I’m en route to Tallahassee from South Asia for Christmas. The flight to Chicago lasted more than 15 hours. The plane landed around 5:30am. Upon clearing customs and heading to the gate for my next flight, this was my first sight of the outside world:
SNOW! I could hardly believe my eyes. And only 15 hours removed from this:
In the murky shadows of O’Hare customs, there was little American demarcation. I’ve heard plenty of people from IJM discuss their shock upon first re-entry to the States. Somehow I didn’t plan to be phased. It came, though. As soon as I passed through security and entered a domestic terminal I saw this:
Soon followed by child after child, dressed in crisp Christmas attire, obviously adequately fed and attentively cared for by loved ones.
When I saw the children I broke down.
“It’s too much,” I said to myself over and over. The lights were too bright. The decorations were gratuitous. The air was too clean. Prosperity was abounding— while this wasn’t the case, in my daunted state it was easy to perceive as prosperity flaunted. I could hardly make sense of the drastic change in my surroundings. Just yesterday I walked past this:
And now, here I was in this:
Initially upon exiting the plane I had one aim: to find the nearest Starbucks, kiss the first barista I saw, and buy myself a piping-hot peppermint mocha. But as I stood overwhelmed by the material wealth, I wasn’t sure I could go to Starbucks. I found a bathroom instead and hid from the Christmas displays for a few minutes. Bare with me, now; these thoughts aren't fully fleshed out.
On one hand, I was thankful to be fully processing the change in surroundings. Lately I’ve been wondering if I’ve been fully grasping the reality of the city where I live. It sure sunk in today.
Working through the drastic cultural disparity, one of my first inclinations was to justify my home and brush off any vicarious guilt. “These people here have worked for everything they have,” I thought to myself. Hard work and self-sufficiency are hallmarks of the American tradition. We pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. We don’t expect others to make our ends meet.
In South Asia, on the other hand, I see droves of grown men standing around street corners doing virtually nothing but loitering all day, every day. I watch some of them point a small child in my direction to solicit a handout. Just one block from my office, a woman and her two young daughters station themselves daily. My tenured coworkers have befriended the mother and know her story. A few months back someone in town offered her a job. She declined and kept her lot on the street, unabashedly explaining that she could make more money begging.
My inner capitalist has a hard time feeling sorry for a begging adult who seems perfectly capable of working. As I caught myself in that bathroom mirror, moving through the motions of justification, I was convicted by what else I knew about jobs in South Asia. IJM has four offices in the country where I live. Two are devoted to rescuing sex slaves, and the other two are devoted to freeing bonded laborers. Most of those laborers find themselves enslaved after taking out loans or accepting jobs abroad in good faith that their employers are ethical. Time after time, those attempting to pull themselves up by their bootstraps are swindled by corrupt administrators in brick factories or labor camps. Entire families are enslaved; sometimes for generations. This is certainly not the plight of every down-and-out South Asian. But the cycle has run its course enough that I should be hesitant to judge every person I see on the streets.
I don’t have many answers. And in response to the now nearly-cliché prompt, “what would Jesus do?” I simply do not know. I do not know what Jesus would do when confronted by a capable woman who chooses not to work, leaving the needs of her children left to the mercy of passersby. I do not know what Jesus would do when approached by a begging child whom he knows was sent by a healthy, capable man. Then again, I do not know what Jesus would do when observing his birth celebrated by excessive displays of materialism.
Suddenly I couldn’t accept that which I had always known, simultaneously passing swift judgment upon that which gave me pause in the first place. Perplexed, I was reminded of the foreword to Night by Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor’s memoir of his experience in a prison camp. The foreword was written by Wiesel’s friend Francois Mauriac, recounting the day when Wiesel produced the manuscript for his consideration. He wrote that he read the story and was moved to tears. Those tears came out of sorrow for what Wiesel had seen and known; out of near disbelief at the monstrous actions of fellow men; and, in large regard, out of anguish that those who were persecuted for their religious beliefs did not believe that Jesus Christ was Lord. While his conviction was firm that the Nazi forces had no right to touch a single hair on a single head of a single Jew, he was sick over their being persecuted for a faith that hinged on a premise he believed to be fundamentally false. It was more than he could resolve in head or heart. Ultimately, he stopped fumbling for answers:
"And I, who believe that God is love, what answer was there to give... Did I speak to him of that other Jew, this crucified brother who perhaps resembled him and whose cross conquered the world? Did I explain to him that what had been a stumbling block for his faith had become a cornerstone for mine? And that the connection between the cross and human suffering remains, in my view, the key to the unfathomable mystery in which the faith of his childhood was lost? ... We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to Him."
That’s where I was left in the O’Hare bathroom this morning. All is grace. There are some things I simply will not understand this side of glory. There are some disparities I will never be able to resolve. But God is no less God in spite of those things. He is all the more majestic for his ability to make right that which I find irreconcilable. And he is all the more holy for his loving and active choice to redeem that which I perceive to be beyond redemption.
As I looked in the mirror I knew that my worldview had been irrevocably altered. Going to South Asia was not enough; while fully immersed in life there it was far too easy to compartmentalize the conditions as simply “how things were” on the other side of the world; as if they could not or need not improve. It took returning to America to process how drastically different my formative years had been from those of the street children I now know— and certainly not for anything of my own doing. I did not choose to be born in America. I did not choose to be raised by a family and church that loved, disciplined and directed me. But a separate set of choices does exist before me: the allocation of my time and resources, and the speed and discrimination with which I judge those around me.
Therein lies the temptation to martyrdom— to self-flagellation, sackcloth and ashes. It would be easy to starve oneself when food is bountiful on principle that others elsewhere are starving. (Though this would likely leave one debilitated from acting to feed the hungry with full energies.) It would be easy to use every breath telling others of atrocities observed. (Though this may not be the most effective method of presentation.) To be sure, there is a time and a place for demonstration and for testimony. But scripture does not call us to showboat martyrdom. Christ taught, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father who is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:1) I think we should be equally wary of practicing our righteousness before ourselves. Sometimes our greatest idolatrous temples lay deep within our hearts.
As I prepared to beat myself up over my desire for Starbucks, Christmas gifts I intend to give and receive, internal heating, and every other first-world luxury, I stopped. Maybe I wouldn’t need a venti peppermint mocha. Maybe I won’t visit Starbucks every day while I’m home. But this morning, one mocha was going to be just fine.
