Holy Entitlement.

I just finished reading Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga. As I was reading this book people continued to ask me what it was about and my response was, "I'm not exactly sure." It wasn't that I didn't know what was going on in the book I just didn't know how to explain the complexity of it.

Sometimes it is better to get the whole picture before you start scrutinizing over the details. The whole story is centered on a main character who is burdened by being and African female in the early 1960's. Tambu is this main character's name and she is first introduced as a little girl wanting to attend school. While I didn't think that wanting to attend school could be the basis of an actual novel I soon realized that wanting to go to school was the greatest aspiration and accomplishment for Tambu, or any African women.

While many people would assume that someone who was not very educated would not be very astute or observant however, it is not the case with this little girl. Tambu is extremely observant and reflective about what goes on around her.

A certain myriad of events happen that land her at the mission for what she always dreamed to do, school. While she is on her way there, with her beloved and generous uncle, she thinks through something that seems to be literal in her experience, but i think it is metaphorically universal.

"But the real situation was not so simple. Although I was vague at the time and could not have described my circumstances so aptly, the real situation was this: Babamukuru was God, therefore I had arrived in Heaven. I was in danger of becoming an angel, or at the very least a saint, and forgetting how ordinary humans existed- from minute to minute and from hand to mouth. The absence of dirt was proof of the other-worldly nature of my new home. I knew, had known all my life, that living was dirty and I had been disappointed by the fact." (pg. 70)

Babamukuru was the head master at the mission and also was her uncle. He was the wealthiest elder in her family and was the main provider for his sister's and brothers. To be in his house was to be in the wealthiest home that could be perceived by Tambu. But, she has a good point. She knows that being in such a nice and wealthy place could leaver her believing that she was entitled to be clean and wealthy. This entitlement was a mind set that she knew could have trapped her in feeling elite. Feeling like she was better then those who worked on the farm without education. She wanted to feel clean. But, she knew that she was not entitled to feel clean.

Tambu was afraid of the entitlement of being clean. This was an opportunity, an act of grace and if she couldn't understand that she knew she would lose her understanding of humanity.

When I started thinking through this idea I realized that I feel just as entitled because of my potential position in the church. I feel entitled to be clean and to forget the dirt that I experience every day as a human being living in this world. While, Tambu experienced dirt on a physical level I experience on a metaphorical level.

Dirt is not better or worse than clean, because dirt is what we all experience. We are all have dirt and in my thinking, metaphorically we all have an opportunity to get clean.

I am not equating dirt with sin, although it does happen, I am equating dirt with the human body. With the human reaction and with the human limitation that we all feel.

Here's the deal. I believe that Jesus was clean and dirty. He was clean because he knew and acted on the proper way to treat humanity. He was clean because he was divine. But, he was dirty because he was physically limited. I know that he could do miracles but that was because he was divine. He was killed which means he was also physical.

Jesus didn't need to feel the entitlement of being clean because he was just clean just like he was dirty. We are not entitled to be clean but we are given the opportunity to get clean, without forgetting that we also need to be dirty.