Glass eyes and dis-remembering pills.



When I was in elementary school we had a kid in the neighborhood named Allison. One day Allison told me, “I can touch the middle of my eyeball with my finger and it won’t hurt me.” I didn’t believe her. But then she went on to do it. She poked her finger right in the middle of her eyeball without flinching. I was in disbelief. But I saw her do it. I was so confused.

Later that evening, as my family sat around the dinner table, I recounted the tale of Allison and her unflinching eyeball maneuver. My mom said, “The reason she can do that is because she has a glass eye.” I am sure she went on to explain what glass eyes were, and why Allison had one, and she probably told me that I shouldn’t tease her, blah, blah, blah. But if that happened, I don’t remember because the moment I heard Allison had a glass eye, I was really creeped out and it was as if I entered a new dimension in the world-- a dimension in which glass eyes were a possibility.

After dinner, my parents went out and we had a babysitter. I still remember being put to bed that night and lying in bed crying as I thought about Allison and her glass eye. I was terrified. I don’t know why it made me so anxious and uncomfortable, but it did. And I remember having this thought-- I wish there was a pill I could take that could make me not remember what my mom told me about Allison and her glass eye. In my head I called it a “dis-remembering pill.” And I thought about how much better the world would be if someone could invent them-- because no matter how much I tried not to think about the glass eye, it was just there.

As I’ve gotten older, there have been numerous times that I’ve thought about that night when I was lying on the bottom bunk of my bed. There have been numerous times when that kind of feeling of fear and anxiety has overtaken me. That feeling of, “I wish I could just UN-know this.”

But, well, we can’t. And we know we can't. That doesn't stop us from trying different things to numb our pain, hopeful that somehow they will have the same effect as a dis-remembering pill. But the memories persist. And so does the anxiety. So does the pain.

I bring this up today, because I am in the latest iteration of our transition back from Haiti. We just spent the greatest week there. And we connected with many of the people we love the most. And it was a great trip. It made us so happy. And yet, for the first time since leaving Haiti, we were also happy to return to the States and the life we live here. That feels good. I am coming to love and appreciate the opportunities we have here in the States as well as the kind of life where we can, pa za pa, offer more security and normalcy for our children (and ourselves.)

There’s just that pesky issue of what we know and cannot forget.

We visited with a bunch of different friends last week, and we see the wear and tear that living with such a deep purpose has on them. They are doing such beautiful, redemptive work. They are making a positive difference in relational and grassroots ways. Frankly, it’s pretty damn inspiring and I (almost) feel a tinge of jealousy at the opportunities they have to do such important work. Not because I wish we were the ones doing it so much, but the feeling of staying in the fight-- the long defeat, if you will-- it’s how you deal with the feeling of the things you know and cannot un-know. At least that was a comfort to me. This feeling of, “I hate knowing this, but at least I am sure I am working to make it better.”

BUT...

We also see some of our friends drowning, or, at best, just treading wearily to keep their heads above the water as their muscles tire. We remember this feeling. And we have a new understanding as to how our friends and family must have felt about us when we lived there.

To be perfectly honest, I don’t know where God and I stand these days. The more I wake up each day to realities of our world, the more I question what I once held so dear and true. But no matter how far my heart may wander, I can’t shake this feeling of a calling I felt I had to Haiti. (Please bear with me here, I know that’s terribly Christian-ese sounding.) I can’t shake the feeling that we were supposed to go to Haiti. I don’t know why. (These days I have some guesses that have much, much more to do with us than with anyone Haitian, but I digress.) So whether you call it “God’s calling” or an “invitation from the universe”, I feel that way about us relocating to Haiti, regardless of how clueless we were at the time we arrived.

Fast forward to us leaving Haiti back in 2015. We were sharing our confusion about leaving because of this “calling” with our friend Ken, and he said, “Here’s what I think a lot of missionaries are missing. If God can call you TO Haiti, why can’t he also call you OUT OF Haiti?”

And right then it became crystal clear to us. We may have very well been “called” to Haiti for a time. And there was work that needed to be done while we were there. And we did it to the best of our ability. But at that moment, for us (and for us alone-- I don't presume to know other people's circumstances), it was time to go. Our "calling" to that work in that place at that time, had expired. We could no longer be useful without succumbing to the riptide.

I can love this place we used to live. I can miss the hell out of the people we love. I can see that problems are not solved and they are so heavy, and so dark. I can acknowledge the pain. And I can sit there in that pain. And I can share with others what we learned in hopes of some forward movement, but ultimately it’s their journey. And I can try to be a breath of fresh air to those still treading the water. But I can also make a new home on the shore in a world where there are glass eyes and no dis-remembering pills.









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