To leave everything safe and familiar, I realize that I needed to build up something in order to feel secure. I did this through learning Bahasa Indonesia and cleaning at home. I figured that if I could do things that I was good at, then people should not feel the right to come into my life and speak to the flaws in my character, to say the things that I didn’t want to hear but were so good and necessary for me. So, itt’s been a little over five months since we left the States, and Indonesia has become this incredible crock-pot for me to sit and stew in – a sort of crucible, surfacing all these things that have been in my heart for years. I took some time to read over my journals from the past five months and saw the aspiring creative writer in me. Mostly my heart swelled, because of seeing everything I have been learning. There was some sadness too, at the realization of my tendency to organize things into a narrative rather than just seeing them as raw. So here I give you some of the raw (which is about me and not necessarily Indonesia...hold onto your hats, kids!)
::Bahasa Indonesia:: I was reflecting this morning on how much change has actually taken place, language-wise. I used to sit in morning meetings, listening to what sounded to me like jibberish – and now, I understand (75-80% of the time) what problems the people in my department encounter. I had to reevaluate my motives for learning the language. What was I really learning it for? I have to admit that I didn’t want to leave this place without gaining a command of it. And then I have to insert some cheese here with a line from Spiderman, where Uncle Ben says, “With great power comes great responsibility” (or something like that). What was I learning this language for, if not to eventually gain a working command of it, in order to share with people from this country about the love of Jesus Christ – what he has done and is currently doing in my life? It’s a great challenge, because I am still learning the language, and then do I even share about my faith in my first language?
::Cleaning:: one of my chores growing up was to keep the shoe closet organized, although I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job of it because every few months or so, we’d have to clean up the shoe closet, and Marms’ “keep your shoes!” fell on deaf ears more often than not… Grew up sweeping floors and washing dishes and doing laundry and other domestic sports, and so moving into an apartment with four other girls and continuing to do these things was easy. Actually, the cleaning was quite therapeutic – an outlet for me to work out any feelings I had upon moving to Indonesia, just because it’s so mindless. Looking back, I realize that the girl who came to Indonesia five months ago was very insistent at having her way, still having claim over some area of expertise in order to feel valued. It was easy to push the couches around, dust things, and sweep and mop the floor and wash the dishes after LIFE Group even though it was so late – and can you imagine, I took such pride in my ability to do such things well, and even more than that, to think so highly of myself for my ability to do these things! I shake my head now when I think that I needed to think that I was better than my teammates, and that cleaning was another way to build myself up.
I realize that I do things to build myself up to compensate for things lost or things never there. In my mind, I was thinking, ‘If I can do these things well, then so-and-so should feel terrible for wanting to speak to another area of my life that needs improvement!’ it follows then that Learning Bahasa Indonesia and cleaning have been my covering for my lack. And how much I realize in this new environment how much I lack!
Actually, someone shared with me recently that I am awkward. It wasn’t a topic that took up a significant portion of the conversation, but the mere mention of it had me searching high and low to grasp what that person might have meant since we didn’t discuss the topic further. My searching brought me to this definition from Mr. Webster (as my 4th Grade teacher so fondly referred to the dictionary):
Main Entry: awk·ward
Pronunciation: \ˈȯ-kwərd\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English awkeward in the wrong direction, from awke turned the wrong way, from Old Norse ǫfugr; akin to Old High German abuh turned the wrong way
Date: 1530
1 obsolete : perverse
2 archaic : unfavorable, adverse
3 a : lacking dexterity or skill (as in the use of hands)
4 a : lacking ease or grace (as of movement or expression)
5 a : lacking social grace and assurance
6 : not easy to handle or deal with : requiring great skill, ingenuity, or care
Reading that definition shook me to my core (and is the primary reason that I went on my iTunes binge mentioned earlier, hahaha). How dare he refer to me as not dexterous, when I grew up playing piano – and any pianist, expert or amateur (I am the latter), knows that playing piano is the end of cultivating dexterity (okay, fingers-wise…) How dare he address my lack of expertness, when I graduated in the top 10% of my high school class and got my bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan. How dare he suggest that I lacked social graces – me, the resident advisor to more than 100 girls over 2 years and in positions of leadership as old as I was able to run for any sort of office (and for the most part, won). The last part of that definition floored me though, as I had to be honest with myself that I have not been easy to handle or deal with throughout my life and that I have seen how people have tread so carefully around me, or dropped me entirely. This was no fault of theirs - it was mine.
I started Wikipedia-ing like crazy (yeah, I guess that’s a pastime of mine when I have access to the internet. I’m actually not kidding…), trying to make sense of who I am through my name – which refers to the part of the eye, which translates in Spanish and Portuguese to “rainbow,” which is the title of a song by the Goo Goo Dolls (yes, I am aware…) and even asking God, ‘Why did you make me this way?’ referring to my handed-ness (which is left-handed, and yes, the reason why this blog is under construction…)
I love the story of “The Ugly Duckling” because this awkward, ungainly bird matures into a beautiful swan. I have been teased that I grew up to be a duck, and I think it’s really true. In this new context, I am fixed in my Western mind, slow to pick up on cultural cues, and slow to pick up on social cues. When I find myself in situations that are completely new and different to me, I clam up because I would rather do that than step out gingerly and fail. I hate looking weak, appearing ignorant. I realize that I have done this over the past few months to hold onto my pride – and it’s easy to reach back to things one thinks they can control when one is away from everything safe and familiar.
As I was thinking through the definition of “awkward,” it was extremely sobering to admit that the assessment of that aspect of my character was correct. I do have a hard time fitting into large groups, and people within my age bracket – likely because of events in my life that caused me to mature emotionally in a short amount of time, and also because of events that prevented me from maturing emotionally. I am used to being useful and praised for my supposed leadership skills and social cool, and I have to admit that actually yes, it is very uncomfortable for me to be in large groups of people – likely because I have only now began to reconcile who it is that I am and who I am becoming, because I haven’t accepted myself for who I am, and fear what others may think as well. I get frustrated with people who appear ignorant or not knowledgeable, thinking all the while that I am – and at the end of the day, I have to be honest and say, actually I am quite clueless and appearing knowledgeable is a cover for what I really am – which is slow to picking up concepts, but when I do I really get it… no real expertise in a specific area of whatever I studied (because I wanted to study everything possible), (and when I read the news, I have to admit that I actually read the soft/feature news and have a hard time wading through the more in-depth hard news). It’s no fun to be stripped down to the bare bones of what you really are, and hanging onto whatever I thought I was good at was a way for me to keep covering myself and my lack – and demonstrated, and still demonstrates, my brokenness and how I cannot fix myself. How I cannot rid myself of the filth and the grime that everyone else around me senses as pride.
It is a great comfort to think back to the Apostle Paul’s words, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25) So I guess this all really does tie back into Christmas because this is the reason that Jesus came to earth – to rescue insecure, broken, proud people like me – and that by believing that He became my sin (e.g. my pride), who knew no sin that I might become His righteousness (2 Corinthians 5:21) (imagine that!), that I could experience the wholeness that comes from Christ, that I don’t have to build myself up with meager things like language acquisition or cleaning. The part of the definition that floored me about myself had me floored again thinking about Christ, and how willing he was to handle me with great skill, ingenuity, and care. And while I was feeling so ruined at thinking about how malformed I really am on the inside, I realize that accepting things like being awkward are an opportunity for God to be to me who he was to people like Paul when he said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)
Thank you, Jesus, for coming to earth to become my sin – my pride, and countless other things I am ashamed of – and to die on the cross so that sin could be done away with, that I might know what it means to let go of the things that I found my security in and take hold of you this Christmas and (strive to do) every day of the year…thank you that you are not above carrying your work onto completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Philippians 1:6) in the heart of this ugly duckling who grew up into a duck!
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