So I am playing at being the typical American. Felt I needed to be reminded of the comforts of home. It’s a holiday morning, Indonesian Independence Day, and I am sitting at Dunkin Donuts, eating a couple of them and drinking some pretty decent coffee. (I know that I shouldn’t be eating them, but how can one resist the call of fresh doughnuts and coffee?) Even though its an American chain, the store is heavily flavored by Indonesian culture. In the corner, hanging form the ceiling is a TV playing SCTV, the Indonesian soap opera channel. I am fairly certain that people here watch far more TV than in the US, and much of it is cheesy and fluffy….just like the doughnuts.
Yep. Even the doughnuts are cheesy. Not all of them obviously, they have chocolate, Boston cream, Bavarian cream, French Crullers, various frosted and other “normal” flavors. There is also Lychee Blackcurrant, Red bean (yep, as in Kidney Bean), Banana, strawberry, orange, lemon, sriyaka and, though I don’t see any here today. Durian. There are also cheese covered donuts. Not like cream cheese. Think Kraft singles. And there are some with margarine and cheese sprinkles.
Some of the “normal” selections don’t exactly have normal tastes, as well. And some of the “different” ones are surprisingly good.
(Not that I eat a lot of doughnuts…really, I just come for the coffee….)
Some of the choices, though, fly straight to the heart of ones cultural expectations.
Doughnuts are supposed to be sweet. That is the point. I believe they were created to keep people from having to profane their coffee with things like sugar and milk.
Cheese is not ordinarily sweet. It is more salty. So why is it on a doughnut? And melon? And what is srikaya anyways?
All this is of course petty and foolish….but it reflects the greater truth of our preconceived cultural notions that affect and drive us, and our response without us really realizing it. There is nothing right or wrong about different cultures (and the flavors of doughnuts), unless something conflicts with the Word of God, otherwise culture just is.
Sometimes, even while a stranger in a strange land, I forget this. I forget that I am thousands of miles from where I was born, where I learned to live and interact with others, where I thought I understood the world.
Back there, and it feels as far away as here does when I am there, I feel safe, secure…I know how to act, the right things to say to get what I want….to do what I please. Like a soft leather sofa my culture wraps around me, taking me in, conforming around me, lulling me to slumber and inactivity. Saying “Wouldn’t just a little nap, maybe just a few minutes, days, years just feel so nice? After all its been a long day, hasn’t it?”
Here every day is a long day. Though, in truth, I walk easier now than I once did, but still it’s a long walk, up many hills. And when it is time to rest it feels like I am sleeping on the floor (and sometimes I have). Rest comes more slowly, if it comes at all.
Why? Because I am looking for the comfort and security of “home”. This idea in my brain that I should fit somewhere, back there….and not here. It is true of course that I do not fit here, but, did I really fit there? Or was a thin veneer of comfort, of false security hiding the truth from me? I think it was, and is, and will probably deceive me again.
Comfort can not come from this world. Not in an easy chair in my grandma’s living room in Ohio or a couch in a coffee shop in Jakarta. Nor anyplace else in between. No matter how much I want it….and I do.
Security is an illusion. I could get mugged on the Metro mini, a volcano could erupt, another devastating tsunami could destroy untold numbers including my self. I could get hit by a car crossing Gallia St. or choke on my cappuccino.
“This world has nothing for me, This world has everything, All that I could want and nothing that I need.” –Caedmons
Comfort comes only from the Spirit. How I wish I could always remember that. Rest only comes from the Son. And security is only in the hand of our Sovereign God.
When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (Joh 17:1-26)
I am His. You are His. Nothing else really matters.
