“Love Heart, Ambleside Landing” Artist Unknown
Here are today’s explorations:
Peterson, Amy Dangerous Territory. 2017
978 words
Watching them, I remember what I’d overheard in the campus bookstore that morning. *** They seemed like hey might have chosen to live overseas because they never quite fit in America. *** He tried baptizing new Congolese converts in a river filled with crocodiles. *** I could have explained that I was relived to be going to a ‘closed’ country, where evangelism was technically forbidden . . . *** I grew up reading missionary biographies. *** No one wrote biographies of housewives. *** I wanted an extraordinary life . . . *** I couldn’t see any way for a woman to have them except on the mission field . . . *** I don’t know if I even want to be married. *** We don’t know of any other foreigners in the city. *** Belonging *** He wore a plaid button-down in earth tones . . . *** We each had too many edges that didn’t fit . . . *** We do not ask what happened in a city when converts were rejected by their families. *** So far I’m failing to fit my own story into the mold. *** Grandma hadn’t been thrilled that I was moving oversees. *** We believe that leaving holds some answers. *** I had found a new frontier. This was the American dream. *** In a village we stayed in a house on stilts. *** I felt the wind in my hair and realized I was smiling. *** We were out the door early every day. *** This would be home base for changing the world . . . *** Teaching . . . turned out to be a delight. *** On my twenty-first birthday, I was alone in France . . . Then David a new friend I had made at Taize, joined me . . . *** Hairless cat *** It’s one of the only monastic communities that has monks who are Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox. *** Four girls from one of my classes entered shyly. *** I made it my ambition to lead a quiet life . . . *** Research: the history of short term missions *** In a country where much is silently implied and understood, she was willing to be blunt. *** You don’t dress like Britney Spears at all! *** In this collectivist culture, you owed nothing to strangers but everything to your in group. *** It makes relationships more important than tasks or efficiency. *** In the country the laws existed only for people you did not know. *** Yet I attempted to suspend judgment, to live in a kind of liminal state where I observed, and learned rather than criticizing my host culture. *** Her failure to be the daughter her parents hoped for left the underside of her forearms with pale pink scars. *** We walked hand in hand up the hill, pausing when the girls in high heels were out of breath. *** Anne asked me to pray that she would find true love. *** I missed being known and truly seen. *** I felt my spiritual wells being sucked dry. *** I’d gotten to know her a bit better through her journal writings . . . she was a deep poet and thinker. *** She wasn’t oblivious to the despair that threatened to pull Veronica under since she failed the university entrance exam two years earlier . . . *** I hardly knew what to do with all the kindness they showered on me. *** I let her take it, warning her to be careful reading it in public. *** The Spirit was already at work there just like the stories I’d read . . . *** He folded his lanky body next to mine and pulled out a novel by Zadie Smith. *** I was feeling farther and farther away from my life in America. *** I’d not only compromised myself, but every other teacher I’d sent it to. *** They were effectively disrespecting me and another group failed to pay attention as I spoke. *** My despondency faded as the sun set. *** I hated making mistakes, especially public ones . . . *** Quotidian *** I never told her that she could pray a prayer and be assured of eternity. *** Imagine that you know nothing of the Christian faith . . . and someone tells you that the biggest holiday in her country commemorates this story. *** The karaoke machine gave me a score of 93 percent. *** In Swaziland Malla Moe was evangelist, church planter, preacher, and bishop. Back home she was not permitted to speak in church. *** Which culture is more democratic? *** Can she teach brown-skinned men but not whites . . . *** They seemed awed by the integrity, devotion, and love they’d seen exhibited by the others on the retreat. *** Ten weeks seemed too long to be away from this sweet place. *** I had no idea that night I would never come back. *** Arkansas was as hot and green as Southeast Asia, but it was so clean. *** He missed rice and tofu, but was happy to be back in the land of sweet tea and porch swings. ***Politics and religion were connected in complicated ways . . . political rebel. *** They even took the notebooks you gave us to write prayers in. *** It need a long time to rebuild my faith in people. *** Not a single person asked if I was okay. *** But here’s another thing about grief: no one else can understand yours. *** Bruised reed *** I sat on a dark wooden bench in a gazebo, surrounded by yellow chrysanthemums, delicate orchids and trailing roses, and watched shadows of the willow trees dance on the hillsides. *** Research: missionary *** You can put love where love is not. ***
ShellseekerReflections 