The best thing about December in Africa is the simplicity that surrounds Christmas here.  The entire holiday comes in a stripped back form and there is poignancy to themessage that remains. A baby was born.  No frills.

To be honest, though, it’s the simplicity that’s driving me crazy today.  As I write, we are a few short days from Christmas Eve and I am frustrated by our lack of a tree. Over the course of many Christmases in Africa, we’ve had some lovely trees. Most of them were thorn trees. Decorated, I always liked the symbolism of beauty surrounded by sharp thorns.  In the tree I could see the span of Christ’s life.  A beautiful gift that cost God dearly—that’s the message of this season.

But these days we live in a city and we can’t just walk out and find a sweet little tree to cut and bring home.

When you think about it, saying "Thank you," is one of the first manners we encourage small children to adopt. This simple practice of remembering to thank the people around us is so basic to positive human interactions that, when absent, it is a glaring rudeness that paints the withholding party as arrogant.

Somewhere along the line, then, we've learned that gratitude for services rendered or a job well done is an appropriate and meaningful human to human response in life.

But what about thankfulness as a spiritual practice and a way of life?

In Psalm 50, the poet is speaking for God when he says--

"I don't need bulls from your farms or goats from your herds. All the animals in the forest are mine and the cattle on thousands of hills. All the wild birds are mine and all living thingsin the land... Let the GIVING OF THANKS be your sacrifice to God..."

When Tiny Tim (as played by Kermit the Frog) begins to sing at the end of the Muppets' version of A Christmas Carol, I have to be honest and just admit that I cry.

"God bless us all," he sings, "... who gather here, the loving family we hold dear. No place on earth compares with home and every path will lead us back from where we roam."

That Kermit. He wrecks me!

Having moved multiple times in and between six countries and three continents, I am an accidental expert in the emotional travails of separation and loss, boxes and crates, dismantling home and recreating it once again. The drama of moving has it's own set of pains and joys, my considerable experience of which are a byproduct of the adventures I've found.

Now, there is a certain range of hills that run along the southern border of Kenya named, quite simply, Loita. (That's "loi" as in loiter, not lo-ee-tah.) Byron and I lived there for 10 years and, given that I've never remained in any other spot for that long, I often wonder if anywhere will ever feel like home the way Loita did... and does.

We drive across the East African plains and wonder at the moonscape they have become.  Along the roadside, the trees stand brittle and covered in a heavy coat of dust.  The faces of the little shacks along the way are the same.  Fine, powdery dust has lifted easily in the dry wind and painted everything a lifeless brown.  The monotony of color is strange and disturbing.

Even from my desk by the window in my bedroom at our house set in a watered garden, I can see the dust.  Carried on the tired wind, it billows against Mt. Meru, the quiet volcanic mountain that our city sprawls at the base of.  Instead of misty blankets of moisture, Meru is shrouded in a gritty cloud of dust. Though I don't see it coming through my window, I feel the build up on my keyboard and stop to wipe it often.

"Africa needs long-term, well-educated and highly committed help."   Read on...

Anyone up for trash detail?  Just wondering if any sending organizations in the West would like to gather folks for that…

Joking aside,  Africa needs long-term, well-educated and highly committed help.  Africa needs people with degrees that give them credibility in the areas of sustainable development, waste management, recycling (on a major scale), reforestation, sustainable agriculture etc etc etc.

As you may know, one of the biggest problems African nations are facing or, rather, not facing, is waste management.  Plastic bags cover the ground everywhere I go.

It’s 2009 and we’re all wired.  A lot of people are terrifically proud of how connected they are 24 hours a day.  Call me old fashioned but I’ve decided to put a bit of brake on the fast lane of electronic life.  Read on and let me know if any of this strikes a chord with you…

Having just returned from 3 weeks without Internet, I find myself tiptoeing back into cyberspace rather reluctantly.  I’m incredibly blessed that my life and work here in East Africa takes me into places that are beyond the reach of the electronic world.  I’m also blessed that here at my desk in the city of Arusha, I generally do have access, when I need it.  (More or less!)

But do I want it? That’s my question as I gingerly open my inbox, my blog, my facebook and my twittering.

At the end of this month I have to DHL a manuscript to a publisher in the UK.  The book is a small collection of essays I've written on ways we connect with God and how those connections impact our relationship with him.  I'm not gonna lie, I'm excited and nervous about this endeavor.  I don't really know how to feel about publishing my first book.  Good, I think...

The essays hit on fairly standard images of God.  All except one, that is.  Essay #2, right after the essay on "God as Father," takes a look at the idea of "God as Mother."  And here's the thing: I really struggled with some anger as I wrote this essay.  What is it about considering feminine images of God that got me to riled up?  Well, let me tell you.  It wasn't the beautiful feminine images of God in the Bible that were ticking me off.  What was making me mad was the way I felt compelled to defend these images as being female, biblical, valid and useful.

In the endless troubling issues of today's world, do we believe that our creative God has ideas that we can tap into to bring hope?  I believe he is overflowing with creativity that he would love to share with us... 

It was just that I wanted a fruit dryer.  We’ve dried fruit in several different ways here in Africa but I’ve never been very happy with any of the methods we’ve employed.

I just wanted to dry some mangos and bananas, you know?

My husband was in the States so I ordered one for him to bring back to me.  This snappy little machine was cool and efficient and fairly green to boot. I was starting to get excited. I do love tasty slices of dry mango.

It was on the plane returning to Africa that God interrupted my husband’s thoughts.

Last night I sat in a Chinese restaurant in East Africa with a group of Californians while cable television beamed Michael Jackson's memorial service above us as we ate our Szechuan Beef.  The Tanzanian waiters were attentive, though their real focus was on the screen.  We munched our Spring Rolls as I pondered it all...

The memorial service and the entire giant "event" of Jackson's passing, felt both very close and very far.  I return to LA every 2 years and I just drove past the Staples Center less than 3 weeks ago on my way to LAX for my flight back to Africa.   I can easily imagine the buzzing helicopters overhead, the snarled freeway nightmare of traffic, the way all else seems to be on hold until LA decides to move on again.

But our group of 12 at the table was out for dinner after a day of prep for some days in the wilderness. Byron, my husband, is leading them today into a remote area of Maasai-land  on a reconnaissance trip, if you will, to visit different projects we are involved in.  The team is on a journey of discovery regarding how they might build involvement in Africa.

OK, I can't take it any more.  I know everyone else has already been commenting on the overly obsessed fascination the U.S. media is showing toward all things MJ right now, but when my friends on Twitter started talking about it today, I decided I had to add my voice.

My Twitter pals pointed out that while CNN's headlines were about Michael Jackson's will, BBC had been headlining the huge new U.S. offensive in Afghanistan.  (CNN has caught up now, BTW.)

Well, I'm in Africa and Africa IS sad to lose her (sort of related) superstar son.   But even from here the celebrity crazed, self-absorbed U.S. culture, as reflected by her media, looks garish and pretty shocking.

How is the rest of the world supposed to believe that we, (for I am after all an American,) are intelligent, caring people when we're all wrapped up in the will of a dead man while 4,000 of our Marines launch into the biggest offensive against the Taliban that we've seen for many months?