Unraveling in the Down Under
June 2010
Fresh-faced 13 year old Megan on a plane bound for Houston, Texas. The adrenaline is pumping with the pre-adventure jitters. The excitement of seeing, smelling, and tasting my idea of independence. The chance to move towards making dreams a reality. The unraveling began the moment I pulled my cash out of my Kate Spade wallet. The one I had just purchased on my first New York City trip a year prior. The flight attendant informed me that it was card only. The reality begins to sink in. The fear creeps in. Maybe I don’t know what to do in every circumstance but this inkling is quickly ignored with the naivety of youth. The man sitting next to me covers my drink and snack graciously and strikes up a conversation. This may have simply been a dad on a business trip and sees in me his own 3 daughters as my infectious naivety and zest for life that is oozing out of my pores. Or maybe not. How easily this encounter could have been a lesson learned the hard way. Instead, my belief that the world is kind if we are kind is reinforced. Another example of those around me- for some reason choosing kindness towards me. This and the countless other examples of stranger kindness- began to shape my outlook on the world. Gave me a bone deep sense of safety in this world, that so few have. A lone adolescent with a savior complex and an extraverted sense of self-expression against the world. The kindness of others begins to become the foundation of my worldview. A view that has taken many beatings throughout the years. To think it is over ten years ago, I was there in that middle-row seat full of hope and the belief of certainty. So cemented in the belief that regardless of what happens, it will be good. The negligence of the depths of my so narrow and shallow understanding of human pain- that “God,” will always open another door. Looking down at my anxiety-ridden nail beds- what I wouldn’t give to get back just a sliver of that feeling of certainty, today. How much I yearn to believe in that second-door opening philosophy. How little I have seen that in the lives of those in deep pain, in deep suffering, and forced into a system that perpetuates deep and lasting harm on them.
It was on this trip. I began to see the world- as so much bigger than myself. It is where I began to cling to the mantra that the world simply needs more Eurocentric Christ's likeness to be a less harmful place. The answer to human suffering and pain can simply be found in the palm of my hand. The fault is on others as they simply need to reach out and take it. To accept my worldview as gospel. To accept my naivity as theology.
How weeks latet my doubts would linger long after the outreach of the day had ended and my peers would be slumbering next to me in their sleeping bags on some church gym floor. There in that space- doubt introduced itself to me. Laying awake so conflicted with the idea that what we did today “mattered.” in some form or fashion. Forcing my whole being to hold fast to the belief that what we did had a “kingdom impact,” and how much more important that was than the tangible life standing before me. The living, breathing life that screamed - “ this isn’t enough, to stop the bleeding.”
Condobolin, Australia
Summer of 2010
Heart pounding, throat hot, the unconscious bite and chew of my ragged nail bed, bus ride back to the church basement thoughts. As my rose-colored glasses began to slip down my face by the force of my tears. The overwhelming realization that my bone-deep belief of the truths of this world is not lining up with the messy, painful uncertain parts of life that have begun to flood my basement of beliefs. This photo of a simple water tower was taken by me at a reservation in Australia, I had no business going to. It will always provoke an immediate feeling in my chest. A lump in my throat will always form. This water tower was the sight of Australia’s countless First Nations young teen’s last choice. Suicide. The weight of that word. The overwhelming reality that no one came. No one reached out. Centuries of harm, segregation, and intentional eradication led to those livese being no more. The world never experienced all that could have been. No second door opened. No cinematic moment of a young, Christian American savior with the secret balm to heal such a deep wound. This photo- which almost seems wrong to have taken, will always transport me back to that moment. That moment, when I began to unravel my truth. That this world has so little care for human life. So little sanctification of a human soul. That maybe the world is kinder to me, more accessible to me, more- more for me. Simply because my ancestors made it so. Made it so the world would view my life, and my personhood as more valuable. That maybe this happened with the price of pain from others. That maybe it was at the detriment of the others less that I experienced more. On the impious belief of those so different from me. Maybe the kindness of strangers to my personhood- comes from centuries of forced piousness of past and present whiteness. Maybe just maybe the answer of human suffering cannot be found in the palm of my unbruised and unblemished white palm. Maybe that space for those First Nations teens was a sacred space that my barricading truth parade disrupted was sacrilege to their life. Maybe no saving was needed. Maybe they simply needed the right to be. As they are. To have a chance to seek out their own truths. Maybe they simply deserved the right to personhood.
