A Wee Woman from Scotland

Margaret is the widow then divorcee from Scotland who has come here to work with faculty children. Most foreign missionaries send their kids to Rift Valley Academy where they get a western education that is top-notch. RVA is three hours away on a good day. Okessons and Bonnells do not want to pack off their grade-schoolers to be brought up by strangers, no matter how competent.

And Margaret needs a new life. I think she will adjust and make this her true home.

But email woes have plagued her since she cam over a week ago. Yesterday she got through on a phone to her daughter and grandkids. What a difference even a brief ear to ear contact makes! She has secured email contact now as well and will be able to be in touch.

Since today is George Mitchell’s last day here, Margaret came to spend some time with a fellow Scot. You could tell she just wanted to hang out with her closest available link with home. Besides George and I josh with her and get laughing all around. I think she likes the male company. She says she will miss us.

All this impresses upon me how we reflect the relational imperative that goes back forever into the very nature of God. It is neither normal nor good for a person to be alone. We need fellowship with loving others. If one has no immediate family—or if the relationships are dysfunctional, great damage is done unless one can find a family of another sort. (Even gangs function as families in a sorry way.)

The philosophers I studied under at Boston University years ago were mostly of a school of philosophy that originated there, called Personalistic Idealism, or Personalism. (Now I am going to try hard not to lose you here. So stick with me.) The basic idea is that all of reality reflects the qualities found in persons. While not evangelicals, these men believed that God is the infinite Person who imbues all creation with signs of personality. The universe is more a gigantic Who than an It.

To me this is borne out in the idea of the Trinity—God is in essence a relational being. existing eternally in personal relationships. I find this essential to God being a God of love from eternity. Love is a relational word that is meaningless unless there is an object of love. So if God is a pure unity love is inexplicable. The One of eastern religions is non-relational and totally impersonal. The God of Islam is a person defined as a singularity. Thus for Allah love cannot be an eternal aspect of his being. He has no one to love until he creates personal spirits such an angels and humans.

Love requires an object. Our God is one in essence but three in persons. The object of the Father’s love is the Son and the Spirit. The object of the Son’s love is the Father and the Spirit. The object of the Spirit’s love is the Father and the Son.

That is why persons must be relational or skip down the slope toward the sub-human. Margaret will find love here among people whose first love is the Person Margaret loves most—Jesus Christ, Bwana Jesu. Margaret’s love for the parents, children and all the Scott community will reflect the love of God and be reciprocated from those who live and love here.

Wherever one goes one finds community among those who call God “Father.” This is the second greatest commandment. And it flows from the first. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Give the love you have received from God o others. The teaching is plain. “How can you say you love God whom you have never seen and not love your sister or brother?” Do you remember the praise chorus popular 20 years ago? We sang it in Spanish on our early mission trips to Latin America. “Love, love; love, love—Christian this is your song; love your neighbor as yourself, for God loves us all.”

When you come to the bottom of everything (and philosophers try to get to the bottom line), its love or nothing. Wealth, notoriety, wisdom and power—it’s all rubbish without love. And with love, not much else is required. God is love.

So I’m praying for Margaret Clark the lonely lady from Glasgow whom life has beat up. She has kids and grandkids who love her. But she needs a calling to use her gifts. She has come to Kenya to find and to give love.

I think she’ll be fine when George and I are both gone home.

And I, as you, know that existence is meaningless unless the foundation is love. And your reading this journal is a thread of love that I treasure.

God keep us all in his matchless love now and forever.

Amen!