exile, wandering,and Taize

I am currently listening to a Taize broadcast: “The Kingdom of God is Justice and Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit.”

Themes of exile and home have been heavy on my heart the last few weeks as I find myself struggling with living in my new home and longing to visit Seattle and Leavenworth, which in my mind represent “home.” It is so easy to characterize my experience here as exile --- but then I watch a film like God Grew Tired of Us about the lost boys of Sudan, and I am humbled by the dignity and courage of refugees who may NEVER have the opportunity to go back to their home country. And I feel sad about the fact that I may not be able to go back to the Northwest for a year!

Next week, I am returning to Winkler, Manitoba. It has been 12 or 13 years since I last visited. Much has changed. My grandparents have moved out of their house and gradually their bodies have eroded. My last memories include wandering through corn fields in the summer heat and eating rollkucken with watermelon. I am excited about this journey. As a child, I was at the whim of my parent’s finances. Now, as an adult, I can choose my priorities. I am excited to share Mennonite culture with Than because, though invisible to outsiders, it still shapes me. I want to continue to keep what little fragments I have alive.

Place is very important to me. I mourn the fact that I have not been able to return to Germany, the land of my childhood, since we moved. Each time I have been back to Europe, it has been therapeutic, but I still have remained on the periphery. At the same time, I have been challenged and convicted by a recent quote sent to me on exile. This quote is from a much longer article called Wanders by Choice by Eva Hoffman. Read the full article here:

“Since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, is there anyone who does not, in some way feel like an exile? We feel ejected from our first homes and landscapes, from our first romance, from our authentic self. An ideal sense of belonging, of attuning with others and ourselves, eludes us.

Exile was always considered one of the worst punishments possible because people’s identities were defined by their role and place in society. In recent years, however, we have come to value in our culture those qualities of experience that exile brings—uncertainty, displacement, fragmented identity. Post-modern nomads consider home mostly as a site of narrow-mindedness and nationalism. Now exile is sexy and glamorous. But it comes at enormous cost.

I wonder if in this world of easy come, easy go, of sliding among places and meanings without alighting on them for very long, we don’t lose internal focus…we risk being overwhelmed by what Milan Kundera calls “the unbearable lightness of being.” It is the illness that comes to unanchored people, those who travel perpetually to new moments and sensations and to whom no internal feeling is more important than another.”

I am challenged by this quote because I, like many in my generation, am so easily seduced (and discontented) by the romantic idea of postmodern exile. While I have been privileged to grown up in a swirling mix of cultures and to have traveled the world, the downside has been at times this loss of internal focus or rootedness. I’m also challenged by Hoffman’s subtle critique of those who become wanderers by choice, exiles for material or intellectual gain. Am I simply a new type of global consumer; a consumer of ideas, experiences, sensations, cultures, and traumas? And if so, do I risk trivializing real experiences of loss and forced exile?

As someone who desires to engage the world and its pressing needs, I am so easily tempted by the twin forces of disconnection and consumption. If I do not stay rooted in Christ and the reality that I am already home in Christ, I lose my relevancy, my vision, and my calling.

In my days of despair, I am reminded that all one day we will all find our way back home. And it may not be a place. Rather, in the words of philosopher John Caputo, “it is a time. A time when God rules rather than the world.” When we pray for God’s Kingdom to come on earth, we are asking that all of life become a time when God rules, that time be kept by God, as opposed to how it is kept in the world. In such a time, justice and mercy will rule, and we will no longer worry about being strangers because all strangers will be welcomed as friends. A recognition of God’s time is not escapism to a mythical paradise, but a radical engagement with the here and now as we cultivate actual, earthly spaces of community, hope and love.

I try to keep all this in mind when taking stock of my present circumstances. Though I question my motives and recognize my inner contradictions, I am still grateful to be here. I am being transformed not simply by this place, but by its people. I’m not sure what all this means philosophically, but I do know that I will carry this community in my heart long after I leave. I have to believe whatever pain I feel then, as I do now, is a result of connection and love. In this way, I don't believe that I am simply a deluded postmodern nomad. Love creates connection that counteracts this "unbearable lightness of being." It may just be our only hope.

the audacity to hope

I read an article last week that was discussing the dichotomy in our society between “passionate authenticity” and medicated happiness. On one hand, our society prizes authenticity and defines authenticity as unrestrained, deep, “passionate” emotion. Most importantly, we attach this passionate authenticity with a prophet-artist, who has the ability to see – and feel – beyond the mundane layers of life, revealing what is below the surface. On the other hand, we feel that if we can't possess this passionate authenticity, the next best step is medicated happiness, artificially induced.

This prizing of passionate authenticity gets complicated when dealing with depression. On one hand the prophet-artists argue that this is a necessary part of experiencing all dimensions of life and bears an intrinsic relationship to creativity and ecstasy. On the other hand, the medical community has argued that this is a false system of thinking that debilitates individuals by preventing them from accepting the help they need, especially through medication. The author of the article wonders if there is somehow a third way…something other than using “passionate authenticity” or medicated happiness as the measure of wholeness.

I’m reflecting on all of this as I sit in my parent’s house in Leavenworth with a pot of tea and snow falling gently outside. I’m not sure I totally buy this argument – or rather I’m left dissatisfied with the author who outlines these two poles, shows the problem with each, and then leaves the reader without any clue as to what this third way might be practically in the here and now.

Whatever the case, I had a conversation with a friend yesterday and we were discussing depression, pain, addiction, identity. I remember coming to a point last year where I realized that on some level, I was resisting healing, forgiveness, integration because I was holding onto pain (and victimization) as a core part of my identity. For so long, pain felt like the most “real” and “raw” emotion that I had, and I was encouraged to tap into that. I think that process was important, but at some point a subtle and seductive myth takes over – and that is that pain defines us. We need it as part of our identity.

I think this myth is all the more seductive by the relationship we draw in our society between pain and creativity or life-force. Most critically popular art right now is prized for its authentic representations of pain, suffering, and victimization. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been equally drawn to this type of art. I’m inclined to believe that as humans we need these representations to help us recognize the suffering of the “other” in our own suffering, to draw humanity together, and to help humans come to terms with a broken world.

But I guess recently, I’ve been questioning all this once again as I've realized my desire to hold onto darkness as if it is the only true and fixed thing I know about myself is still alive. This notion of self can be intimately tied to Christian notions of sin – original sin – and it fits nicely with systems that emphasis the persistent and constant presence of evil, darkness, suffering in the world. It also fits in well with secular versions that see existence as nothing but raw struggle and pain as essentially part of our existence.

But the question again is: does pain define us, individually and collectively? I really don’t think this essentialist position is consistent with Christianity. While we have pain – and suffering, evil, injustice is present in the world – our faith teaches us that this is not the beginning. The source of our identity does not begin in pain. It begins in the goodness and beauty of God. It's important to note also that creativity does not begin with pain. It begins in the act of giving life and light piercing the darkness.

Pain does bind humans together. However, we should not confuse this as categorically defining humanity nor should we prize pain for this quality. This creates grievous glamorizations of pain, suffering and violence – often instigated by those who claim that this is the most “authentic” mode of human life. More defining it seems is our response to pain – our own or others – with compassion, with a reaffirmation of life, with healing, with justice. This reaffirms the reality of goodness that is at the core of all things.

So where does all this leave me? Free to let go of the need to prize darkness as the most “authentic” or “real” part of myself. Doing so releases the power pain holds over me and breaks its seductive myth. And something strange happens. Far from taking something essentially me away, I discover a deeper sense of self. Free from the power of pain, I can question and imagine different possibilities for myself and the world as I journey prayerfully towards hope, life, and light without denying the presence of pain in my life. I can affirm healing, redemption, and forgiveness. I can also take Zoloft without feeling guilty or ashamed.

The Scriptures speak of the end of time and the revelation of true reality not as being characterized by violence, pain and suffering as some gleefully imagine, but as a place where every tear will be wiped away, where swords will be beaten into plough shares, and humanity will live joyfully in the light nourished and sustained by love. Nations will be healed. Wars will cease. Disease will be no more. Our challenges today is to live out this vision prophetically, to affirm this vision in the here and now, and to believe in it as defining, ultimately the first and last word of all of human history and of our lives.

I admit that this is sometimes hard for me to swallow. I’m suspicious of any narrative that proposes deliverance from pain and suffering because it seems irrelevant and dangerous in a world of pain and suffering. But the path of faith is to embrace this as reality as we question our own. Doing so – at the very least - breaks the seductive myth and endless cycle of pain and violence. Breaking this myth doesn’t remove pain in the here and now. It just helps us see it more clearly by destroying its power. It helps us see it as something we have agency in response to and calls us to work and walk towards peace, justice, life, healing, and hope. For lack of better analogy, faith puts pain and hope on an equal playing field and asks us to choose what is more compelling, what will have the most enduring claim on us and our world. Faith forces confrontation with the most enduring forces of human life: dignity and depravity and prompts us to choose the final word. Perhaps the “third way” is recognizing that both forces our present in our world and within our own self. Both the narrative of pain and the narrative of hope in some way shape and define us, and yet the question today and every day is what will we hold onto as enduring and what will we release as myth? What narrative will we decide has claim on us, our world, our families, and our relationships, and which claims will we resist?