no cannonballs please

~~late Thursday, July 21~~

I’ve only been in India for three days, but already I feel behind. There’s so much to learn. Not least of which is the Indian head-bobble, which I have already fallen in love with because it’s really real (at least here in the south) and is itself a language that offers an unavoidable lesson in the power of nonverbal communication. I never realized before how much I rely on shaking my head no and nodding it yes until those yeses and nos don’t translate quite correctly. And until I can’t quite read what other people’s shakes and nods mean. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of what fascinates me here.

My feeling of behindness is rooted in knowing I have limited time to learn everything I can. Spending six weeks away from home—four of them in India—is a luxury many people can’t enjoy. Still, four weeks isn’t long to learn a place. This ticking clock makes me instinctively want to jump in. Whatever that means. Yet, there’s a level at which jumping in (I’m envisioning cannonballing off a diving board, creating a big, huge splash in my hurry to get into the water) is contrary to my observer, contemplative nature and, really, contrary to what makes someone a good culture crosser.

By hanging back a little and patiently observing for a bit, learning a few rules of this place during a meantime that masquerades as unproductive, slipping in becomes more possible. As much as I wish that I could literally slip into an Indian identity and bobble my head through a day as an insider in this culture, I can’t. No matter now authentic my Indian kurta or salwar kameez, I will not blend in here. So I’m left with waiting, listening, and observing as my slipping-in tools. Patiently.

And then I wonder if this is part of what the Bible means when it says that love is patient. Is patience how I love this place that’s let me, courtesy of granting me a visa, in to share life for a little while? This wonder has sent me scurrying to look up that famous (among many) love passage, 1 Corinthians 13. And now I’m struck by something more: the power of this whole passage as a guide for entering into a place that is not our own, that is different from home, that can feel disorienting and strange, whether that place is another country, another county, or another person’s home.

Try it yourself. Think of going somewhere new and strange, a place—or even a person--that might normally elicit criticism, critique or fear for its strangeness. Then think of using this as your lens: “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly [ahem, American tourists who act like they own the world and give American tourists everywhere a bad reputation]; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness [thus, there’s still room in love to recognize that not everything in every culture is pure and good just because it’s “culture”], but rejoices with the truth; bears all things [even when people laugh and stare at you?! even when it’s culturally inappropriate to eat with your left hand even if you’re a lefty?! :-)], hopes all things, endures all things.”

Such a lens kind of changes everything. Here’s hoping I’ll manage to be patient enough to learn a little and love much.