Ask me what’s going on back in the States? I gather from my Facebook feed that people are debating Nike’s recent ads, football season is swinging into full gear and there are lots of back to school pictures.
It’s been a rough few weeks here and I’m letting it get to me.
I think about all the simple things like strolling through Target and having a business lunch at a nice restaurant. How oblivious to any and all of this are my fellow Americans back home.
I’m not typically one to be bitter, and so it concerned me recently when I caught myself thinking about being blissfully unaware while I washed my hands.
There are so many things that we want to not experience and not have to think about. It’s fortunate when we can live in that ignorance.
I wonder a lot lately if I’ll be able to put all of this in a box on a shelf in the back of my brain. Will I go back to strolling through Target unaware of the poverty, danger and corruption in a country across the world? If so, how long will it take me to gather all of it up into this figurative box.
It isn’t like I didn’t ask for this. I remember very clearly thanking God for the opportunity to be reminded of how fortunate I am in America. I expected to see poverty and be reminded of the abundance of what we have at home.
I’m not sure I expected to see the danger – although I was coming to a war zone. I’ve seen poverty before, but what I hadn’t experienced is a lack of peace.
When I think about life back at home now, it isn’t so much the abundance as it is the peace, the freedom and the safety. But then again even as I write that – I know for many American they don’t feel that same peace, safety and freedom – it can be nice to live blissfully unaware.
But is it right?
