I've been out of sorts lately, and it's taken me awhile to name the feeling: I'm homesick. I wasn't really expecting this, so it took awhile to recognize it for what it is.
How can I, after all, be homesick when there is so much here that I am thankful for? So much here that I love? I have a job I love, where I get to care for and love others, show and receive hospitality, listen and ponder, think and pray, write much and challenge others. I am developing friendships and community. Matthijs is settling in to life here and, despite the challenges of determining what's next for him, continues to view this all as a delightful adventure.
So how can I be homesick?!?
I did expect to miss my friends and the community in Amsterdam. I miss the rhythm of life there and the goodness (and ease) of attending of daily prayer. I miss the blessedness of how living in community made it easy to catch up with and show my concern for others. I miss knowing where to pick up everyhing (and having most things in house) and being able to bike or walk pretty much everywhere I needed to go (whatever the time of year).
Somehow I hadn't realized how hard it would be to miss the normalities of life there and to have them replaced with learning new normalities here. What I thus miss most, and I remember this feeling from my first years in the Netherlands, is knowing what to expect and what normal life can and does look like. Sometimes life here feels so different, from living situation to job situation to social situations, and it would be nice not to feel so caught off balance by it all.
To some degree, my being out of sorts with all the changes is okay. It's being honest about how hard it is to upheave one's life and try to re-root somewhere else. On the other hand, writing my desires and feelings down makes it obvious that what I want is unrealistic and, to some degree, even sin. It's like I'm asking for there not to be change, and if there is change, to make it easy to handle. Life's not like that. I also don't believe that a life without difficulties and change is what the Christian life ought to look like (even as it feels hard and uncomfortable and thus part of me is whining that I don't want to, thank you very much!). Following Christ means opening oneself up to the Spirit's whispers (or shouts!) about how we live our lives. It means spending time outside of Christian circles, so that we might truly love and care for those who do not God. At the same time, it means not buying into cultural values that are foreign to the gospel: materialism, consumerism, along with entitlement and a lack of true concern for others, especially those different than us. Such a life - in the world, but not of the world, as it's sometimes called in Christian-ese - is a life of feeling off balance, of often being somewhat uncomfortable when surrounded by both Christians and non-Christians.
So perhaps what I have identified as homesickness is both a recognition of how hard transitioning can be, alongside of an unhealthy nostalgia for a life and feeling that never really existed. The first part will fade with time hopefully. And as for the second aspect? That I will just have to learn to live with gracefully, as there is no home here on earth that will every make that kind of homesickness go away.
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