Solid, Not Perfect.

I pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine a full 30 minutes early. I sat for a bit, trying to slow my heart rate with deep breaths before going into the hotel and sitting outside the conference room, fidgeting like my chair was made of crawling insects.

I'd been fidgeting since I woke up, something that my dad had obviously noticed. I remember him looking me in the eye just before I walked out the door, and, in that calm, steady voice, saying the most simple phrase:

"You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be solid."

This wasn't just any interview. It was an interview for a scholarship that would pay for nearly half of my college tuition.

And I'm what you might call and "achiever". My own worst critic. Comparing my bloopers to everyone else's highlight reel.

So those words were big. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have every single extracurricular activity listed on your resume. You don't have to have taken every single AP course offered. You don't have to be captain of the team and president of the club and valedictorian of your class.

You are solid. You are enough.

As it turns out, the seven people sitting around the table in that conference room thought so as well :)

But now, four years later, I find myself repeating that phrase my dad gave me. This time its about field hockey, not school. When I joined the Eastern Mennonite University field hockey team as a freshman, I was that obliviously happy kid who was thrilled to be part of a team small enough that I got to be a starter in my first year. Now, with a new coach and an even smaller team, we are in what you would call a "rebuilding period". We fight hard and work our tails off, but our record is nothing to get excited about.

And that is hard for me to handle sometimes. I want more. I want to win. So after each game, I zero in on my performance - good or bad - and wonder why it wasn't enough. I should be able to sprint just a little harder, play defense just a bit more patiently, take shots with just a bit more accuracy. I end up in tears on the sideline at the end of the game because I'm not perfect.

So I'm working on remembering that doing the best I can is what I should expect from myself. Remembering that success is about more than the scoreboard. Remembering that those words were about more than just a scholarship:

You don't have to be perfect, you just have to be solid.

Holding Up The Sky

I am one of those people who wanders around this world, picking up every piece of fallen sky I see - every tear, every broken heart. Yeah, I know they're not mine to hold. Yeah, I know I should learn to put them down. I'm trying.

The sky is so big. There will always be more pieces falling than my tiny hands can hold.

The sky is so big. But I'm not the only one under it.

There is a South African word, ubuntu, which has been broadened into a philosophy. As it was explained to me by my high school field hockey coach, this word means "I am because you are". Humanity is inarguably connected, no matter the mantras of individualism or the geological rifts. And if one member of us is not allowed to be all that they are meant to be, we are all barred from being what we were meant to be.

If there is yet one person belittled, confined, harassed, wounded, forgotten - then all of humanity hurts because of it.

The sky is so big. But there are so many of us under it. There are so many hands among us to pick up the pieces that have fallen, to keep our heavenly ceiling from crumbing.

So I don't have to hold up the sky by myself.

But I also cannot forget all those who are pushed back from reaching the sky.

Sure, the idea of holding up the sky was one I found in a book about women's right's issues across the world*, but this post isn't just about feminism. Whatever group just popped up in your mind three lines before, that's the one I'm talking about. Yeah, those people you'd rather not think about. The ones that you know are marginalized, beaten down, unheard. It could be women, or it could be the stranger in our land, the LGBTQ community, the homeless man you studiously avoided eye contact with as you walked past his cardboard plea for help this morning.

We cannot be all we were meant to be - beautiful and curious, powerful and whole-hearted - until each member of humanity is all they were meant to be.

It takes all of us to hold up the sky.

*this book is called Half the Sky and was written by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It is by far one of the best books I have ever read, and you should read it too. I have copies to share. Seriously, it will change you.

The Desert

The desert.

Dry. Empty. Hostile.

Or is it?

When most people think of the Middle East, I think they picture sand dunes, camels and turbans. And don’t get me wrong, those are there!

But the desert struck me in a new way while I was on cross cultural. Through Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy, over four months and countless cups of tea, here are some things that I took with me:

The desert.

Parched. Scorched. Vast.

So much bigger than anything I feel. A chunk of perspective plopping into the mumbo jumbo soup of inflated emotions that is a cross cultural experience. Everything is heightened when you are out of your comfort zone, and even more so when you stay outside it for four months.

As I stared out the window of the bus on a particularly trying day, the blur of sand and rocks staring back at me became a soothing thought: I am small. Infinitesimal, in the grand scheme of the universe. And that means that my problems – my discomfort, my questions, my wrestling – are all even tinier. Sigh. It’s good to be small sometimes.

The desert.

Harsh. Immense. Challenging.

A place which the Israelites called home for 40 years. They journeyed - growing, learning, straying, returning. Not a stroll through sand dunes, as I had always pictured, but struggling over rocks and brambles, heads bent against the fierce wind, each ragged breath another silent wish for water.

         A place to which Hagar was banished, alone, with her son. Sent away for doing as she was told, evicted by jealousy. A place where she was resigned to die, until the Lord’s angel saved her. Hagar, who’s very name means migration.

         A place where the Bible came alive before me, and I could finally see with my own eyes what the words couldn’t convey.

The desert.

Uninhabited. Barren. Desolate.

Free of buildings, free of walls. Walls are plentiful in the Holy Land. You’d think this would be the place where grace extends and we forget our differences in the light of the Holy of Holies. Nope. We use religion to build walls: between the Muslims, Christians, Armenians, and Jews. Between the Palestinians and Israelis. Between men and women. There are walls everywhere.

But the desert is free of walls. Here I am reminded of the grace of God, and how it surrounds and carries us, regardless of, well, anything.

My time abroad made me realize just how unique this grace is. I see it nowhere but in my God. Everywhere I look, redemption, re-humanization and return are all left behind in favor of rules and laws and condemnation. But all of those fall so short, or rather, we fall short. But grace is there to hold us, carry us.

I am nothing without grace. And walls are nothing in the face of grace.

The desert.

Lonely. Uninhabited. Empty.

So unlike the many holy sites we visited. The Church of the Nativity, the tombs of Abraham and Sarah, the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the Garden Tomb – we went to all of them. And they were all packed full of people, taking pictures, kneeling, pushing against each other as they reached for the holy square foot of bedrock that is said to have been touched by Jesus.

These are the places that people ask about and are amazed that we visited, but they are also the places I tended to connect with the least. No, the gold covered buildings filled with candles and tourists were not where I felt the spirit. I spent more time trying not to get separated from the group or trampled than I did in reverence or prayer.

I connected with God while playing Frisbee in the Sea of Galilee. I heard His voice in the long conversations with fellow students as we hiked the coast of Turkey. I learned to know my God sitting alone, watching the sun set across the miles of empty sand.

The desert.

Hopeless. Dismal. Bleak.

         How it can feel when you spend four months hearing story after heartbreaking story of fellow people ripping each other apart.

         But there is hope. We also heard stories of love, of trust, of choosing to see humans before labels. Stories of relationship.

         Because that’s what Jesus was about, in the end. He didn’t sit down at the well and tell the Samaritan woman how to fix her life. He asked. He listened. He learned to know her story. That is the gospel in action: relationship.

         And against all odds, in spite of religion and nationality and walls, people are pushing for something different than what is in front of them. There are groups bringing together Palestinian and Israeli kids to play Ultimate Frisbee. There are Israeli activists protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes. There are college kids in Bethlehem, who look around and think “there must be a better way”.

         There are hands reaching across the wall, building relationships, building hope.

        

The desert.

What I longed for upon my return.

Well, to be honest, I longed to be back in pretty much any one of the places we visited, but the emptiness of the desert was quite enticing. Coming back is hard.

Coming back to isolation after spending literally every moment of the past four months with some portion of a group of 26 college kids going through same experiences. Coming back to people who have never been to the part of the world I have just been submerged in. Coming back to opinions based on inflated news stories and good intentions, but not on the kind of relationships that I have built with the people living in these countries. Coming back to a home that feels much less like home. Coming back to “How was your trip?!”

I’m slowly learning to answer the questions that those around me don’t have the words to ask. Learning how to hold on to an experience. Learning how to carry stories.

The desert.

A new place in my journey, the beginning of new questions and ideas, where I too grew, learned, strayed and returned. While I spent just a fraction of time there, its transformational powers have reached me just the same, and I still feel a nudging to not shrink away, but step towards the uncomfortable places.

The desert.

This piece is a transcript of what I shared about cross-cultural during a recent service at my church.

Fancy That!

Other people like my writing too! Check out my recent post for Mennonite Church USA's #WeAreMenno blog:

<http://mennoniteusa.org/menno-snapshots/wearemenno-i-wrestle-with-empathy/>

I just did that.

- spent almost four months traveling and learning in Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy

- navigated Istanbul for a week with four other ladies and no supervision

- spent a weekend in Italy with no pre-made travel plans except a train ticket

- saw 3 of the Seven Wonders of the World

- hiked 35 miles with a 50lbs pack in 3 1/2 days

- went 3 nights and 2 days with no food or people

- went 7 days without a shower

- overcame claustrophobia

- climbed a 5.8 route

- ran 7 miles (no, not a landmark distance, but the farthest I've ever run)

- went 15 days without any technology

The Return

"Are you excited to be home?!" you ask, eyes lit up at the prospect of my return.

The obvious "Yes!" leaps to my lips, but it only hovers there, never escaping, mired down in complication.

Your eyes turn from excitement to confusion, as you await an answer you thought was easy. I wish I could give you that answer, it would make travel much easier. Or at least that I could explain it to you, this mixture of joy and loss.

But when I'm in transit, I am the only one who can see both my coming and my leaving. I see the relationships, experiences, laughter, tears, growth - all of it stretched out in my wake.

You see only me, in front of you.

So I smile, say "It's good to see you!", while holding my journey in my open palms.

You won't ever see it like I do, you can't get behind my eyes. But slowly, gradually, you will understand pieces. You will hear it in my stories, see it in my walk, feel it when you hug me.

Only I can hold my journey, but I will do my best to share what I can.

Then some day, when you step off the bus, or boat, or plane, I will step forward to hug you and feel the journey in your bones. I promise to give you time. I promise to ask and to listen. I promise to sit side by side in silence when the words fail you, because I can't get behind your eyes.

Yes, we will sit together and hold our journeys, sharing in the parts that overlap and intertwine, and let them pull us past the distance behind our eyes.

Ghost Town

What are you left with
when the people dissipate
and leave you alone,
where they once was a crowd?

What are you left with
at the end of a debate,
when voices trail off
and the silence is loud?

Are you left exhausted,
emptied of your light,
drained of your lifeblood,
solitude your respite?

Are you left full to bursting,
ready to explode?
Is your heart made to pump
by the love that was shown?

Are you left in a dark place
with the parts of your soul
that seem ready to drown you
if you slip and let go?

Are you left with just stillness -
no joy, no regret?
Is your mind left at ease?
Is isolation no threat?

My prayer for you
when you sit without company,
in the silence and stillness
and quiet cacophony,

is that love is what fills you
and peace calms your soul,
and even when solitary,
you're never alone.