Land of the Weary

I almost died today. Twice. This is no hyperbole. We expats have a semi-serious joke that your life is threatened at least once a day. This time the semi stayed home and the serious took on a whole momentum. I know how much my weary and pregnant mother loves to read these stories so for the sake of the baby, I'll skip the gory details and give the PG version.

In short, when our ride to the wadi awoke ill and sickly, we decided to just taxi out there. This is nothing terribly unusual. As it turns out, if you party all night and try to drive a car the next morning, there is a good chance you may fall asleep at the wheel. However, when your passengers remain astute they may save your life, as was the case in our taxi this morning.

The other is also vehicle involved but slightly less dramatic. Acute awareness again architectured my evasion.

These are the daily nuisances the pyramid into the volcanic eruptions of anger and irritation. When I first arrived in this beautiful country, I wondered why so many of the expats had such a road rage, even when they were simply walking. Now, after a few months of attempted assassinations on my life, I begin to empathize with this great weariness.

They are not the only ones weary. One ride on the metro railway will serve as testimony enough to the ragged lives of the average Johammed Egyptian. I do not know how people can survive the way they do in this culture. Some don't. But perhaps there are those who might say the same of my homeland. How do we survive under such pressure and piggishness? (That's a fun word)

All in all, I've come to the conclusion and realization that this is not my home. I'm not talking about Egypt. I'm talking about earth. My most recent mentors have been St. Augustine, George Herbert, and Thomas Merton. Listen to their words:

"Our nature makes us wish for rest, that is to say, an increase in being." - St. Augustine

"But keep them with repining restlessness;
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast." - excerpt from The Pulley by George Herbert

"[...]for thou has made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee."
- St. Augustine

and perhaps the answer to it all...

"We look for rest and if we find it, it becomes intolerable. Incapable of the divine activity which alone can satisfy [rest]... fallen man flings himself upon exterior things, not so much for their own sake as for the sake of agitation which keeps his spirit pleasantly numb... [The distraction] diverts us aside from the one thing that can help us to begin our ascent to truth... the sense of our own emptiness." - Thomas Merton as quoted from The Ascent to Truth in John Eldredge's The Sacred Romance

I'm tired. Time to sleep.