I’m back!
Home seems to be the hardest part.
A year ago, I was leaving behind a broken and jagged hole. After 320 days of growth and change, I hit American soil as a new person. I stepped out of a journey where a day could feel like a lifetime, and into one moving a mile-a-minute. People to see, things to do, plans to make. Keeping up was not easy. I felt like a triangle shaped peg trying to fit back into that broken, jagged hole I had left behind, and it felt like everything around me was expecting that to happen and work out. Home didn’t feel like home anymore. I was left trying to balance people’s expectations, adjusting to a totally different life, and preparing for what’s next. The thing is, I don’t know how to juggle.
So naturally, I dropped some things. Words, and actions, and reactions that I never wanted to happen. It wasn’t long before I started asking myself, “Did the World Race really happen? Did I really change at all? Am I just the same as when I left?” While the answers to those questions are obvious, it felt like this new environment expected the wrong answers. I felt small, insignificant, and incapable, and I really, really wanted to blame America for all of this. I wanted to sit around and point out all the flaws to avoid recognizing that I’m still full of them too. I wanted to pass the buck and blame some larger establishment instead of taking responsibility for my own attitude and actions. I think it’s something we all do, or rather, we know it’s something we all do.
I had forgotten my own advice to stop looking at problems within the world and people, and put my focus on God. I wanted to teach people all that I had learned and inform them about this better way of life that I’ve seen. I wanted to talk about wisdom and belief and purpose. In that excitement I forgot the most important thing: Loving God, and loving people. I expected to come home to a bunch of people who wanted to hear all about my year, but I forgot that they’ve been living life too. God reminded me of one of the first blogs I ever wrote when I said, “It’s not about me,” and it provided a pretty refreshing perspective. I’m not responsible for changing the things I see wrong with America, or the church, or my neighbor, I’m just responsible for loving them all despite it.
It helps to remember that I’m no different than anyone else. Yes I’ve experienced different things, and grown, and changed, but I’m still messy. It’s amazing how quick I am to forget that because of how amazing God is. His grace covers our flaws so freely that sometimes, we forget that we ever had them. I’ve been learning lately, that one of the best things in life is when we are forced to say, “I was wrong.” I’m wrong a lot, and it feels good to acknowledge that, and own it, and learn from it instead of holding on to the pride of being correct.
In America, it feels like every time a white man opens his mouth, my own credibility is lost. I think that all of us could benefit from saying “I was wrong, and I am wrong,” acknowledging that we all play a part in the brokenness of the way things are, and then falling silent while we take time to listen instead of speaking so much.
I think women know the most about being a woman, I think black Americans know the most about being black in America, I think immigrants know the most about being immigrants, I think refugees know the most about being refugees, I think gay people know the most about what it’s like to be gay, I think addicts know the most about addiction, I think poor people know the most about poverty, I think people struggling with mental illness know the most about struggling with mental illness, I think hurting people know the most about pain.
Instead of trying to have an opinion about all of these things, I’d rather invite all of those people to my house for dinner, games, and conversation, and tell them how much I love them, and tell them how much Jesus loves them. Jesus isn’t about what we think and say we believe, He’s about how we love all the people that He created in His image.
Jesus said that when we have a party, instead of inviting friends and family, we should invite all the people we wouldn’t normally think to invite, the people different from us, even those we see as our enemies.
Returning to America has reminded me of what I began to realize in my elementary school history classes. This isn’t some uniquely perfect country that does everything right or even best. It’s another piece of world history, an empire built with idealism and oppression, freedom and inequality, justice and injustice, benefits and downfalls. It’s just like the rest of the world, and just like the rest of history. It’s got some good, and it’s got some bad. Even some really good, and really bad. Even some amazing, and horrifying.
America is messy.
The world is messy.
We are messy.
I’m messy.
But it’s all one big beautiful mess.
It’s our mess, and we are in it together.
Loving God and loving people despite the mess is what it’s all about. It’s what Christ does.
