Rubanga? Eidtor's Note

(This note was supposed to be included in Rubanga? but somehow got deleted in the final draft. Here it is, in its entirety.)

“Rubanga” is a word from the Acholi language of northern Uganda. The most common of its two meanings is “God;” the word that the many Christians of Acholiland use to address the Most High. The other meaning is “hunchback” – the same word wafted to heaven in the incense of prayer is placed like a crown (of thorny irony?) upon the tilted heads of those with scoliosis or growths on their backs.

The title of this journal – “Rubanga?” – is a question that draws its breath from that paradox of the Acholi language, and when it speaks asks the voiceless questions of humanity – those questions that art was created to pursue. But maybe not to answer.

I have been a seeker of answers, my rationality curbed only by a rational understanding of rationality’s limits. And in my quest I have heard them, read them, repeated them – answers to questions that have always been asked, answers that claim for themselves triumph over the most gravitational uncertainties in history. Thus far I have found the answers lacking.

The questions – ah, there are the wonders. The great questions are doors to worlds in which the bravest and most fascinated men have walked, climbed, left their hieroglyphics on the walls. Many of the answers I have learned seem like locks, little shiny padlocks on those doors. Locks locked because behind those doors are mountains of paradox and seas of confusion. Locked because the worlds found through the questions are epic, and explored only with great effort and at great cost. Locked because if the door opens we are compelled to explore.

For me the question “Rubanga?” is such a door, and this journal is part of the exploration. I invite you to join me, not in searching for answers, but in exploring a world or questions.

James A. Pearson
Editor of Various Miscellany