Imagine
The year was 1839; the man’s name was Sengbe Pieh (better known in the USA as Joseph Cinque); the ship was the Amistad. It took two years. In 1841 the Supreme Court ruled that Sengbe Pieh and his fellow Mende had been brought illegally into the United States as slaves and ruled that these men, were not slaves but free men and were to be returned to their homeland at the expense of the United States government. It was a decisive and pivotal moment in the history of slavery in the United States.
That homeland is what we know today as Sierra Leone. I am sitting writing this piece in the tribal lands of the Mende with an acute awareness of the debt owed to the people of Sierra Leone for positively shaping the history of the United States. Now, on my fourth visit to Sierra Leone, I have many friends among the Mende people and have been given the name Kinnie Tikonko (man of Tikonko).
Yet this is a forgotten nation. Too many have pushed aside Sierra Leone and other developing African nations. We don’t want to see. We don’t want to imagine.
When we say, “I can’t imagine what it’s like.” I don’t think we’re telling the truth. We can imagine. Imagination is part of the God given creative process that we as humanity have been gifted with. Some things are just too uncomfortable to imagine, so we choose not to. We are afraid, because we know intuitively that if we allow ourselves to imagine deeply it will drive us out of our comfort zone and push us to change how we live.
We can all imagine and dream of a better job, a bigger house, a nicer car. Yes, it’s not hard to imagine those things that could elevate our prestige and position in society. That’s easy.
I don’t have to imagine what malnutrition looks like. I’ve seen it firsthand. I don’t have to imagine the distribution of cases of plumpy nut, it’s right here in front of my eyes.
I’ve sat with women who are afraid to cross the swollen river Sewa during the rainy season to reach the health centre where they could safely give birth and instead choose to risk childbirth at home. Yesterday I heard one person speak of a woman in their village who drowned trying to make the crossing.
I’ve sat with people living on less than a dollar a day and heard their cries for help.
To close your eyes and imagine can feel overwhelming. It is, I’m here and I’m overwhelmed by the needs I see, the ones I don’t have to imagine. When I close my eyes and imagine, I weep.
I am not a development expert. I am a pastor, someone who loves people, all people. For all people matter to God. But we are good at diminishing the humanity of others. As Prince Harry has reportedly written in his memoir, “You can’t kill people if you see them as people. In truth you can’t hurt people if you see them as people. … They trained me to ‘other’ them and they trained me well.” To some extent we have all been trained and conditioned to “other” some people, to dehumanize them, to view them as less worthy and deserving.
I invite you to close your eyes and imagine. Imagine being pregnant and not having access to health care unless you’re willing to risk your life to get it. Imagine being a husband watching your wife die in childbirth because she can’t get the care she needs. Do you risk the river crossing? Imagine being a mother watching your child suffer from malnutrition.
Dare to imagine, dare to dream these dreams. Dare to allow them to shape how you choose to live.
