What I learned this week:
I'm overwhelmed with pressure to engage globally and underwhelmed by non-existent pressure to know my neighbors.
Recently I was reading the magazine put out by Habitat for Humanity, featuring articles that update readers on ongoing projects internationally. "It's not just the Destination" article (Habitat World, Dec 2009) highlights the Global Village program, which assembles volunteer teams for 1 to 2 week trips. From all over the world, people commit to building or refurbishing dilapidated houses for people in sometimes awful housing.
I completely agree that going on a trip to a different place, country, continent, alters my point of view. Engaging people of other cultures reveals their humanity. When we fellowship, we realize that fundamentally we are the same - ordinary people trying to find love and raise our children in an increasingly better world.
However, from magazines to newspapers to novels to Facebook, I am hit over the head, consistently, constantly to connect with people. But only with people across the world, impersonally.
I've lived in this house for a year and I can count - on one hand - the conversations I've had with people across my backyard fences. We wave, when we can't avoid admitting that we've seen each other. I try to appear open to more, but I fear invading their privacy, interrupting their busy lives. They must have something more interesting to do than talk to me...
Yet, Jesus got his hands dirty. He not only related to people verbally, he touched, healed, knew them intimately. Certainly that kind of interaction cannot be forced; but how do I change my priorities, my outlook, my schedule, my eyes to see others as they are, where they are?
(WIL, 1)
It's ironic that doing work in a third-world country is considered more glamorous than, say, building relationships with our neighbors. I suppose it has something to do with the fact that the needs in a third-world country are so much more obvious and, on the surface, more physical (food, clothing, shelter, livelihood, etc.). On the other hand, our unsaved neighbors often appear to have everything they need, and the needs they do have are less obvious and harder to meet (relationship, life purpose, etc.).
ReplyDeleteHey Rachel,
ReplyDeleteMother Teresa noticed this...
"In the West there is loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways it is worse than our poor in Calcutta. (Commonweal, Dec 19, 1997) "
Just found it interesting, I have had quite a few conversations with people at church about the same problem. Deb and I haven't really gotten to know our neighbors and our apartments are all attached.