elephants and sacraments

Sneaking into the back of a darkened room, I didn't belong. I was late, my phone refused to work, unfamiliar faces surrounded me. I lumbered and glowed like a white elephant.

Up at the front and from the overhead screens, someone with kind eyes spoke of how we become  so blinded by the things we have trained ourselves to ignore, we speak nothing but mischief and deceit. The habits we don’t surrender or confess grow into things which grow fat and useless, suck the air from our homes, our loves, our souls. 

And we deny this thing we feed takes anything from us.

In our arrogance, we deny our elephants.

Driving along darkened city streets with a friend later that week, elephants wandered into the conversation. “The problem with humans is we’re creatures of habit,” he said. “We do what’s familiar because it’s familiar.” 

"We choose to not choose to do something different," he continued, "until we don’t realize we could do anything different. And we wonder why so much of the world’s crazy."

It made me think back to that dark room where I felt tusked and pale. The kind-eyed person said sacraments pry pachyderms from our private spaces. Being vulnerable, confessing imperfection and lesser-ness makes us weigh less, opens our eyes.

I like that thought. It makes me think of having my feet washed by strangers.


There's a story Bob Goff tells. He's the consulate for Uganda, and was the first person to ever successfully have a witch doctor convicted. Every year or so, he invites all the witch doctors in the country to meet him, then tells them they have to stop killing and maiming kids.

He says if they don't, he'll go after them. And will not stop.

Then he kneels before them and washes their feet.

It's a powerful, powerful thing to experience, even as a white-looking chick who gets semi-regular pedicures. Sitting there, while time becomes hushed and reverent. Sounds mute, air filling with intimacy so thick it smells of incense.

And you may not feel dirty before. But somewhere between this now-friend-then-was-stranger of yours undoing and removing your shoes, resting your feet on a towel, things clung to slip, walls wisp away.

Even if it's just a slow, intentional rinse and dry, it feels like love. Free, unexpected; simply offered, given. It reads as lavish because somehow we all think there should be a price for the experience.

But.. There's just not. It's just water, and a towel. And.. an unexpected glimpse of something fuller. In that moment, glimpses of the other shimmer. It's like you see where life began. Where elephants roam free.