The Sound of Silence

I'm lost here.

There's a reason that missionaries come home to America and can't assimilate back; the reason that they look crazy when they return to the world that they once knew.

I'm a missionary but I live in Texas. I don't even live outside of the US. However, El Paso, TX is far more connected to Mexico than anywhere else. The culture, the language, everything there feels like another country.

I traveled close to "home" this week. I flew to Florida for a conference in Orlando. I'm originally from Georgia but you would think that this was my first trip to the states. Everything here looks shiny and huge and beautiful and a trip to the mall food court is all it took to completely throw me over the edge.

This happens every time I come "home" or return back to the world that was once familiar. I stand in the front yard and lay for hours in the grass or spend my mornings outside staring at the flowers. My parents ask if I'm going to come in or just sit outside all day and take pictures by the driveway.

Everything I see looks so different now.

The world I grew up in for 23 years hasn't changed at all, but I'm seeing things I've never seen before.

It took me leaving it all and going without to see how much was there all along. As I come back to what was once the familiar United States and pass decorative fountains and valets at the mall, I see through brand new eyes. I see people walking around with no clue of all that is around them. As though living like this is normal. Because it is; but it is not at all.

I am convinced as of late that we are so over-saturated in this life that we cannot possibly see the beauty and simplicity that surrounds us. The sweetness of life's moments have lost their flavor in our abundance. We walk around as though we have it all when truly we are blind.

We can never understand the value of a life until we have lost one, or food until we have gone without. We cannot understand the gift of clean water until we have none or health care until our child is dying on the floor. We marvel at how happy others are when "they have so little." They are happy because they know how much they have been given. The littlest blessings are viewed as gifts. Each bite is not lost in the full meal but savored for all that it is. They did not come into this world with "everything" only to get more, but rather with nothing and rejoice in the gain.

My life has been so much fuller lately since I spent the past month in Mexico without. The birds that were always there wake me as though I've never heard them before. I am overwhelmed by the gift of a cup of coffee over a conversation with friends. I can't stop looking at the fan over my head or the bed I sleep in every night. 

In Henri Nouwen's book, "Out of Solitude," he said it best, “Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.”

I am learning for the first time the gift of losing everything to find it all. Perhaps I'm finally beginning to understand how less can be more. I am trying to hold on to this beauty and simplicity as the world threatens to come rushing in. I find myself valuing the sound of silence because now the words mean so much more.