Ever feel like this? You are standing in a group of people and as they talk about the inane you think "I could be home doing laundry and it would have more meaning than this!". Or you are at a social gathering and as people chatter all around you, you realize that your thoughts are a million miles away. Or sometimes even when I am at home I can no longer stand the sounds of CNN or Fox News and I steal away to my patio to commune with the coi fish and read or study. There are times, increasingly so, that I feel like a stranger in a strange land.
I don't pretend to understand the world around me most days. Yesterday the lead news story was about a mother who injects her 8 yr old daughter with Botox so she can be more competitive at those vulgar little girl beauty pageants where all these young girls are sporting spray tans, hair pieces, and fake teeth. Before that was the on going national debate about the wisdom of whether or not to release photos of Bin Laden's blown out visage. In the midst of it all, "reality TV" shows featuring punks from Jersey sleazing it up at the shore, "real" housewives and all their catty antics, and spoiled 16 yr old girls who throw $100K birthday parties. Just to name a few things. Meanwhile, children in Africa continue to be orphaned by the AIDS epidemic at an alarming rate, and 10 million more around the world will die by the end of this year from preventable causes. Maybe a few of the girls from My Super Sweet Sixteen could have forgone having Snoop Dog come perform at their birthday party and saved a few lives with some of daddy's money. I'm just sayin'.......
Sometimes it just gets to be too much for me. Nothing makes any sense. I retreat into prayer, into scripture, into long conversations with a handful of people who seem to understand my feelings and share them. I spent a couple of hours this week with one such friend. I was talking about how isolated I feel sometimes. Like a fish out of water. Like I have little in common with most people these days. I just don't seem to care at all anymore about the things the world deems important. And the things that are important to me would make most people wonder. What he told me was both sad and enlightening. First of all, that this is normal once you commit to putting your feet on a different path. You then essentially become a Citizen of a different kingdom. This world is no longer your home. You are now officially "in the world but not of it". And secondly, that feeling of disconnect from the world just gets a whole lot stronger the longer you journey with Christ. Oh great. So at least I've got
that to look forward to!
So what does all this mean for me? I have no idea. This is just my journal. I'm just recording my reflections, observations, and feelings here. Albeit, a bit publicly. What I do know is this. Richard Stearns writes that our hearts should be broken by the things that break God's heart. This is already true of me. And I haven't even spent 2 weeks in Africa facing down true poverty yet. What am I going to be like when I get home from this trip? How much more dismayed and disgusted will I be by American society and values when I return home? How much more like a foreign galaxy will I feel like I am living in then? It's a scary thought. I guess I'll find out in the near future......Shalom!
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