Hang up and hang out!
In today’s ‘social’ media saturated culture it is so possible to be in the presence of other people without actually being with them.
I remember noticing this the first time I sat in a waiting room at the doctor’s office. I guess I’m old enough to remember the days when you would make small talk about the weird toe disease that got you into the hospital. Or if people wanted to be antisocial they really had to try hard to make everybody believe that they were actually too interested in the skiing magazine to talk.
But now you sit on the bus next to people, you pass them on the street, and everyone is either double tap hearting all the Instagram photos of their friend’s breakfast or they are bumping into fire hydrants as they scan the skies for pokemon. It’s becoming a synthetically social society.
But not so in Nicaragua, where most people don’t have enough money to buy three hot dog buns for a penny. Or a pound of rice for fifty cents. They can’t waste their four dollars a day on internet to chat with their friends. Much better to just stop by their house.
Sometimes I feel like the gospel was designed for hot cultures. Hot cultures are more relationally oriented than task oriented. They identify themselves with the community as a whole instead of just the individual. Hospitality is highly emphasized and living by a schedule of the clock is not.
Some of these things can be difficult for the north American mindset to accept or live by, but they are like a hotbed for the gospel. I can sit in the home of a stranger for a half hour talking about Jesus which would be very strange back in Oregon.
Also, following Jesus is modeled better than it is mandated. It is seen rather than told. So a life lived in close community with others means they are either going to see you as a fake right away, or take note that the gospel has changed you on Tuesday and Saturday and not just Sunday and Wednesday.
This community lifestyle has rubbed off on my clothes and worked its way into the fabric of my mode of thinking. Honestly, I don’t know what it would be like to convert back to United Statism. I think wherever I go from here on out I will always seek the people who break bread around tables and who value extended conversations above tight schedules.
Darn hippies.
As I make my pilgrimage through these many cultures, I will adopt those habits and traits that reflect heaven. I am forever grateful for growing up in the United States. I value the humanity and rights of each person and feel a gut reaction to the indignity of caste systems or racial discrimination. I learned to work hard, not for a paycheck or for my boss but to do all things for the glory of God. #protestanworkethic
But here in Nicaragua I have learned that spending time with people helps them to feel valued. I have learned that the gospel is lived out every day in the way we die to self and life for others. I have learned that tasks should be secondary to people. These are things I don’t want to unlearn when I transition to another culture.
Many of my friends have made the difficult journey back to home. While most of them have stopped wearing Punjabis or greeting each other in Moldovan slang, many of them are still marked by a deep sense of community that they caught while traveling around the world. I have had numerous conversations with people who could not find in their churches the depth of community they had tasted in foreign cultures.
And if you can’t find it, maybe you need to make it. It might not a bad thing to look a little different and be a little weird and go across the street and make new friends, even if it sticks out like a sore thumb to a world glued to their phones. The guy in this video did just that and it seemed to work for him.
The bills and the kids soccer schedules can leave anyone feeling like they don’t have extra time for lost and hurting people who live right next door. Maybe it just seemed easier when you were on the mission trip and everyone seemed more receptive, but there is a dying world all around you. Ask Jesus to open your eyes to the simple, Bob-Goff-inspired ways to love people right where they are.
Who knows? It might just start by deleting your facebook account. #preachingtomyself
