Let the questions begin...

I wrote this one last week sometime...

After the blur of my first week and a half in the states I’ve finally had some time to think…to begin processing. And boy have the questions begun. I know this is “normal” for coming back to the states after a year in South Asia – but it still kinda hits you right in the face. Also, as if I didn’t have enough swirling around in my head I watched “the story of stuff” (www.storyofstuff.com) and started re-reading “Rich Christians in the Age of Hunger.”

So here I am, questioning the way I live here, how much I use natural resources, how the way I choose to live impacts the rest of the world, how “The American Way” clashes with the rest of the world. Thinking about chemicals, and the what I put in my body, what I put in the earth, what I consume, how much to I believe the lies of advertising, how I can use less, what does simplicity mean, what does it mean to steward what God has entrusted to me. You know…light easy questions with quick compact answers. My mind is spinning. On a lighter note I went to the grocery store with my sister and was amazed by how big and shiny and nice all the produce was…how does that happen? I mean really, the tomatoes, lemons and onions were twice the size of the once I bought in South Asia…

On Sunday my brain started swirling with questions about the church – and what it means to be a part of the body of Christ (it seems like that question is always simmering just below the surface). I just kept thinking, “What is this? What does this mean? Really, what are we doing here? Is this it?” I don’t mean those questions to be condemning necessarily (although I realize it could come off that way) – I had similar thoughts when I came back from Kolkata before. I think it’s a combination of not having been in a North American church for a year…and trying to figure out how my experience in a church in suburban America and my world in South Asia fit together, and how God is calling the two together.