As today I reflect on things learned, I’m reminded of what I experienced over a year ago, as I was still reeling from the transition to San Francisco. Here’s a peek into life in September, 2013.
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How many times am I going to write about this? I suppose as many times as it takes for God to teach me the practice of letting go. It’s a practice. It’s a constant necessity.
I have relocated to a new and very different city, and doing so has given me ample opportunity for reflection and growth. I’ve no doubt my experiences are not new – countless numbers of people have moved from slow, comfortable, homey towns to sky-scraping, honking, filled-up cities. It is hard to live in such a place. Everything becomes more complicated and time-consuming and expensive.
I suppose I am experiencing the ever-infamous culture shock. I feel homesick for my other places, where I grew up, went to college – the places where I found my lifelong friends. Though they too, in the beginning, were strange and uncomfortable, now I long for them fondly as sources of peace and familiarity.
I’ve been trying to articulate to myself what I’ve been feeling and observing since moving here nearly a month ago. Last week I finally found some words. Chaos. Agitation. Suffocation. Claustrophobia. Unbelonging. Foreign. But then I stumbled on the best of all: Untidy. This place is untidy. I don’t mean dirty, but rather disordered and confounding.
The shuffling of bodies on and off of public transportation vehicles, the perpetually perplexing traffic and parking rules, one-way streets, bus-only lanes, bicycle-only lanes, lanes that suddenly end or become blocked or prohibited. The buzz of people in the outdoor markets, the sleeping bundles of struggling homeless souls, the towering blocks of offices, the underground tunnels of speeding, screeching trains. Pedestrians running across when there’s an opening, crowds to push through, and always the noise. And the fog.
Karl the fog encroaches on the city
Things are not neat here. One’s life and the way one lives it out is often determined by metro delays and the long time it takes to traverse short distances. Then there’s the great expense of doing anything that isn’t walking or working. There are the unforeseen expenditures that make financial management tricky. It is incredibly difficult to stay “on top” of all the elements of daily living.
As I have watched and experienced these realities, I have come to the conclusion that to live in such a place, people have to (consciously or subconsciously) relinquish some degree of autonomy over their decisions, actions, and desires. Life is so full of strangers and transit that often there seems little room for much else.
From afar, the city seems alabaster and serene.
In my old, other places, things were so very simple. Errands took far less time. Getting together with friends was easy. I could leave home 20 minutes (more often less) before I had to be somewhere, and I could get myself there in my own vehicle and with very little trouble. And I could always hear the birds, and most often see the stars. And traffic was relatively straightforward and un-agitating. Parking was simple. Obtaining food was simple. Living was simple.
And maybe I was too comfortable. I was so familiar with everything I did and everywhere I went. I felt I belonged. I felt at home. I felt in control. And then God, in His gracious wisdom, chose to place me here, as a newlywed, in this great big, whirlwind-y, cacophonous, overwhelming metropolis. And now, as if from the beginning, I have to learn to give Him my fainting, faulty trust.
He’s smart. He’s taken me out of my snug, peaceful land of contentment. In exchange, He’s given me an Adventure. An incredibly untidy, disorderly one – one in which I am the farthest thing from “in control.” If I didn’t know God, I suppose I would realize in a different way that I needed to let go a bit in order to survive like the rest of everybody else who lives here. But I see in this a greater purpose.
The truth is, even when I have felt that I possessed sweet, inexorable autonomy, God has still been sovereign. He reigns over everything, regardless of my perception of my own power. It’s just that now, in this next adventure in which I have to face my smallness and helplessness anew, I better see the strength and greatness of God. I would be less frustrated and discouraged if I acknowledged the truth that I never have had control. This is no different.
So I do realize that I need to let go. It’s just not about survival for me anymore. It is about placing my trust in God as I consent to the inevitable – being a part of His Story here. If I don’t learn to let go and to practice that constantly, in my heart I will always be challenging God for His sovereignty. I will be letting my pride make me miserable and dishonouring God in the process.
Golden Gate Park, a wonderland
The one place here that feels orderly is the park. It is enormous and forested, with dirt trails running through, and little lakes, and birds, and quiet. It is the wildest, least civilized part of the city, in a way, but to me it feels most calm, most tidy, most home. And the best part of it is that I did nothing to make it that way. In there, in the trees and flowering bushes, I can most clearly see God’s majestic hand. And if I go all the way to the ocean, I can see His power in the unceasing waves that wear down rocks into sand. I can look at these things and remember how much bigger He is – how vast, how far beyond me.
And if that is true in the wild, then it is true in the city, and at last I begin to see it. I will stop pretending I have any access or right to the management of the world or any part of it, even over myself. I will “trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”*
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. — Isaiah 26:3
*Isaiah 26:4
