June 22, 2009 – Evening
Park ministry doesn’t get me excited beyond reason. Truthfully, I’m not sure I’m good at anything we’ve done so far on my own. This whole idea of serving as a missionary has to be from God, because my idea of what is right for me involves a computer screen and an occasional phone call. No time spent in the presence of a real, live person.
We’re trying out a new park tonight, on the recommendation of Jeff and Debbi (the missionaries our team is working with this week) – Levagood Park. They seem to think we might be able to strike up some good conversations with people.
But something in the air doesn’t feel right almost as soon as we climb out of the Shark and the girls and guys go their separate ways. Annie, Alissa, and I strike out. First the mom who is only concerned with making sure her kids don’t get hit by the rocks being showered over everyone by two little girls whose parents are nowhere to be seen. She sticks around long enough to have us assure her that we’ll keep an eye of them and agree with her that it is bad parenting to just let a kid loose in the park without keeping an eye on them. Second, Alissa and I start walking the track with a mother and daughter who have to leave shortly after we join them. Third, Annie strikes out with a couple of young Yemeni women – they don’t speak much English, and getting past the most basic information takes at least ten or fifteen minutes. Not to mention that their limited conversation revolves around trying to figure out what Annie is saying.
We meet back up with the guys, have had about the same amount of success as we have. By matter of consensus, the decision is made to go back to the team’s standby… Hemlock. Levagood apparently wasn’t as good as we thought it would be.
On the way to Hemlock, we talk about what happened, about the atmosphere… you know, process it. Pictures flash in my head. The mom who didn’t talk anymore once she knew someone was putting a stop to the rock throwing – she and her family were at the park for picnic, but not with anyone else. And they didn’t greet anyone who may have known them as they walked by. The mother and daughter were polite, but quick to leave. And in all of Annie’s attempts at conversation, it found its way to two things. Nice husbands and pretty skirts. If I took away the traditional garb these women were wearing and put them in clothes like I wear at home, the scene at Levagood would be little different than at Cesar Chavez Park back home (minus the garbage floating around in the otherwise picturesque lake in the middle). It’s all so… Americanized. Americanized Muslims.
I don’t know how I feel about that. Maybe it’s a generalization, but Americans (myself included) has this tendency towards independence… towards staying out of other people’s way. Live and let live, right? Out of that seems to have come a generation who doesn’t worry about the people living next door unless something happens to their neighbors. A generation that spends more time generating and cultivating relationships through keyboard strokes and a few clicks of a mouse. Don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way – some of the closest relationships in my life have been the result of a keyboard strokes and mouse clicks – but there isn’t a lot about us that screams the one thing Muslims who aren’t Americanized yet seem to have that we don’t.
Community.
A community that doesn’t shy away from strangers. A community that is upfront with what they believe, and will hear you out (although not without some debate) when you share yours. It’s not perfect, but at least it exists.
And for all the things too many to list that I am grateful for about being an American in my generation, my heart longs for this thing that is so far beyond my experience. It desires a community that takes in the good, the bad, the ugly, and everything else that comes with it… because it knows isolation is not the road to healing. Neither is silence – an instinct in my heart which is beginning to fade (which gives me hope that I won’t let myself be silent anymore). I see glimpses of community here in Dearborn, in the interactions between the Yemeni women I started falling in love with last year. And I see glimpses when I read the testimonies of my World Race squad mates, whose honesty and humility in their confessions and grace and love in their responses to others hint at what is to come at Training Camp and on the Race.
For me, it’s like standing in my back yard in the summer, watching a wall of dust stretching from the ground to the crowds. Warm winds blow tiny grains of dirt into my eyes, but I can’t close them. The wind is relief from the scorching sun. And the wall of dust rushing towards me isn’t a thing of beauty… but coming right behind is rain that will cool things down and clear the air. The wall of dust is the hope of cleansing and renewal, and the rain is the fulfillment of that promise. The winds will be strong and fierce, and the rain will pour, but after the storm has passed, I will step outside, and the skies will be clear. All the smells of civilization will be gone, and the sharp tang of wet earth mixed with that other impossible to define element will remind me of how God brings us through the storm no matter what.
Maybe I’m expecting too much out of this thing called community, but even if that expectation turns out to be too great I still will open myself up to it. It’s going to hurt, but God didn’t mean for me to take this journey alone…. and I have to learn to trust God placing me within whatever community I am in. Otherwise, I become a weakened vessel, unable to be everything I was meant to be.
