Just contemplating in Alcazar in Sevilla.
I was walking around the market in Segovia on Thursday when I met a local named Felipe. He noticed that I didn’t seem like I was from around here, so he asked me where I was from.
I gave him the typical spiel about studying Spanish and being from the land of Colonel Sanders. And then he told me that he’s studying English! So of course we started trying to speak the language of the other. And honestly, he wasn’t half bad.
But what surprised me even more than his English skills was how familiar this guy seemed to me. He started talking about American pop culture and asked how the party scene was in America.
We chatted some more and religion eventually came up. He told me that Christianity was a list of rules of do’s and don’ts and that his parents were too strict and he wanted to be able to have sex when he wanted and drink however much he wished.
At first, I wrote him off as just another one of the countless youth in Europe that have basically lost all faith. The longer I stay here, the more isolated I feel by that fact.
But then I realized something.
I never had to travel overseas to meet this guy. I suddenly knew why he was so familiar.
I was him, just a few years ago. He is the same guy I can still meet at a typical frat party on a Thursday night. He is your study buddy in History class. Or he’s the captain of the football team. He might even be the girl who is the leader of your workplace’s volunteer week, who pours herself into helping others because that where she feels most alive and most useful.
No hope. No direction. No cause. Even in the best covers (like volunteering at homeless shelters), we are often times just trying to do life the best way we can and soak up as much happiness as we can attain for ourselves.
That’s not a Felipe thing. That’s not even a Spain thing. That’s a heart thing. And if we’re all honest, we’ve been there.
C.S. Lewis puts it like this:
“If you have not chosen the Kingdom of God, it will make in the end no difference what you have chosen instead. We shall have missed the end for which we are formed and rejected the only thing that satisfies.
Does it matter to a man dying in a desert by which choice of route he missed the only well?”
As I reflect, I feel just as isolated in the states as I do here. Most people just always seem different than me. And though I’m tempted to pin that on Spanish culture or mainstream American culture or whatever label is in fashion, it’s really so much more than that.
It’s because I was never meant to be part of this world. And you weren’t either. Jesus died so that we don’t have to make up for our sins or soak up every moment of happiness we can. We already have eternal joy in knowing that our God loves us unfailingly, unswervingly, and unceasingly.
It is totally undeserved, despite our best efforts and our poorest attempts.
Let’s hear what Paul has to say on this subject in Philippians 3:18-21:
18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
So I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you don’t feel like you belong where you are sometimes, you must belong somewhere else…
With Jesus.
U think you are feeling isolated because you are writing off everyone you meet?….. or because you judging people for not following the same path as you? Great writing though! You really have a voice!
Not judging, friend. But if you read my post, I make it clear that I believe I am on a certain path (or at least trying to be). It doesn’t take judgement to feel isolated in a lifepath. That’s a common human condition, especially if you find yourself alone on the path you’ve chosen, regardless of what that path is (putting religion totally out of the picture).
I simply believe there’s only one path that leads to life. That sounds judgmental, I know. But how could I judge the path of others if I know the only reason I’m on that path of life is because God had to die for me to have access to it. And even with that path totally available, I find myself straying constantly. I certainly have no right to judge. So to answer your question, I haven’t written off anyone without also writing off myself, nor have I judged anyone lest I be judged by the same standard that I shall certainly never meet. There’s only been one perfect person, and we nailed him to a tree for it.
And I should add, the whole point of this post was to say, feeling isolated is totally worth it if you’re truly alive. I don’t think I made a single judgmental comment in the whole post without including myself as doing the very same thing myself. I don’t consider that judgment in the slightest, just recognition of our many faults as human beings.
he sounds like a nice Christian person……..very unusual these days.
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2013 01:40:14 +0000 To: habitzg@hotmail.com