I sat at a gelato stand today and listened a poem called Flat of Angles (look this up, please), and a particular sentence filled up my chest.
The harder I look at another, the more I see myself.
Stracciatella softening and melting in my hand, I leaned back in my chair and stayed like that for a long, long time.
My first week here in Serbia . . . well, dang.
I’ve waited over a year for this first blog, and maybe you have, too; but I’m not really sure how to sum it all up. Every time I think I’ve arrived at the perfect word or set of words, an hour goes by, and suddenly I’m standing in the shadow of that once-perfect thought, a million miles away.
So, Serbia is a truly beautiful place. It reminds me of an old pair of jeans – worn down and loved in all the right places. Many areas are fringed or even dirty; but as a whole, it leaves you feeling secure in its neurosis. Old, ornate buildings in every colour, with harsh graffiti covering the first ten feet of any given foundation. City square farmer’s markets in which bees, flies and stray dogs outnumber humans 3:1. Houses with windows wide open on 80 degree days, while old women bundles in aprons and headscarves carefully sweep their porches.
Two years ago, I spent a month in Ireland with Adventures (the organization that does the World Race), and I kinda blew it. Our ministry hosts had literally no idea what to do with nineteen American college students, and so a lot of our time was spent wandering around town or helping with a random project that would have been better off without our help. Back then, I felt useless, under-utilized, and altogether ungrateful.
I swore that if I ever had another chance to do relational ministry, I would do it RIGHT.
Which brings us back to Serbia, where – wouldn’tcha know it – I’m getting that same chance, again.
Truthfully, you guys, lots of time here has been spent just sitting in the living room with our host family. Lots of time walking about, lots of time meeting local people, building relationships, and just learning the culture of the town. And it’s exactly what these people want. They want rest and relationship . . .
. . . But this is a general way of saying that this month is uncharacteristically slow. That I feel like a newly engineered sports car left on the racetrack with only one instruction: pump the brakes.
Our hosts, Zoran and Dada, are two of the loveliest ministry partners a World Racer could ask for, and I’m actually petrified that they are so nice that I’ll spend the next 10 months achingly aware of “how good I had it back then”. But still, I’m struggling.
If you were to walk through downtown Negotin, Serbia at any point in the day, you would see people of all ages sitting on benches. The fascinating thing is that these people are doing exactly that: sitting. They are doing absolutely nothing except sitting and watching the world go by. No phones, no iPods, not even a book. There are no “awkward moments” for these people, because silence isn’t feared, and conversation is just a byproduct of simply sitting silently long enough.
The World Race, even at one week in, is shaping up to be an absolute marathon – an analogy for the same way you would mentally approach a two-mile run versus a 26.2 mile run.
When you wanna run two miles, you don’t need to train. You feel pain but you bite your lip and power through, ‘cos you know that you’ve only got two miles until you’re done. So you keep your head down, and you push.
But people train for marathons. And after you’ve knocked out a few miles in your marathon, you aren’t congratulating yourself on it. You’re only thinking about the many miles ahead, your eyes set on the finish line. At least, I am.
People talk all the time about staying present, and every person who talks about it acts like they have a monopoly on the idea. Phrases like “Just breathe”, “Be where you are” and “Live in the moment” are given out like grocery coupon flyers in Sunday’s mail, advice a dime a dozen. But what the heck does that actually mean? How do you do that?
Serbia is a glorious first mile. I’m being fed and housed and loved on by four of the weirdest and most wonderful teammates a dame could ask for. And, I guess, sometimes, having nothing to distract you from your thoughts is a good thing. Sometimes, it reveals canyons in your heart you’d rather not shine a light on, but ones that need light nonetheless.
It’s possible to convince yourself that you can travel halfway around the globe and in doing so, abandon old habits and pain; but it doesn’t really work that way. If you love someone, you may find that you still love them. If you struggle with loneliness (who, me? Psssshhhh), you’ll see that community is available, but that you need to press in. If you want something, or if you want to change something, it doesn’t come as part of the deal. Effort is required. Batteries not included.
Time and distance don’t make the difference.
Awkward moments help. Also, breathing. But then again, I’m just figuring it out along with everybody else.
