More to the Story

  

     I love watching TED talks. Well, I guess maybe I love watching them if they're about a topic that interests me. There's something about listening to people speak intelligently about subjects they know a lot about that I find fascinating. A few days ago in a session here at training we watched a TED talk by Chimamanda Adichie, a novelist. She talked about how whenever she is introduced, there is a single story that accompanies the introduction of where she is from.
     A single story happens when a person or group of people becomes known for a single trait or action, usually because that is how they repeatedly get talked about. It is what happens when we let ourselves generalize and talk about "those people", as if every individual in a group is a clone of the other people in the group. It is what happens when we get a bad first impression of someone, and become convinced that the negative things we saw in that person are the only parts of them. It happens when every time we see an African child on T.V., they are emaciated and crying. After that being the picture I saw for most of my childhood, you can imagine what it was like to arrive in Togo to find many children laughing, playing, and singing.
     As a person who was born with something called a neural tube defect, in my case Spina Bifida, and as a person who is noticeably different than most people simply because of the way I walk, Adichie's talk resonated with me because I also do not want to be known for one part of my life that I have no control over.
     In a few days, I hope to become a commissioned missionary. I know that to some people, I will be the girl who listened to God's call, even though she was born with this pitiful affliction. Bless her heart. Maybe that's a bit harsh, but it is a story I have been told about myself throughout my life on many occasions, whether it was intentional or not. I know that it comes from a good place, most of the time, so I try to appreciate it. But I also don't want to be known only as the girl with the disability who did things despite her pitiful affliction, bless her heart.
     Yes, I was born with a "thing" that sets me apart in some ways from the general population, and yes I will become a missionary. But that is far from the only part of my story, and I do not want it to become my single story. Yes, the fact that a disability is part of my life did help me learn to notice people who aren't being included, and it helped me relate to people who feel different or left out, which is an asset for someone in the mission field. But other than that, I really don't feel those two parts of my life are dependent on each other. I fully believe God has a plan for each of our lives and I don't want to speculate too much about what my life would be like if certain things were different. I just think that these are important parts of me who make me who I am, but they are not always directly related, nor are they anywhere close to being the whole story of who I am.
     Please know that I try to gracefully accept every compliment that is given to me, and I know that people who see me as an over-comer of my disability are just as full of love and good intentions as those who feel no need to mention it. There are plenty of things in my life that would have been much easier if I was an "able bodied" person, and perhaps I should acknowledge that more often. It's just never been what I want to be known for.
     I know that I cannot control what story gets told about me, perhaps that is why I find it so important to tell my own story as much as possible. And yes, I need to learn to be graceful no matter someone else interprets my life. But as I set out on the next chapter of my life, serving as a Global Mission Fellow in Nome, Alaska, it is my goal to remember that each person I meet does not have just one single story, but many stories that intertwine together to make them who they are. That's the way God made us, complex and diverse, and I think that is something worth honoring.

Unlikely Friendships

     This morning as I was riding to church with some new friends from training, I was thinking that Atlanta looks familiar in a way, like something I've seen in a movie. Eventually, I remembered that this is where one of my favorite movies, Driving Ms. Daisy, was filmed. If you haven't seen it, I don't want to spoil it, but basically it is the story of an older southern, white, Jewish woman who is reluctantly driven around by an African American chauffeur that her son hires for her after it becomes clear that she can no longer drive herself. Although she is extremely resistant to accepting his help at first, the two eventually form a bond, leading up to one of the films most touching moments when Ms. Daisy tells the chauffeur she once despised, "Hoke, you're my best friend."
     Although the movie takes place during the civil rights movement, some of the social tensions it explores are still present today. I'm sure you know that, because those tensions are talked about it all the time. We hear about them on the news, we read about them on social media, we listen to sermons about them in church. I personally have sat in some really challenging discussions about them during these first two weeks of training. So, since the problem clearly isn't that we aren't aware or don't care about the tensions that separate us as human beings, why are they still so prevalent in our society?
     That's to big of a question for someone like me to answer in one blog post, but I might have a small part of the much larger answer. We can talk forever about how we all need to accept and love each other, and it's definitely an important thing to discuss, but nothing changes until we actually do it.
     Because of the mission trips I've been on, I already have some friends from other countries and cultures, and through Global Mission Fellows I am now gaining many more. I'm ashamed to admit this, but today I posted a picture of me with some of those friends, and then wondered what people from my hometown will think of the fact that I am the only white person in that picture. Will they think it's strange that I would befriend people who look different than me, will they think I've got a point to prove? But after thinking about it, I realized that me worrying about these things does absolutely nothing except waste time I could be using to think about more productive things. So, I'll continue to get to know my new friends, and I'll be proud of the pictures I take with them. Like Ms. Daisy and Hoke, we can be friends no matter how different our backgrounds are. And with those friendships, we'll begin to change the injustices of our world.

A Happy Soul

    I am at the end of my third day of three weeks of Global Mission Fellows training, and as I begin to write this  I've just gotten back from dinner. I've never doubted my decision to apply for this program, at least not so significantly that I can remember it right now.

     But as I sat at dinner tonight, having a conversation with a few women around my age, this decision was affirmed in a big way. During my conversation with them, I shared some thoughts with these like-minded people, and listened to them share theirs. Even though the conversation wandered to some controversial topics, it remained respectful. I did a lot of listening, and I felt heard. 

     If you know me well, you probably know that I am very much an introvert. I'm usually more of a listener than a talker, so I was surprised at how much I was contributing to the conversation tonight. We've talked at this training about stepping forward and stepping back in conversation. I was comfortable enough tonight to step forward at times, and they were gracious enough to step back and listen. I didn't realize until it was over how much I had been longing for more of this kind of interaction in my life.

     I've been through some personal struggles these past few months which don't need to be named individually right now. But I know my soul has been discontent. Here today at training, my soul is happy. Even though I was busy for many hours today, and spent two of those hours learning about and discussing Methodist theology, which by itself is enough to make anybody mentally exhausted, my soul is happy. I am going to do what I love, I am going to be a missionary.

     Maybe you're going through a hard time, like I have been for these past few months. Whatever the reason, whatever the circumstances, I pray you will soon reach a happier time, and come to a place where your soul is happy and content. Even though I feel happy right now, I know very well how hard it is to be in a time when you are struggling to find happiness and contentment, for reasons that you might not even be able to put into words.As I come to the end of this long day, my brain and my body are tired, but my soul is content. I'm not sure if I'll ever become an expert of Methodist theology, but I'm not really worried about it right now. As one of my new friends told me today, we'll figure it out together.