I’m currently with a team (Team Fusion) in a city called Nha Trang, Vietnam situated next to the beach. The weather is fairly warm, just enough to make you want to take a dip in the water. The waves are massive (compared to the North Carolina waves I’m so used to) and are excellent for body surfing. We sleep in rooms with actual beds, rooms with fans and air conditioning, and a hostel with fast wifi. Pho on pho on pho. And coffee with sweetened condensed milk for dayyssss.
Vietnam is a gem in the World Race.
A couple of days ago, we took a trip with my friend (and their contact) to a mountain called Lang Biang, about 4 hours away from Nha Trang. It’s not a huge mountain by any stretch of the imagination. It was a paved road to the top with intermittent shade and intermittent jeeps roaring and hogging the road to transport people to the peak. We hiked (because we’re cheap). It only took an hour and a half to reach the top and when we did, we took a hot second just to cool down and dry out from the sweat that found home in our shirts. Before nightfall, we pitched our tents, had a quick snack and fetched firewood. The night was filled with dancing flames, floating embers, and periodic conversation. But mostly that night was sweet, sweet silence.
It was lovely.
The next morning we moseyed around for a bit before packing up our tents and making our way down. The weather was cool so the hike was pleasant and it was filled with conversation about life and fulfillment (definitely the Lord’s doing). We ended up making our way to the bottom of the mountain 3 hours before our bus was scheduled to pick us up. So we sat around the table, ate pho and drank coffee (all for $2 – I know, living the good life), and chatted. Once again, the time was full of conversation and speckled with silence.
Around 2:30 p.m., our bus picked us up to begin our travel back to Nha Trang. On our way back we were expecting wifi on the bus (I really mean it when I say that Vietnam is a WR gem). Unfortunately, they forgot to turn it on. Or something like that. What was a hopeful time of connecting back with the rest of the world became 4 hours of silence and thoughts and smelly eggs.
I’ve sat and reflected over those past two days on the mountain and the bus rides that sandwiched it. Nothing crazy happened. It was an ordinary couple of days and, in truth, some parts were a little boring. But I really valued and cherished those two days.
The further I traverse through this race, the more technologically unplugged to the outside world I become. I intentional chose not to bring a computer, jumped off Facebook last year in October, quit putting a SIM card in my iPhone for 3G. I once told someone I was trying to grow in my capacity for relationships. She didn’t understand as she was on the path for shrinking the number of relationships in her life. It seems counterintuitive that I want to grow in relational capacity yet I’m becoming… well, recluse.
What I am discovering is the more I shrink my presence from social media, the more depth I gain in relationships with people. And it’s not because I’m doing anything besides forcing myself to become more intentional with people. I can’t just jump on Facebook and ‘like’ my friend’s engagement on the newsfeed. I have to be intentional to message or email that person. It is difficult to find out about engagements without Facebook but that’s beside the point. I find that in my time with people on the Race, relationships are fuller. Richer. Deeper. Conversations are (usually) not about the latest trending topics like 50 Shades of Grey or Buzzfeed articles about dancing sharks at the Superbowl halftime show. And it’s not always about super spiritual things either.
The relational depth is the gift of no distractions a.k.a. the gift of boredom. There is always something to fill our time, our thoughts, and our attention. I found myself on a mountain face with no distractions and, at times, periods of boredom. But I also found something far richer in relationships with people than any Facebook post or Instagram picture could give me. I think sometimes the fullness of conversations or time with people is lost because we choose not to create space or make room for them. It’s filled with lesser things. When we empty those things out, we are left with lots of empty space. A lot of times that looks like boredom. That is up until the perfect moment when all that empty space is suddenly overflowing with deep, life-giving moments with people.
Creating space doesn’t hurt us. It only scares us.
If we want something big to invade our lives, we have no choice but to cut things out and make room for it.
Creating space is the invitation for the Lord to invade.
