That’s how I expected to feel coming home, but truth be told, that hasn’t been my experience…at least not yet. I look around at everything that was once so familiar, and now a year older, but relatively the same. The biggest thing that’s struck me so far is how little has changed, how life goes on without you, not skipping a beat. And now I just melt right back in, almost as though I never left.How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on?
Then in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back.
~Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
But that raises the obvious question of how I have changed, which is more what Frodo’s quote is talking about. How does a changed person fit back into a culture that hasn’t changed? Or in our cross-cultural training terminology, when a square-headed person lives in a round-headed culture his edges become more and more rounded. So how does the newly rounded square-headed person fit back into his square-headed culture?
This is the process often called “re-entry” or “reverse culture shock.” At least that’s the technical explanation. More personal insights to come as I experience more.As for the jet-lag, I was kind of enjoying waking up at 5 and 6 in the morning, reading the Word, watching the sunrise. The morning hours are lovely, a few quiet moments before the world awakes to it’s busy-ness. But I think staying up until 1am watching the Patriots last night has gone a long way to setting my body clock back on schedule.
2 comments:
Hey Mike it is very interesting reading your blog. I can only imagine that living in such a different culture as you were, that coming back would seem odd. Its familiar yet you are not the same. You have such an advantage I think having the experiences you have had, however no one here that really knows who you have been for the past year.
I am excited for you, and would love to know where God leads you next!!
I know what how it feels to get up so early before the noises i kind of love doing the same too.
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