“Love is such an abstract art, and we each have a different part to play.”
I’d like to imagine that in everyone’s life, there is a moment, an experience, something that drastically changes and challenges everything they think they know. The last few months of 2016 has been that experience. I went into this season with ideas of what I thought would happen. I knew I would change, but had no idea how. I knew I would experience things, but I had no idea what things. I knew I would meet people, but I had no idea how deep those new relationships would go. Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines have forever engrained themselves into my life.
For me, Media Light was less about media, and so much more about people. Yeah, I learned media skills that I can use and any variety of capacities, and I will use my new skills, but that wasn’t what I learned the most of over the last few months. I learned about people. I did life 24/7 with people from all different backgrounds, and from all over the worlds. The blend of culture, personality, opinion, talents, and love was a mix that I imagine heaven is quite similar to. When we came together, we had little in common. For most of us, the only real thing we had in common was that we were relatively the same age, and had all somehow discovered this opportunity, and decided to take a few months to experience it. Other than that, we were all so completely different. But different it good. It took a while, but the shyness amongst ourselves slowly fell away, and we became family. For many of us, we became more of a family that our biological family. Those missing a father in their life, found a father. Those missing a mother, found a mother. Those missing a brother or sister, found a brother or sister. Those missing friends, found over 30. Everyone has parts of them that were missing. Over time, we began to fill in the missing parts of each other. While the reality is that many of us may never see one another again, we forged a bond amongst ourselves that will last beyond this lifetime.
We had little in common, but we had love.
I’m sure that after a while, people might start to ask me what I miss most about Media Light. While I enjoyed the teaching and learning, I won’t miss that veery much. What I will miss, is the community. While I came from a more comfortable background than most people there, I came from an empty life. I came from a world where everyone is for themselves. I came from a world where commitment to one another, God, and life, were shallow at best. My world is one where compassion and love for each other often goes no deeper than a Facebook post or a share on a newsfeed. My world is wealthy on the outside, and poor on the inside. As I am now back home in the States, the reality of my juxtaposed worlds has hit me like a truck. The love and community that I so very much enjoyed in Media Light, Thailand, and The Philippines, is greatly missing from here. I have no idea how, but I feel like I experienced Media Light in order to bring back authenticity to my world. I want to create a space here like I had in Thailand. A space of love, acceptance, understanding, comfort, and strength. I want to create a space where people from all cultures and backgrounds can come together to do life. I want to create a space where people can sit down and talk about the things that they can’t find the freedom to do in their schools, work places, churches, and friend groups. I don’t know how, but I so badly want that for my world here at home.
I’ll never be able to explain it, but something happened to me when I left the Philippines that I may never be able to explain, but I am confident represented how the last few months impacted my life. While on the plane taking off from Manilla, I cried. I don’t cry. I’m the guy that shoves emotion deep down. I was just sitting in my seat listening to music while the plane taxied out and began to take off., when suddenly my chest began to tighten. My cheeks pushed up and my eyes closed up a little, but not all the way. Then, without warning, a tear streamed down my face. Than another, and another, and another. It wasn’t a full-on cry, but anyone looking at my would’ve known that something was going on. I never made a sound, I just cried. I have no idea why I did. I was fine until that point. In that moment, it became hard to leave. I had found something in the Philippines that I knew I needed in my life. When I think about it, I think the Philippines reminded me a lot of how I wanted life to be. A mix of all people, from all cultures, from all over the world had come together and became this loving world of 100 Million Filipinos. The beauty of the city, the countryside, and everything in between embedded itself in my heart. I may never go back to Thailand, but I will be back to the Philippines. There was something there that had locked onto my life and sworn to stay with me even when I left.
I will write and talk about my experiences so much more over the next days and weeks ahead, but for now, all I can say is that the last few months changed my life, my personality, and my perspective on life. Not in a flippant, “that wounds nice to say” way, but in a way that I can feel in the change in my heart and in my soul. Its going to be hard being back home. Well, not specifically at home, but it’ll hard being back in the world of school, work, and repetitiveness that people here have perfected.
It won’t be easy, but I trust that I can bring the same love I knew in Asia, back to my community. It doesn’t take much, it just takes patience.
