Jose y Raquel los peregrinos

In which Jose sees a reflection

At some point, I stopped reflecting and started telling stories. My blogs and journals have been less and less about comparing and contrasting cultural hits and misses, and more and more about recording and communicating the times here. But now that the time draws near for us to return home to Chattanooga, I find myself reflective again.
Browsing through Kevin’s blog made me remember my own college papers on a cross-cultural experience in Alton Park. If I remember correctly, it mostly consisted of ideas I had about life there, and some observations I had made. Valuable, but then, as now, in living there for the next few years I subsequently forgot my entire system.
Then, as now, and as I think about it – through every change in my life – I have gradually accepted the way things are and moved on to the tasks of living life. In living here I don’t gasp at beauty or poverty as often as I used to, and I don’t feel the attacks on my usual ways of life that were once there. In short, I feel comfortable here.
It took my parents and in-laws being here last week - and seeing things through their eyes – to remind me of what is “normal”, and the “abnormalities” of life here. From the discomforts of the weather to the appalling poverty, they felt things that I had ceased to feel.
The flipside of this, though, is that in “normalizing” the way things are here, the idea of returning to the States is sobering. I miss my friends and family terribly, and look forward to life there, but at the same time…
Going to new places is much easier than going back to the old places. I remember going back to Grand Rapids in the summers during college, or visiting Covenant College after I’d moved down the mountain, or going back to see friends in Alton Park after I’d gotten married and we’d moved farther away. These were all painful encounters, and difficult – much harder than the “suffering” of living in the inner-city, or studying Economics, or being a missionary.
For a long time, I thought that the pain came from my own unique and growing awareness of the world, and my increasing realization of everyone else’s extraordinary ignorance. But lately, I’ve been wondering if there isn’t a more plausible explanation.
I think it has something to do with the people you know best being the hardest ones to love. Or even this – the more you know a person, the more love and grace is demanded (from you and from them), and that always hurts. Frankly, I think it’s easier to live in another culture because it’s harder to really know or be known by anyone. People everywhere are the same, but you just realize it a little slower when you can’t speak the language.
I’ve often forgotten and rejected the innate pain of the discipline of love in relationship. This happens a lot as I walk with Jesus. “Growing in faith” is a mystery to me; the more I know Jesus, I find that the harder it is to follow Him. He is demanding, unceasing, and makes further and further claims on my life. I’d rather have the Truth without the Troth. It’d be easier to manage.
And maybe that’s more common than I realize. You find few people in the Bible who reject Jesus at the outset - it’s usually after they get to know Him a bit. They line up to meet Him at the beginning of John’s gospel, but by the end, they neither “know Him” nor “receive Him”.
It’s hard to know and to be known. It exposes me; it exposes you; it exposes the Truth. But it’s good and right. Jesus, brothers, sisters: I want to know and receive you, and live together more and more. Help me.
I have walked a long ways, and I want to turn around and walk back. Back to Las Mangas, to Chattanooga, to Alton Park, to Covenant, to Grand Rapids. Back to the beginning, to all of you who know me the best. There is much to share, and life to live.
Let us walk together in love.