Culture shock is a lovely thing. It yanks away your comfort and forces your mind further open. I am truly looking forward to experiencing it in 7 months and learning new ways. But in the last few days, as I've been reading the blogs of the January 2011 Squads who have just returned home, I keep thinking that I have just recently experienced a culture shock… right here in Vancouver.
Here's a brief back story: I was a materialistic selfish teenager who loved clothes, makeup, jewellery, and all other "Western" luxuries. The End.
Well, really this lasted until I was 21… then things started to click. I started to love academia and University, and let myself get totally lost in it. I started doing research and writing my papers on the commodification of religion, the methods World Bank uses to bankrupt Central America, and the damage Canada's 'bandwagon politics' has on third-world countries to name just a few. And things in me changed. I seriously started to HATE America, Canada, and all the crap in the world. I wanted out.
When I moved earlier this year I purged 1/3 of the stuff in my apartment. Then I sold my car. The beautiful 2007 Cobalt that I had once loved had become a symbol of the gas and oil industry, you know the one that is giving people in Alberta cancer and causing economic devastation in oil-producing Africa? I also stopped shopping for anything other than groceries or necessities. But this just wasn't enough… I still felt that I was supporting unnecessary consumption.
I decided to move again (something God was asking me to do… a story for another time). After 3 years of living on my own in a nice one bedroom apartment, I decided to have a roommate. I moved from Port Moody (a small city just outside Vancouver) to the heart of Vancouver. This time I sold all my furniture (except my bed), more of my clothes and anything I hadn't touched or used since my previous move 5 months earlier. Everything I owned fit in a short-box truck and a small SUV, with the majority of it being kitchen stuff.
It's been almost 2 months since that move, and some version of culture shock hit me last week. See, I don't buy anything I don't actually need… like seriously the only things other than food I've bought in 2 months are slippers, a book (Crazy Love by Francis Chan, so good!) toiletries and a bath mat. My jeans now have holes and most of my clothes don't fit because I've recently lost weight… but I just can't bring myself to buy new ones. I do all of my grocery shopping at Granville Island (picture a huge farmers market) and walk or bus everywhere I go.
Then last week my dad came to visit me. We drove everywhere. We went to WalMart. I stepped into Save-on-Foods. I went to a mall to buy new hole-free jeans. I cried. I felt so overwhelmed by choices… but yet could not bring myself to make a choice because I had no desire for any of it.
If this is how I feel about Canada and our culture now… how am I going to feel coming home after The Race? I am so ready for all the culture shock of going into other countries, but I am already scared of coming back home, scared that I will hate this place, scared that I won't belong here anymore.
And really, I WON'T belong here anymore… I never have! Neither have you, but you may not have realized it yet. The Bible tells us we are IN the world, but not OF it. We are physically here, but our hearts, desires, actions, thoughts and love belongs to God. How I feel is so RIGHT even though I am the odd man out.
So while I am already apprehensive about re-entry, I can be comforted knowing I DO belong somewhere… I belong in God's kingdom (so do YOU!).
So bring the culture shock on… whether it happens in the WalMart off Grandview Highway, Oakridge Mall, or at a dinner table in Cambodia.
