Irrational

Tonight, I'm struggling with my demons, the demons of my mind, my spirit and my heart. The ones that  start the tear ducts flowing in the darkness. My dad and I were exchanging emails about my present frustrations with the academia I've encountered in my Old Testament course. I was crying out against the formality of analysis and the loss of the beautiful poetry and symbolism of prophecy and poetry. My dad in his wisdom and by the Spirit's transcending grace, sent me this, attributed to Jean-Marc Ela, a Cameroonian Catholic priest:

"If Christianity wants to reach Africans, to speak to their hearts, and to enter their consciousness and the space where their soul breathes, it must change.  To do so, Christianity must do violence to itself and break the chains of Western rationality, which means almost nothing in the African civilization of the symbol....  The whole Scholastic and academic pedagogy of the West penalizes symbolism and ridicules symbolic thought.  The collision of the gospel with the African world compels the church to restore to symbols their place and value in the encounter of humanity with God.  After all, that encounter takes places through Christ who is the primordial sacrament – the manifestation of the Invisible One in the visible, the irruption of God into the perceived world, the domain of all that can be felt, heard or touched (I John 1:1-3)."  

I've read this about 10 times now. I lose myself in his language, his truth. How is this connected to my demons tonight? Ever since I've been back, I've had the equivalent of a spiritual allergic reaction to Western expressions of faith. Perhaps I see myself as more African than I actually am, but I've tried over and over to adapt to some semblance of being Canadian, and that's just not happening. I find myself blurting out shocking statements in my head whenever I enter a discussion or classroom. I can't tell if it's some kind of weird coping mechanism, but it's the most alienating thing I've ever experienced. 

I'm in a Lamentations kind of mood, though I lack the poetic edge. My mind, my heart is lost. More than anything, I need someone to meet me here in this place and hold my hand. And before voicing this prayer, I know it's been answered because of something Jeremiah (or whoever) has already said, "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."(Lamentations 2). So, I say thank you for strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.