Spaces That Aren’t
Mine
Close your eyes and imagine the one place you wish you could
be right now.
Got it?
What strikes me about doing so is that if you were to ask me
the question, “If you could go anywhere in the world?” my answer may be
something like New Zealand or Switzerland. The wanderlust side of me craves for
those picture book places.
But I’m guessing, just like me, you chose somewhere you’ve
been. Home with family, a memorable vacation spot, a favorite tree house
hideaway, maybe a moment you shared with someone who no longer calls this world
home.
If I could be anywhere right now, I’d be back on the
Washington coast, eyes wide as I take in the sight of hundreds of sea stars
dotting the rocks. I can remember splashing around with my mom and my sister,
feeling the strong arms of my dad, a touch that I’ll never feel again this side
of heaven, but that’s permanently pressed into my skin.
Because that space was mine.
I claimed that moment as my own. It was perfect, it was
home.
This year, I’ve felt void of space. There hasn’t really been
anywhere I feel I can go that’s my own, nor do I have time to invest in one place. I’ve found myself hopping around- a
great way to meet people, but with no vicinity for release. It’s exhausting.
So I treasure going home like never before. Those ten-minute
car rides make all the difference, and I curl up with my mom and my sister and
our part-time dog and we laugh far too long and I let out long sighs of utter
relief.
You can imagine my apprehension at being gone 10 weeks
this summer.
Especially when I’ve never been away from my family for more
than four.
I was particularly feeling the impeding separation this
weekend, as I pulled weeds and raked leaves for seven hours, leaving lots of
time to let my mind wonder, to roll thoughts around in my head like well-tasted
gumballs. My friend Francesca and I were doing yard work for an elderly Chinese
woman in Glen Ellyn. She called us in for a lunch break, excitedly telling us
she had made Chinese food.
Now, I’m good at interacting with new cultures in terms of
people, but when it comes to different cultural food, I’m not so keen on eating
things I can’t pronounce.
Thankfully, Francesca had been raised eating lots of Chinese
food, so she helped me decipher what I was eating before I let anything close to
my mouth.
The food ended up being delicious, and I was rather proud of
myself.
I got back at the end of the day, and kept thinking back to
that lunch.
Something about it was so impactful to me, and it wasn’t
just the diversity of food.
I realized it was the space.
The Chinese woman’s family joined us for the feast- four
kids, six grandchildren. We all sat around the table, and it didn’t take me
very long to figure out that I was the only one not using chopsticks, the only
one who didn’t know a lick of Mandarin, and couldn’t even fake a good accent.
It was very clearly their
space. Francesca later described it as a “hug from God”. “I’d been missing
my grandma’s cooking”, she told me, “That tasted just like home”.
That was the farthest taste from home for me, in my white
bread family of casseroles and jell-o salad.
But I think that’s
what was so impactful. The space I entered into around that table laden with
Chinese culture was by no means my own. I couldn’t even pretend to be a part of
it. But as I watched the kids dig for roots in the chicken curry and listened
to the sisters-in-law laugh over a funny vacation story, I felt a strong sense
of comfortability. I didn’t need to make it my own to enjoy it, to appreciate
the people who do get to call it home.
I don’t think God could have been teaching me a better
lesson as I raised money through that gardening to send me wandering through
Spain for 10 weeks. Until my team is settled into our apartment in Santiago in
week 5, we’ll be shifting our nights through numerous hostels, living life with
outcasts and seekers and the young at heart. We’ll be eating meals around long
hostel tables with people who don’t speak the same language as us, but who know
how to lace up a pair of hiking boots and explore the city.
And even when we’re in our apartment, we’ll still be in a
strange city with people we’ve never met in a job we don’t feel qualified to
do.
Welcome pilgrims? Aren’t we pilgrims ourselves? How can I
begin to extend “home” to these people when I’m so far from everything I’ve
ever known?
I’ll be the farthest from home I’ve ever been.
And as I sat at that table, I realized it would be okay.
Jesus entered in to the strangest of places, the small spaces people occupied
that were heavy with disease and prostitution and pure hatred. And all along,
he knew that was not his home. But that never stopped him from trying to
understand what home meant to the people around him, never stopped him from
seeing them for who they were, even with
and regardless of the space they
occupied.
In a lifetime I will spend far more time in spaces that
aren’t mine than are. And I’m realizing that’s a beautiful thing.
What a gift
to people it is when you say “I really don’t understand, but I want to- would
you show me?”
So wander well, my friends.
Tether your memories to those
places and soaces that are home to you, but leave a little string to weave in
the unfamiliars, the faraways-but-not-forgottens.
And above all remember: we’re not quite there yet.
