Sunday, February 12, 2012

3:00 a.m. thoughts

Do you ever feeling like writing at 3 in the morning, something that is visible to the public and not just for your own satisfaction? Yeah, me too.  Maybe it's my way of making a statement in an era where our connectedness has obscured each individual voice, paradoxically by trying to change Facebook into a personal timeline that makes each person just a chain of events.  I'm sorry, I don't happen to care what you were doing in 1996...

I do have a sentiment for the past and love to discover the past of those I care about but not in one sentence summing up location or "major events."  Please.  Let's have more dignity.  But this post isn't about Facebook at all.  In fact, it doesn't have a clear thesis although I do have some things on my mind...

I've been reminiscing lately about my childhood, how my parents raised me, my fondest memories, and the fact that few at Wheaton would even know what to do with it.  I've been thinking about what it would be like to be a missionary kid, to not really have any sense of home, or to feel, like someone said once, "In a way, everywhere I go is my home because the people I love are with me."  But I'm talking about the familiarity of knowing that this particular living room houses memories of your fourth grade year, sitting by the fire in an orange shirt, long hair in pigtails, your dad preparing the dining room table to make ginger bread houses with you, your dog rolling around on his back.  I'm talking about knowing the exact location of your house's cracks, knowing where to walk so the carpet doesn't squeak, laughing every time you cross the spot where you accidentally bleached the carpet while trying to clean up dog throw-up.  Or what about the yard where you learned to ride a bike in the spring, and in the winter where your brother dislocated his shoulder after building a ramp for his snowboard?  This was home for me, and it was sacred.

Everyone has a concept of home, whether it be concrete or not.  The disparity between some threatens to tear people apart, yet I'm not convinced it's the confusion about camaraderie of home that makes the split.  Instead, it's someone deciding that you're too different, that your story isn't worth hearing, that you'll never understand them.  People create the chasms and then wonder why they feel so distant.

You shouldn't settle for having friends or significant others in your life that don't respect where you've been, however humble, however outrageous.  Your past is part of you as is the perspective you have about it, and its sacredness should be shared with care.  I used to be of a different opinion but am now convinced that a sense of home will only be created between two people when both have submitted their fears of never finding it in each other.

And to those who think home doesn't matter, who go about wrecking it in their friends by ripping them apart with everything vulnerably shared, with accusatory guilt trips, save it.  Yes, I'm dramatic, I'm the first one to admit it.  It's in my blood--I'm half-Spanish...everything is extreme for me, I feel in extremes, but I also love in extremes.  And if the only way you know how to live is to criticize people who think differently than you, then you have a lot of maturing to do.  The strongest people are the ones who can admit that they're weak.  Where there is loss of love or friendship, there is redemption.  And we should be filled with nothing but gratitude.

Only in this posture can we examine ourselves rightly, and in turn, begin to cherish the longing for home housed in each of our hearts, placed there by the Living God, and forgive each other for the sin we perpetuate in getting there.

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