I thought I had many good and noble reasons for wanting to spend 9 years of my life in Africa.

I wanted to make a difference in the world, I wanted to understand how the rest of the world lived, and I wanted to find ways to be peace in the world and to lessen violence that caused hunger and poverty. I wanted to empower the disadvantaged, I wanted to find ways to feed people and encourage health. I wanted to broaden my understanding of ministry and find ways outside of the church walls to be the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. Noble reasons that quickly changed when face to face with the reality of life in Africa.

Every day I was confronted with decisions that made me question my presence there. I wondered if what I did was a good thing for the community, or whether my presence created unhealthy dependencies or suggested simple fixes to complex problems. There were times when I felt more cared for by the people I came to care for and my presence often created a burden in the middle of a war zone where my African friends felt responsible to protect me. I quickly realized that I wasn’t the one with all the answers in Africa. Most of the Africans I met had the answers already and they knew better than I how to live in the world in which they were born. More often than not, my presence changed how the Africans dealt with their problems. Most of the time I went to sleep at night knowing that for the work I did in Africa, the margin between doing good and doing harm was mighty thin.

In the middle of Africa, I read a paper on ambiguity written by J. Lawrence Burkholder. The motivation for his article was the US military peace keeping forces intervention in the civil war in Somalia in 1992-1993. Opposition to military intervention for pacifist reasons in that situation could have meant thousands of innocent families would die of starvation and civil disorder. While military intervention can at times make sense, it is never simple. Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Libya all prove it is difficult to measure the known present with an unknown future or to know how much intervention can harm future national or international relations.

Burkholder wrote: “Ambiguity is good and evil intertwined. In the field of ethics, an ambiguous situation is one that offers no clear, clean alternatives. Each alternative may help some but hurt others. Or one valid principle is sacrificed for another valid principle.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about ambiguity these days.

To the core of my soul I believe in the priesthood of all believers. It is important to me that I am released for ministry and not “hired”. For over 350 years Quakers understood hireling ministry could be dangerous and spent many years nurturing worship based on being together to listen to God and experience God’s presence and inner light without a preacher. A wonderful, good thing like this proved to be ambiguous in nature and for reasons I don’t have space here to articulate, some among the Society of Friends began to “hire” pastors.

I struggle with the ambiguity of pastoring. There is great peril in this vocation as well as great good. My husband and I learned from our work with refugees in Africa that the most important thing we could do was to communicate our willingness to do everything we could WITH them and nothing FOR them. That has continued to be our philosophy for ministry. But it is difficult in a world where everyone is too busy and people are stretched beyond their limits. Families are bombarded with financial concerns, technology overload, and cultural shifts that discourage sacrifice, community, worship and lifestyles modeled after Jesus. With the many needs confronting my faith community, I admit I often violate my philosophy of ministry these days. Being released gives me the opportunity to jump in when and where I am needed. There are times I do it without waiting on God’s leading. Even with good motives for making decisions about how I spend my days here in Winchester, Indiana, I find each night when I go to sleep the margin between doing good and doing harm is very thin.

For the last two months I’ve been involved in the local food pantry. It is a good thing and I am learning a lot. The pantry’s gone from 4 volunteers to 40 volunteers who provide supplemental food for around 750 people per month. This is a good thing. 40 more people to care about the ministry of the pantry, 40 more people who have face to face time with those in need in our community, and 40 more people who invest their time and energy in something that changes the community.

One day, one of the volunteers asked if I thought that all the people using the pantry really needed it or if some feel it is just another “entitlement”. It was a good question and one I’ve pondered for many weeks now. Just like my presence in Africa was ambiguous, the ministry of food pantries can be ambiguous too. I wonder if giving food to some allow the continuation of harmful habits of smoking and drinking and shift the responsibility of providing food for their children. I wonder if giving food to some contributes to unhealthy eating or obesity problems, or allows some to continue the mismanagement of financial resources. Are food pantries creating unhealthy dependencies? I wonder if the supplemental food provided really makes a difference or do they leave unsatisfied and resentful that they didn’t get more or that they even had to use the pantry in the first place. This defeats the purpose of those who so generously give to keep the pantry full and open.

And then there is the family that comes in who just got laid off, unemployment hasn’t started yet and they didn’t have any idea how they were going to make ends meet much less feed their children. They show up at the food pantry and are overwhelmed by the generosity of strangers to help them through a difficult time. Or the single 89 year old woman whose Social Security did not cover the car repair she needed and she had no other place to go to get help to get food for the month. Their joy and gratitude for the food helps me know the pantry does meet some needs in the community.

I spend a lot of time and emotional energy questioning what I do every day, both at the church and the pantry. Some days it feels like 51% of my time and energy makes a difference and then there are those days when I know 51% of my time and energy did more harm. It is a difficult thing living with ambiguity. It is a difficult thing always wondering if what I do each day does good or does harm. It is a difficult thing to always be questioning, but I believe living with the question is the best thing about ambiguity. It is good to always question my motives, to always question things that seem so good yet can do great harm. It is good to live on the edge, to know that the margin between good and harm is thin enough that I can’t assume good motivations are enough. I’m learning it is much more important to spend as much time and energy as possible seeking God’s leading in what I do each and every day.

That will help more than anything else to tip the scales each night in favor of doing good in the world.