(written on June 20th)
For nine months, we were the only white people… anywhere. People stared in the street, children chased us laughing, and most noticeably, our hosts catered to us like a hotel staff. Africa especially was so strange: they wouldn’t even let us wash our own clothes or sheets.
Nepal was no exception to this. We were given huge helpings of food, any discomfort was a HUGE deal. Our pastor explained, “In Nepali culture, parents, teacher, and guest are gods. So we want to treat you well!”
Here’s the irony: that treatment made me more uncomfortable than I have ever been in my life. I didn’t feel loved… just isolated and unapproachable.
me, at the end of our day trip to Yalta
In Crimea, we’re still treated well. Our portions at meals are huge, and some of the kids did give up their rooms for us. But we wash our own dishes, wash our own clothes, help cook meals, and work in the garden. Last night, Anya and I sat across the table from one another, sharing coffee and talking about her family and her life. I helped myself to the milk in the fridge, she topped off my coffee along with her own, I refilled the cookie dish when we emptied it. I felt more loved, at home, and comfortable in that hour than I have at any other time this year.
I’m not a god. I don’t want to be worshipped. I just want to be part of the family.
The religions and cultures in Asian countries like Nepal are embedded with a deep sense of holiness. So many things are held sacred: animals, foods, shrines, and as our pastor had explained, people. To understand “holy” is to live a life dictated by what is and isn’t. To put it simply, it comes down to what you can touch and what you can’t.
I think that God feels the same frustration I felt in those cultures that held us as set-apart. After all of those sacrifices without the heart behind them, maybe He was thinking, “Yes, thank you, I appreciate the gesture, but I JUST WANT TO BE WITH YOU.”
So He came.
Jesus wrecks that line between the sacred and the profane.
Doctrines and denominations have struggled for centuries to understand how a holy, unapproachable, set-apart, perfect God could actually sit down in the dirt and let people touch him.
He walked out of the temple and sat down at the dinner table. All of a sudden, the most mundane things were saturated in the Presence of God. It is the most utterly confusing and heart-shatteringly wonderful thing in the world.
He is God. He desires to be worshipped. But we can’t keep him in the cupboard under the stairs with the Christmas decorations and only worship once a year. He wants to be part of your family–part of YOU. “Set-apart” shouldn’t be the same as “separate” here. Sit with Jesus and let Him belong.
-Katie
