The Search.

[1]

I look up to the map on my bedroom wall.

Africa. What a beaut.

If you cut me open you’ll find my heart is shaped like Africa yet this past month I have cheated on Africa with the Middle East and Europe.

I didn’t gain any new wisdom but I was reminded of some older wisdom: Loving people is beautiful yet it can also bring immense pain in the space behind your own ribs.

This past month I have witnessed a tension between two worlds like nothing I’ve seen before:

The Middle East and Europe.

Both spaces having to deal with pain but in very different nuances.

The most refugees have nothing they need. The most Europeans have everything they need.

One should never romanticize travelling. I have seen beauty that stilled me. I have seen pain that stilled me. Both pretty penetrating. Going away teaches you where your home is. Meeting new people[2] makes you miss your family[3]. Seeing new places makes you yearn for old places. Feeling new feelings for people reminds you of old feelings. Holding a new hand reminds you of other hands you use to hold. It teaches you about many deep tough spaces in your soul.

It takes an action of the heart[4] to travel as it can be uncomfortable and uneasy. I’m not referring to that vacation you took to get your next profile picture. I’m talking about meaningful travels. Where you actually meet locals and don’t only take photos of them. We don’t want to go through the middle. Through the difficult times. We want to be at the finish line with the experience of the race without enduring its tests and challenges.

I have had many beautiful nights the past month.

A great party in Italy with some Italian Music Therapy students on the steps of St. Francis’s church. Beer and church.

Beautiful night time prayer with newly made family in Jordan on a roof where you can see the lights of Jericho and the Jordan River. Family and church.

Although these nights will be remembered forever

everything is in a tension.

Everyone has felt pain. Everyone has had moments of joy. The bridge to the heart of the other is that which we have in common. The space where you learn from one another is where you differ. The space where you learn of God’s heart is in the pain of the other that you can recognize in yourself. This is how you feel with others instead of feel for them. In Eager to Love Richard Rohr says that it is only when you can feel with others, bleed with them, cry with them and be broken with them that you can connect to the heart of Jesus on the cross. Your brokenness connects you to other people and to Jesus. In essence you are feeling how it felt to be crucified next to Christ.

With one hand in the broken wounds of the "other" and the second hand in your own, you connect with Gods heart.

I usually pray that I find myself in uncomfortable spaces so I am able to learn more yet there was a moment in Jordan where I asked to be put in a more comfortable space as I couldn’t handle the pain of the stories of the refugees anymore. I thought this feeling would leave me as I flew to the capital of comfort: Europe. Here I encountered a different nuance of pain. An emptiness. A search for something deeper. A yearning for deeper life. Hope for something to fill. Also a meaninglessness because nothing fulfills.

We all believe in something that will rip us into shreds. So cry your eyes out. Fill your lungs up. We all hurt. We all lie and nothing stays the same. Let your guard down and let you heart get pounding. We all bleed and we all breathe. Sit in thunder and watch the earth shake. Feel the blood thrashing through your heart. Enjoy the smell of freshly cut grass or try to grasp the smell of the ocean.

I remember a time where my smile belonged to you. When we could dance and step on one another’s toes and laugh about it. The days we could chat about my heart aches and the pain laying ahead. Where we shared everything we had. I remember looking at you in church hoping you won't see that I'm looking. I can remember you breathing on my head as you caressed me. The many times we enjoyed the sun together. How you comforted me during the storms. How you loved me when I was wrong and kept me humble when I was right. When I try to grasp what I had with you the tears come a knocking on my eye lids. The pain starts rushing up my throat. Memories so close. A time not long ago.

Whilst I was searching for my heart it was yours I yearned for.

Whilst I was searching for your heart I found mine.

Thank you God.

It is You.

Weave a silence onto my lips.

Weave a silence onto my mind.

Weave a silence within my heart.

Close my eyes to distractions.

Close my eyes to attractions.

Close my heart to temptations.

Calm me. Still me. Let me. Enfold me.

- Celtic Prayer

[1] Banksy Graffiti.

[2] Immanuel, Marsha, Georgia, Lea, Maria, Eunice, Jandre, Akram, Salem, Madeleine, etc.

[3] I don’t differentiate between family and friends. Friends are family.

[4] Cor Agere: An action of the heart = Courage.