The sabbatical months gave me lots of time to ponder life and ministry. Traveling exposed me to lots of new people and cultures that jostled my mind and spirit in various ways. I'm not sure I came away with any earth-shattering revelations, but I certainly had plenty to think about as we traveled from country to country. Now, while on vacation at the tail end of the sabbatical, I'd like to reflect a bit as a way of capturing those impressions in writing.
The first reflections sounds a bit like a cliche, but here it is: "People are pretty much the same everywhere you go!" Not in a "there's nothing new or interesting about anyone" sort of way, but more like "people are fascinating and pretty amazing everywhere." I'm not sure why I kept expecting folks in other parts of the world to be essentially "different" in some way. For example, we spent considerable time with Bedouins in Egypt and Jordan. Without realizing it, I pictured some sort of primitive tribe before we arrived. I was suprised with the Bedouins just turned out to be rather ordinary (though extraordinarily hospitable) folks like us. Even the traditional long, white robes worn by our hosts when they picked us up in their Chevy were exchanged for jeans and pullovers the next day. Elsewhere, the teenagers we saw in the Jordanian desert and the Golen Heights and the Greek Islands all had cell phones attached to their hands for the purpose of rapid texting. Those are outward things, of course. More importantly, we saw people act and react and feel and express themselves in ways that seemed very familiar. Parents cared about their kids just like we do in the U.S. They disciplined them or didn't. They lost their patience. They hugged their children and knelt beside them as they gave parental advice or wiped their tears.
One of the obvious differences between people in the regions we visited is religious affiliation. In Egypt and Jordan, and Turkey, we met and interacted with Muslims. In Israel, there was a mix of Jews and Muslims (as well as Palestinian Christians, though we are not aware of meeting any.) Greeks are mostly Eastern Orthodox Christians; Italians are mostly Roman Catholic. Apart from a general awareness of the likely religous affiliation of folks we met, based mostly on geography, there was very little to distinguish people on the basis of religion. Some people were exceedingly kind. Others were rude. Most were quite gracous when we asked for some sort of help or directions to the next town. We almost never felt uncomfortable or unsafe while we traveled, and when we did it had nothing to do with religisous differences.
It's sad to me that people continue to judge others or assume they know something about their "goodness" or "badness" based on their nationality or religion. I'm aware that I had nothing to do with where I was born, and if I'm super-honest, I acknowledge that I'm a Christian primarily because I was born into a Christian family. Others were born in different places and know nothing other than their own religious tradition. That's just how things are, and there is mostly goodness to be found when meeting people who seem different. Certainly, what we all have in common is more important than our differences. The months spent far from home reminded me of that!
