sanctuary

I Won’t Look Away. for The Mudroom.

Our eyes grew wide in disbelief at the yelling, shoving crowd. We had been warned, to be fair, that our trip to the Mogamma, the towering government building in Tahrir Square, would be difficult. But this was something entirely otherworldly. We clutched our passports to our chests and braced ourselves against elbows to the ribs. Everyone there needed to get to that one plexiglass window at the front of the room. On the other side were the stamps that would allow us to stay in the country.

We came to Egypt on tourist one-month entry visas in faith that the system would work and we would be allowed to stay. We didn’t act like there was any other option when we signed a two-year lease and enrolled in Arabic classes. But we needed someone on the other side of the mob to take our papers and give us final permission.

We tell our immigration stories fondly now from the other side. They felt like harrowing experiences while we were in the middle of them though. We hounded the guy at the Bangladeshi Embassy daily. He could have denied our visas because of a changing rule we didn’t know about. Instead, he gave us a call and a chance to make it right. Our entire life was already packed up in ten suitcases and the one-way plane tickets had been purchased. Yet he held the power to deny us entry into the new life we sought. In the end, we got the highly-coveted five-year permission that others told us they were jealous of. “How easy it was for you,” they would say.

I’ve been an immigrant twice and I’ve served with an organization that worked in relief and development amidst one of the largest refugee crises of our time. I’ve helped bring aid to those who fled. I listened to and wrote stories so that donors would hopefully continue to help. I stood looking over the vast rolling hills of the world’s largest refugee camp and thought I knew something about the vulnerability of a transitory life. I knew nothing.

When I started listening, really listening—I realized how one-sided my knowledge was of why people leave and why people need sanctuary...

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June 5, 2019 Listening to God:

My Need to Belong. For SheLoves Magazine.

The wounds I learned to operate from early on in life were the ones that screamed, “You don’t belong. You’re not enough.” It sounds ridiculous. I come from a stable middle class white American family; I should have always known where I fit. Yet I don’t remember a time when I didn’t feel like I’d missed the invitation to the party of the year.

Maybe a counselor would tell me it came from being the youngest grandchild, left in the yard alone wondering where the others had gone to play without me. Maybe it was the half-brother who stopped coming around when I was little. There was always this ache inside missing the brother I never knew, wondering was it a little bit my fault?

When I think of my childhood I’ve always wondered why I gravitated toward a spiritual life when it wasn’t a norm in our home. I asked for a Bible and poured over the King James words nestled between the lacy covers of this mysterious book. I latched onto a faith community as a teenager like it was the long-awaited life raft that would save me from the sinking ship of feeling like an outsider.

And yet … I didn’t quite fit with the church kids who knew all the answers either. I picked up the lingo quickly, but I wasn’t quite a member of their club. I clung to Jesus but never quite felt like I was in with his people. So, I spent my life trying harder. Maybe if I went into the ministry, I’d finally belong?

In the year and a half I lived in South Asia, I was brutally aware of my loneliness. Some people who said they would stay in touch weren’t there for me when I reached out to them in the depths of my anxiety. There were the few family and friends that were the constant safety net to my falling. They messaged me and held out prayers. I knew in my heart I wasn’t alone. And yet I felt so utterly cast out.

The first time I video-chatted with a spiritual director I was sure she could hear my heart beating into the computer microphone. I was so nervous about what she would say, what she would think of me. Would she judge me for doing this God-thing all wrong? I talked to her about my inability to find God in prayers full of words, so I’d turned to silent prayer. And still I couldn’t find what I was searching for. She mentioned the Enneagram; asked if I knew my type. I laughed, because I’d just finally started reading The Sacred Enneagram. I was just beginning to explore what it means to be a Type Six...