“For so much I think, little I know. Pull off my armor, knees bruised and naked… peel back my skin, call out my name. Vessel of brightness, come make me blind. This present darkness, swallowed by light…” – Julien Baker
It’s been quite some time now, and I haven’t known what to say. I wanted to write a final blog only days after being home, but I thought that wouldn’t capture it exactly. There are adjustments I’m still making even now, 5 months after being home.
I guess I’ll start at my initial thoughts on this subject- home becomes a glamorized reality when you’re away. You think and dream of your home, your room, your bed, your clothes. You see your family and friends in your memory, at the kitchen table, on the living room couch, in your car… you think to yourself, why did I ever leave that behind? I can’t wait to go back.
And then you do. And for the first week or so, those things really are that good. Your bed somehow feels better. Driving a car with your own music (and air conditioning) on well paved roads is incredible.
Some things are a little shocking, as well. I remember going to my mom’s kitchen for a snack, and opening the fridge just to find it was FULLY stocked. I remember gasping and staring at all the contents of the fridge, the door wide open. Ordering food in English was something in itself. Using American money, having all the foods you missed were really that great as you imagined. But the things is, it fades very quickly.
Home is just that: home. And nothing else.
Not this beautiful, angelic, perfect kingdom you had imagined. Things are just as you remembered it- but it honestly isn’t that great. Family is different, your baby brother is a man now and in college, your Grandmother can no longer speak and is being put into a home. Your dog has gotten older with another year of life and is getting frail.
Friends don’t ask you about your trip- nor do they really care. People ask you one or two questions, then move on and never mention it again. And it’s not their fault, I mean, what do you ask? How could they possibly even begin to understand if they did ask? They don’t and never will. So you just leave it at that.
You begin to see people in their busy lives- commuting to work, taking their kids to the park, going on dates, making important phone calls, the hustle and bustle, and you fall back into it. You soon start to simply… forget. It was all a dream.
Then things bubble under the surface. You hear people complain about traffic, or getting their coffee order wrong. In fact… you hear a lot more complaining, much more than you’d like to.
You get in the car, and the drive is 20 minutes to your destination and your friend talks about how long that drive is. But you remember the 24 hour bus rides in the Nepali mountains, people getting sick, crammed full on a hot summer day. You remember the travel days to Africa and South America. How you would wake up to the end of a flight, not knowing what day it was, and knowing you had a 16 hour flight ahead of you. 20 minutes is a blip in time. Nothing at all.
During Christmastime, you sit back and watch commercials for expensive electronics, all the newest gifts and toys for children, and you remember how children abroad used old tired, wire, and trash pits to go looking for fun. How they drank water from the mountain creek in old, battered clothes, and didn’t have a toy to their name. Some of them didn’t even have shoes.
I think of the hungry mothers trying to feed their children. I think of the teenagers locked away in dirty jail cells for drug use. I think of the sick, starving children bringing their bowls to our care point for a bowl of rice and beans. I think of the tiny girl who walked miles alone, with her bowl in hand. I think of the people of Mojos, a people the majority of the world doesn’t even know exist, that we had to hike 32 miles through the jungle to reach. We have it so good, you guys, and we don’t even know it.
And all of a sudden, you start to get really angry and feel very, very isolated. And time just drags on. You want to scream in people’s faces that we’re living in this giant, beautiful bubble. If I told them the things I saw in my dreams, if I told them the stories of those abroad, of the friends I’ve met, of the God I’ve seen, would they listen? Or would they just happily sit in their bubble?
And that’s the thing. Most people are perfectly happy in their bubble. Most people don’t want to hear it from me, or anyone. And say it’s time for me to stop going on “vacation” and “get a real job”. That somehow, my trip to them was just a detour, but now I have to fill some society demand to be a working class citizen and college graduate to make them feel better. And that unsettles me, making me want to scream and rip my hair out.
Maybe they wish I would “wake up” and join the social norm, but the thing is, I’ve been awake for quite some time now. Perhaps it’s them who are asleep. I hope to live a life that God would be proud of me for, that possibly my life could awaken those who are asleep, falling into the social norms and patterns of comfortable American life. Not to say those things are wrong, and bad- it’s just what we know. It’s what I’ve known.
What would be the point of going back to my old habits? Because it feels good to know something familiar? My life is my own now, and I know I didn’t sit back and settle for it.
I worked for the person I am now and for the knowledge I have received. I walked with God through humble forgiveness and threw away the broken person I was before. And if I were to turn around, and go back, that would be wrong. That would be a waste.
And I pray that for you, too. You who are reading this, and take time to read any of our blogs. Thank you SO much for being a part of this life-long journey, for donating, and for reading. Because you, too, are curious…
Ephesians 5:14 “For the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, ‘Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.'”
Sleep feels good, and comfortable. But God didn’t intend life to be like that for us. Was Jesus’ life good, steady, and comfortable? How about Saul? David? Ruth?
Awake, O sleeper…
