More Than Words

This week I'm sharing a series of stories and reflections from my time spent studying abroad in Central America. These are excerpts from my memoir in progress; stories that have shaped me, shattered my pretenses and preset beliefs, and sculpted the way I live and love and encounter God today. I hope in some small way, you can relate and be challenged to reflect more deeply on the experiences that have influenced you and your faith. Check out Monday's and Tuesday's posts to catch up. 

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More Than Words

I could handle the rants on politics and even the exposure to poverty. I’d never been that interested in political ideologies or campaign propaganda and I’d always known there were poor people in the world. The direct attack on my faith hurt most. 

Most days, our professor, Don Mike, would pace back and forth like a lion waiting to go in for the kill. His sporadic mumblings sounded like growls and soon he would be roaring. My jaw would clench as my heart pounded. He would reduce my beliefs and upbringing to egocentric self-validation. A means of exclusion. Judgment. My faith was offensive, a stench in the nostrils of the Almighty God. A darkened city on a hill. The tasteless salt of the earth. The hypocritical light of the world. The hair on my arms would stand up and it would feel like I’d swallowed a car battery. If anyone, he’d be the one to know when the church was being ineffective; he used to be a Catholic priest.

Don Mike lecturing to us on a field trip in Costa Rica.

He would be panting by now; his gruff voice would crack as he condemned American Christianity and everything it stands for. I felt personally attacked as he recounted the horrors of conquest-driven, smallpox-bearing missionaries and money scamming “Gospel of Wealth” televangelists. The blood of every person killed or exploited in the name of God since the dawn of time would stick in the crevices of my guilty hands.

By this point, the pulsating vein in the middle of his scrunched forehead looked ready to burst. I would forget that that he coined himself a “recovering Catholic.” I would forget that he did not hold a monopoly on truth. And while I hated him and everything he was saying, I still began to believe that maybe I was the enemy.

I began to question my entire life as a Christian—which was also my entire life as a person. Appearance was everything. Christianity was only rhetoric. I was only rhetoric—empty words that sounded pretty but meant nothing and helped no one. I could justify and preach and condemn, but loving didn’t come so easily. Although I had been plagued with guilt and self-doubt, I had always thought that I did enough when it came to giving and serving the poor. I was nice to my friends; I didn’t do drugs; I gave money to the church. I prayed. I read my Bible. All of my spiritual strivings turned irrelevant in the shadow of Don Mike’s angry eyes. I thought of the starving children I had seen digging through trash in the garbage dump, begging on the streets of San Jose, and knew that no amount of Bible reading and prayer groups could make the world fair.

I wanted to be more than words.

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How have you been challenged to live out your faith? Have you ever discovered hypocrisy or hollowness in your own faith journey?

Travels with Aly

Today--just for fun--I'm posting an excerpt from my memoir describing my time studying abroad in Coast Rica. I'm hoping it will one day reach the public eye in some publisher-endorsed kind of way, but for now, you get to be my test audience. Thanks for reading!

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I was sure that I had forgotten something vitally important.  Like underwear or tampons.  I had heard from a few friends that it was difficult to buy tampons in Costa Rica.  At 4:00 a.m. as I scrambled to wash my face, brush my teeth, and pack up the car, I was sure that I had forgotten tampons and would be forced to spend my period sitting in a corner yelling “unclean, unclean” while I slowly bled to death.  It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t even know the word for unclean in Spanish, and I was going to Central America, not prehistoric Israel. 

The stubborn escalator leading up to the maze of airport security beckoned me; I grimaced as I gingerly stepped onto the moving stairs that jerked me upwards, pulling me away from my mom and dad until the black biting teeth fit snugly together again, flattening and disappearing into the floor. My mom had cried and my dad had told me to be safe.            

I shifted from my left foot to my right foot, then back to my left, just a teardrop in the stream of restless passengers in the overburdened security line.  I wiped my one renegade tear and readjusted my backpack, dense with the weight of my laptop, Spanish/English dictionary, and packets of reading material on Costa Rica.  I could do this. 

          Location: Central America.

          Capital: San Jose. 

          Language: Spanish.

          Climate: Tropical.

          It would be like a vacation of sorts. 

          I could do this. 

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“Como es su familia?”  “Que piensa del gobierno estadounidense?”  “Que es su comida favorita?”   “Que piensa de la guerra en Irak?”

How is your family?  What do you think of the U.S. government?  What is your favorite food?  What do you think of the war in Iraq?  

 

In the United States people’s number one fear is public speaking, even dying rates second on the list.  People would rather die than look stupid.  My eyes scanned the barrage of oncoming cars, and I was hit with the sobering realization that there would probably not be a single moment the entire semester in which I did not feel stupid. 

Even Max, the family dog, understood more Spanish than I did.  My host dad, Don Pedro, surprisingly white for a Costa Rican with light eyes and a hint of possible freckles, would yell some seemingly unintelligible command in Spanish and the dog would obediently run, stand, or lie down according to my dad’s latest whim, whereas I couldn’t even figure out how to wash my underwear. 

That night after shy introductions, a strangely silent family meal, and an uncomfortable discussion about politics, I was finally too overcome with exhaustion to feel stupid anymore.  I pulled my fuzzy blanket up to my chin and was filled with ecstatic thankfulness that I could say a goodnight prayer to God in English and He would understand.