yet unseen."

While I carry on, from faith to faith knowing the hundreds of thousands of hellos that are promised one day - it is still hard.

There is something in goodbye - again... that express a position of movement. I am here for a time and then I go. The friendships formed, the uniting as a body of Christ working toward a common goal, I understand better the prayer of Christ in John 17:

"Make them one as We are One."

To enter into the suffering of the world, to see first hand, to be the voice of those living in the "wilderness" of circumstance is daunting. the responsibility is not taken lightly.