I’m in a different place: a phrase we often use to say that something important has changed, often for the better. I’m thinking about being somewhere different, literally.
For some of us, that’s a common experience, if travel is a part of our life-style. For others, it is quite rare.
I’ve recently spent some time in another country and I’ve been reflecting upon the experience: ‘different’, and yet also there is so much in common.
In a different city, it can be hard to find one’s way around. Many of the people speak another language and perhaps those who speak my language do so with a different accent—so that’s another challenge. The weather, which is such a vital aspect of the travel experience, follows a different and perhaps unpredictable pattern. Jetlag adds to the sense of being somewhere very different. Architecture and the physical environment may all feel strange. But all these things add to a sense of excitement as well. This is why we go places!
At the same time, I want to say how much there is in common, even when I am in a different place. An old lady spoke very kindly to me, asking where I was from . Another person, also living a long way from her home and family, shared with me how difficult it is, especially at a time like Christmas.
All around me, I see people going about their lives: some rushing to work; some managing several children, one of whom is demanding attention or food; some trying to find directions to something or other; many drifting along, not sure whether they want to buy anything in the ‘sales’ this week; and amongst us all there are young people joking, or tussling for prominence in some way; there are faces lined with strain; there are people everywhere paying attention to their phones—and all of this is common to people, across cultures and languages.
Am I in a different place or am I at home?
In many ways, all these common experiences of human beings invite us to see that we are really one community. We live in what we once called ‘a global village’. Communications in particular allow us to be in touch with our ‘home’ base even when we are in a different place.
Yet for all this shared experience, we have not erased our differences. We have learned to live in a bigger world, to be at home even when we are in a different place. I guess this is what our elders meant long ago when they said that travel ‘broadens the mind’.
And still it is true that one loves and values ‘home’, the place and people of one’s own.
As I reflect on these things, my deep hope and prayer is that we might all come to be in a different place. There are deep fears amongst us, raised by those who see ‘foreigners’ as some kind of threat to our peace and prosperity. Personally I am much more afraid of what these forces are doing to us that I am of those who come from other lands or cultures.
We all need to learn what it is to be in a ‘different place’ and yet feel okay, indeed ‘at home’ amongst the human family and the earth at large, with all its diversity, complexity, and yet profound unity.
My sense is that the universe, and if you will our Creator, are continually inviting us to be at home, together, in this way. And that would indeed mean coming into a different place. May it be so.