Blooming Wherever I am Planted
A cross cultural worker integrates past and present life experiences
My kitschy plastic coo-coo clock magnet purchased at the Munich airport
I’m sitting in the Munich airport waiting for my flight to Turkey. “Rush, rush, rush, you could miss your flight!” turns to delay, delay, delay. So here I am in the airport gift shop, with another holiday around the corner.
My family visited Munich years ago. We saw the wooden figures in the clocktower adored by the tourists. Now I have a kitschy plastic coo-coo clock magnet in my hand. Against my better judgement, I think I’m gonna buy it, even though I know a fridge magnet is not the same as beer stains on your lederhosen and pretzel mustard in your beard.
Residing back in my passport country after years abroad, I feel bombarded by messages of experiences and spiritual destinations: retreats, conferences, trips to the Holy Land. And endless solutions: book clubs, bible studies, apps, silver bullet results packaged with a cross or even a flag.
It’s too easy to be jaded, and I’m trying not to assume the worst, but it oftentimes feels like I am being sold a ticket to a destination by a person who has never actually traveled there.
Owning a pair of elephant pants isn’t equivalent to homemade biryani made by grandma. My kids said they could always spot the tourists in India, because they were wearing pants with elephants on them. That, however, is not our story. Even after multiple normal human lifetimes of travel-adventures, gastro-drama, immigration-ulcers, & enemies-at-the-gate moments, I sense there is still something more and something enduring for our tribe.
Still, I say less these days than I did in my first half of life.
I promise less. I know less.
I aspire to share more and more out of my embodied experience.
I’m learning like never before how Christlikeness isn’t available on Prime, and it can’t be bought with a subscription.
The true price of love is always so costly.
The older I get, the more I experience this increasing costliness to love, a relational inflation, if you will, that’s linked to the scarcity of being fully present to one another in a digitally distracted world. It’s uncommon to experience a non-anxious presence in a political environment rife with the hyperbolic at the edges that demonize those managing polarities in the middle.
When my neighbors were all Muslims I had a nearly endless patience for their radical beliefs and fantastic conspiracy theories. Truth be told, I once marched with Jihadists during Moharram carrying “Death to America” flags and little vignettes of burning white picket fences named “Home Sweet Home.” I wanted to be a full participant with the people I lived among. Being non-judgmental and hospitable gave me a huge window into my local culture, and it earned me a hearing in the quiet, shining, exposed moments too.
Today, I have to grapple with radicalization of people who grew up basically like me but are filled with irrational fear of the other and suspicion of everyone. Incarnating the gospel of love, humble courage, and curious interiority is just as conspicuous today as it was in South Asia, even if it’s for different reasons.
Recently, my friend Joe shared a quote from Rumi that has lingered for me and speaks to this longing for a faithful embodied spirituality. “If you are here unfaithfully, you’re causing terrible damage.”
My prayer for us as an emerging community of friends on the road is to be here, faithful with each other and blooming where we are planted. Shamelessly, formed by past places and peoples that shaped us, and also courageously engaged wherever we now reside.