When I go to functions that have fancy food platters and such, I pick and choose, just like everyone else. I love the variety! But the fruit platters make me sad. Not because I don’t love fruit – I do! Fruit platters are such a good idea.
And yet, platter after platter after platter, there they are: cantaloupe and green melon slices. Really, people?
Of all the delicious fruit that could be put on a platter, cantaloupe and green melon make the cut? How? It is forever a mystery to me.The green melon with its pale looking flesh and dull flavour. The cantaloupe with… what is that colour and flavour anyway? Where are the strawberries that smell like summer? Where are the orange slices kissed by the sun and little grapes that splatter cheer all over your mouth when you bite into them? I’ll tell you what I do at these cantaloupe and green melon platters – I take all the pineapple (it seems like wherever you find cantaloupe and green melons, you find pineapple too. Thank the good Lord!). Yes, I’m that person. I’m the reason why when you arrive at the platter, there’s no good fruit left. And I’m not even sorry! I skim off the top, take what I want and leave the rest. I also eat muffins the same way.
I think we live a lot of life in this way.
We’re all kinda like tourists – enjoying the good, staying away from the bad, taking and leaving what we want, and coming and going when we please. We’ve become accustomed to, once a year or so, packing up our bags, flying somewhere exotic, seeing the sights, and falling in love with an idea, with a fragment of reality. And then we leave and go home and post pictures on Facebook and Oh! That trip was good! That party was good! That friendship was good! That fruit was good! I admit, a part of me LOVES being a tourist!
When I went to India the first time, I did not go as a tourist. Even though I was only there for six weeks, from the moment my lungs filled with New Delhi air, I began to think of India not as a place I would spend time exploring and basking in all that is beautiful and magical, but as a place I would soon have to make my home. When you know you eventually will call a certain place “home”, it completely changes your perspective and the way you invest yourself. You want to see different things, you want to understand different layers, you want to have different conversations, and you want to know if you can not only survive in that place but also thrive. So you dive in to a country and a culture and people in a way you do not as a tourist. Suddenly those little cafes you normally would seek out or the grand structure you just have to get your picture with are not as important as knowing if you can, day after day, eat the food and breathe the air and play chicken in the traffic and love the people.
I tried my best to see India for what it was – its beauty and its brokenness all wrapped up together in a way only India could express. I despised parts of it and I loved parts of it. In the end, I chose to move there and, in doing so, to do something extraordinary, something no tourist could ever do, no matter how hard he or she tried. My extraordinary act was this: I chose to not engage this country as a tourist would, keeping it at arms-length, criticizing and praising it with ignorance.
I chose to move in and, by moving in, I chose to give my beauty and my brokenness to India and, in turn, allow India to give her’s to me. It was a beautiful exchange. I suppose when you move in, there is no other way.
I got to know India as she was, warts and all, and I let India know me in the same way. My time there often felt like I was taking two steps back and one step forward but, looking back now, I see that this kind of dance is incredibly worthwhile, as long as you’re doing it with someone you love. I held on to India and she to me and we wept together for six months. We laughed too, but mostly we just wept. Our perspectives shone light on each other’s brokenness and oh, so much beauty. We bared our souls together and only because of this raw honesty did we find hope together. And so much love. (I mostly discovered this after the fact, and am still discovering it to this day.)
Here’s the main point: Before I made the permanent move to India (accepting permanence is necessary to truly move in, whether or not you end up staying for long), I thought a lot about how I would leave my home in Vancouver. I wanted to be present where I was yet found this very difficult to do, knowing I would soon be leaving. With the people in my life I began to discover in myself a tourist – a way to love people that was exciting but shallow; a way to skim over people and only take the bits and pieces I wanted or enjoyed. Why go any deeper when you’re just going to leave soon? But I also began to discover that this is not love at all. Like a tourist sitting at a Parisian cafe, pretending to be one of the locals for a short time but knowing nothing about what it actually means to live there, or like a party-goer leaning over a fruit platter, choosing the best fruit and leaving the rest behind, I found that it was tempting to love others in this way too, especially because I knew I was leaving soon. You have to protect yourself, right?
But from what exactly?
I wrote about this in my journal one day, when I still didn’t know for certain what day or month I would be leaving for India, but knowing it would be soon.
May 2, 2011
“my view of life right now is as a tourist – looking on, dipping in, but not fully investing because i am leaving. i have come to the conclusion that, while i have tried hard, i do not know how to love as i should…my tourist love infects me and infects others. i suppose we are all tourists in some way, exploring the exciting and intriguing parts of each other’s lives but avoiding the back alleys and the reality of each other’s darkness. and if we do dare step in, if only for a moment, we don’t know what to do or say. but it is only here in this place that we truly discover one another and, if we are brave enough to stay, we find a home. not in the sense of a place to live, but in the sense of comfort, familiarity, peace, and knowing, for it is here that we find ourselves, too. we are ourselves together, in all our brokenness and in all our hope.”
I made a decision that day that I would not be a tourist when it came to those I loved. I would love with my whole heart, from start to end, all the way to the tarmac and beyond. It was painful at times, but mostly just beautiful. As it turned out, I left for India much later than I thought I would and I came back much earlier than I thought I would. I was so thankful that when it came to people, I had decided to by-pass tourism and simply make a home.
The thing is,with life and love you never really know when you’re coming or going. So there’s no point in being a tourist – not with people anyway. There’s really no such thing as tourist love.
I’m thinking that’s why Jesus came and “became flesh and took up residence among us” (John 1:14) – to show us, in depth and in detail, how far love will really go and how much love will really cost (right down to the last drop of blood and the first breath after the grave) and He also showed us how to love each other really well. When He came, He didn’t come as a tourist – He moved in, in every way possible.
And because He moved in, He changed the world forever.
________________
© Stephanie Ratcliff and stephanieratcliff.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Stephanie Ratcliff and stephanieratcliff.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.
Stephanie Ratcliff 