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Escape to Ikea

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 4 Comments

ikeaI go to Ikea for a cultural break.  The blue and yellow bastion of  order speaks my language in the midst of a chaotic culture.  At Ikea I know how life works.  I understand the products that sit on the shelves.  The model apartments reflect the dream I dream of one day achieving order in my own home.  The prices allow me to take home a little piece of Swedish brilliance.  And, they take care of some of my kids for an hour so I can browse in self-centered silence!  What’s not to love?

Ikea surrounds me in western-conceived orderliness.  I understand the world for the time I walk their halls.  I relish the way I know how things work for once and it’s not just a knowledge gained over time but a deep-seated knowing rooted in the basics of my identity and western upbringing.  For an hour or two I retreat from Eastern thought and indulge the part of myself that will never quite be put to rest overseas.  I vacate in the walls of a store where I need no passport or expensive ticket to feel more at home.

Now that my daughter exceeds the play area age limit, Ikea means mother daughter time.  She finally appreciates shopping and she understands that our family mostly looks.  We laugh at the 5 aunties chatting it up on a model king-sized bed while the baby in the middle sleeps.  We exchange ideas about style–good style, not-our-style, bad style.  We notice some furniture is very, very inexpensive and some quite expensive.  We define quality.

We pick up the few things we came to buy and try our hardest to resist the intriguing but unnecessary items.  We fail…often.  The arrows on the floor herd us along.  We note the items we might purchase next time if they receive approval when discussed at home.  We never miss the “as is” section.  I still wonder who buys the mattresses no one wanted after their 90 day trial period!  We purchase and pick up the boys and follow the path to get hot dogs and an ice cream cones that are too cheap to refuse.  Everyone wins at Ikea.

At Ikea I embrace a part of myself that I can never put aside completely no matter how long I live in a foreign land.  I speak the language, grasp some of the mindsets, eat the food, survive, and often thrive but I am foreign and always will be a foreigner.  Escaping to Ikea for a few hours a month used to feel like a personal weakness.  Now I just enjoy Ikea for what it is…a break and an acknowledgement of my identity.

What escapes exist within your host culture?  Do you take advantage of them?  Why or why not?

Me and Marius

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 5 Comments

I weep every time I see Les Miserables but the part I cry harder in than any other is when Marius remembers his fallen friends. He stands and sings of empty chairs and empty tables. Empty chairs. Empty tables. I’m choking up even as I recall the song.

Too many empty chairs and empty tables. Chairs and tables where friends once sat, where we talked, laughed, dreamed, ate, played games, argued, reconciled. My friends did not die, but many have moved which is a kind of death. It is death to daily life together. Death to easy conversation. Death to a kind of friendship even though the friendship itself is not dead. Death to seeing their faces practically whenever I felt like it.

I feel like Marius these days. A little war torn…the one left and not knowing why. So, so many people come and go in our lives. When I count them, I move from fingers, then to toes, and then I run out of digits to help me. Why us? Why are we left? I know it is not because we are better, more fluent, more adjusted, more spiritual, more capable. No, no, those are not the reason we are still here.

Going back to the café is so hard. Remembering my friends. Remembering the good times. Remembering even the hard times, those times when we did not get along as well as I wanted or they wanted. Times when we disappointed each other. The times we sinned against each other. And also the times when we did it good. When we stood by each other and offered a shoulder to cry on, a heartfelt word of encouragement, a meal, forgiveness, grace. My life is full because of my friendships forged in the heat of battle.  I wouldn’t give it up even as I cry the tears of missing them.

My tears begin to dry up when Marius comes to the part where he talks of the futility of his friends’ deaths. I gulp back my choking and depart from his line of thought. While futility is a part of life, it is not part of the battle I pursue. It is not in vain that we put our lives out there for the miserables of the world. We strived to look down and that is close to God’s heart. It is not futile even if my eye does not see as much progress as I hoped. The cause is worth it. I am not giving my life for nothing.

It is the season of departures and this year they start early and go late.  So, here, now I revisit the café of friendships and cry my tears as I remember times gone by with the hope, too, of good times yet to come.

Old Chickens

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 1 Comment

My name in Chinese sounds like “I love you” in some dialects.  Imagine me standing in an apartment helping negotiate a rental contract and introducing myself.  Picture the surprised expression on the landlords face as he replies, startled, “you love me?”  Why didn’t I change my name at that point?  I have no idea.  I’d already picked it?  I knew how to write it in characters?  I’m stubborn.

Learning a new language means becoming a child again.  It means people laughing at you for the cute ways you say things, for the mistakes you make.  People don’t understand even when you’re sure you say it right.  I become a two-year old with a temper tantrum as I try to ask for food to feed myself and no one understands me.  I use my hands and face to express what I cannot with my words.  It’s humbling.

It’s also funny.  Fast forward 11 years and you have me now.  I hate sharing that I’ve lived here 11 years when people ask me.  The admiration for my language abilities fades into the truth that after 11 years I should be more fluent!  Sometimes I muddy the truth…ok, I mislead people…ok, I repent from my lying…and share only how long I’ve lived in this city to avoid the faded admiration.

But, recently I made a pretty funny foible and it brought a smile to a sad face.  I didn’t orchestrate it, I was asked if I understood something and I shared what I thought I’d heard, “something about old chickens” I said.  No, it was something totally not about old chickens but the damage, or the benefit, had already been done.  A sad face smiled and my foolish misunderstanding brought some heavy things into a little perspective.

The “Old Chickens Incident” reminded me afresh to embrace the childlike nature of being a continual learner.  To laugh at myself, to share what I don’t understand instead of giving the fluent impression, to be weak and let God be strong.

Fluency would be awesome but He sure does show me a lot in the areas I lack fluency.

How does God used your lack of “fluency” to show you more about Himself?

Feast

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DSC_068015 minutes.  Maybe 20 minutes.  That’s the time limit doctors and scientists and people on the web say we get to stuff in all the goodies before our stomachs send desperate signals to our brain to stop already.  My husband and I joke at buffets and Thanksgiving that we have 20 minutes.  20 minutes to stuff in as much food as we can before we won’t enjoy it anymore.  Feasting.  It’s really an art.

I think God’s people nailed it though.  Days.  They planned days of feasting, not just one day.  They traveled and prepared and ate and rested for days.  They even had whole years God told them to eat off the land–plant nothing–just eat what grows.

We have one day for Thanksgiving.  One day, maybe two days off, for Christmas.  A barbecue for the 4th of July.  I really need days to enjoy the feast though.  I require days to enjoy all the myriad desserts and side dishes.

A few weeks ago we took a sorrowful ride home from the airport after saying goodbyes to my parents.  I’m always so happy to see them.  We eagerly anticipate their visits.  We plan, we dream, we expect.  We prepare for the relational feast.

But, remember that 20 minute rule?  At some point I’m faced with reality.  I want to eat more at the familial relational table but I’m stuffed to bursting.  The food is good but now I’m full.  I know beyond  shadow of a doubt I’ll be very, very hungry in the weeks and months afterwards.  Famine will come.  I’ll crave the feast intensely but at the present moment, I’m about to burst.

I hate that I get full, that my words get used up, that I crave routine even.  Oh, to have a bigger stomach!  Feasting without end!  That’s what my soul craves with my spouse, my children, my family, my friends.

Maybe that’s what we’ll experience in heaven.  No.  I know that is the experience, the promise.  A place for me in the family house.  The family feast without end where I never get tired or full or stressed and neither does anyone else.  All the children gathered at the table of the Lord released from our weakness and sin.  Feasting without end.

What a day…what a day.  I do long for it!  The wait feels eternal right now.  My hope and joy is that I know it is not.