Help! I’m Trapped!
Between “What Is” and “What Will Be”
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Buckminster Fuller
I remember my first mission trip to the Philippines.
I had prepared so well. I had read several books that were recommended to me by my friend, Craig McCord.
Craig was the real deal. He was always telling me to leave all of my preconceptions behind and completely embrace the culture I was entering.
He didn’t want me to accept a “canned” mission trip, where the missionaries spend their nights in Western style hotels and only venture out in the light of day to a few prearranged events.
I will always be thankful to him for that.
A lot of other people shared their own advice with me. Mostly what they had heard in sermons, rather than any actual experience. Strangely, the ones who had actually been on mission trips seemed to be the most quiet. I wondered why.
But the one thing about which everyone warned me time and time again was…
…culture shock
Culture Shock
CULTURE SHOCK!
So I thought I was ready…
… and I was.
I fully immersed myself in the Filipino culture. Eating the new foods. Accepting the people. Loving the children. Sharing with the poor.
I wasn’t shocked at all. I was prepared!
And then…
… I went back home.
And what I experienced was far worse than any culture shock could have ever been.
I found that I couldn’t talk to my friends and family about anything I had experienced or was feeling.
I couldn’t explain the joy that I had felt in my moments of greatest giving during my trip.
And I couldn’t express the pain that I felt when I returned home among all the indifference and inequality.
No one understood my new awareness of the… inconsistencies… that I saw between my two experiences, one of a place distant and another of a place so familiar. It was “reverse culture shock”.
Nobody had mentioned that one.
Nobody.
I was trapped between two worlds, two cultures, a Filipino world and an American world. And I didn’t belong to either one. I was no longer American, but I was not Filipino either.
I was supposed to fit back into my American world and just tell people about my pleasant “vacation”, maybe show a few pictures in church the next Sunday… and then go back to living like I had before.
But instead…
I was voiceless.
I was lost.
And I was alone.
I still am.
Yes, still. Between two cultures, to be sure. But even more so, between two worlds much greater than territories and governments.
I live now between the world of what is… and… the world of what will be.
Between a world of money and a world of gift.
Between a world of self-enslavement and a world of generational liberation.
I don’t know how big the universe is, but I am certain of one thing:
The distance between the worlds contained in the universe are insignificant compared to the expanse between the worlds contemplated in the Mind.
Curiously, while understanding (albeit subconsciously) that our monetary system is a slave driver that consumes and stresses us to our last breath, everyone still wants to use it. Or should that be “resigned to use it”?
My landlord only accepts money for rent, and the vendors at the market only accept money for food.
And in an instance of complete insanity, the “for the people” government only wants their property taxes paid with their own currency, their own money, not by what the property itself actually produces.
Not food or lumber or… oxygen. No. That’s not enough.
Everyone requests money.
Everyone requests their chains.
So I am alone again. Between two worlds.
Still. And I ask myself:
Is there a way to obtain my necessities without violating the very principles by which I want to live?
If there is, I do not see it yet.
I have thought about writing Kindle books, like others have. Or putting other types of articles behind the Medium paywall here and quietly profiting from my belief system. YouTube. Telecommuting. TESOL.
In my former life, I was actually really good with numbers, and I could make money doing that. I have lots of “marketable skills”.
Oh, have no doubt. I am “valuable” within the monetary market…
But apparently worthless outside of said market.
You might think I would be depressed by all of this.
No, I am not depressed. Not even close.
Why not?
Because I see the Vision.
Because I see a better world coming…
For this beautiful generation, and for the next one, and on and on. And on.
And I still hear the Whisper:
“Freely you have received. Freely give.”
And it consumes me again.
Always that whisper….
… That calm, magnificent Whisper.
“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”
— James Allen
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