First off, I want offer a hearty “welcome back” to everyone who left the state for spring break. I hope you had a great time and are looking forward to finishing out the school year strong!
Like many families in our church, the Field Family hit the road on our first major roadie with the kids. We spent six days in the Great Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, one of the most beautiful areas of the country.
Setting aside the drive there and back, we had a great time and took in some of the splendor of God’s creation.
While I was down there, I read a book (Christianity’s American Fate) that got me to thinking about why we travel. Obviously many people travel for relaxation purposes, to escape the early spring chill in Michigan for sunny Florida as one example. Others just need an escape from the day-to-day stress or monotony of life, and so any place will do.
In this case, I was thinking more broadly about travel and how it can play a role in completely changing our view of the world and its inhabitants.
Mark Twain, arguably the greatest of all American writers, famously wrote about what travel meant to him:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” ― Mark Twain
In this way, Twain saw travel as much more than just relaxation or distraction. For him, it had a transformative quality.
Many Christian missionaries, going back generations, had a similar experience as they traveled the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Many departed with the grandiose notion of re-creating their “little corner of the earth” in another, far-off corner, and quickly found out that it wasn’t a worthy goal at all.
As the author pointed out, their experience of living with people who were very different often changed their view of themselves, their faith and of the world entirely. Many returned home transformed, with a much broader, and humble view of the world and their role in it.
Some never returned.
Many who perceived their missional role as ensuring foreign peoples would be “more like us,” quickly realized their aspiration was misplaced. The role, in truth, was more about showing others how to be more like Christ. And in so doing, they experienced Christ even in their relationships with people who had never set foot in church or read the Bible. Some of them, in fact, were able to demonstrate to the missionaries the love of Christ perhaps without knowing it.
It was transformative travel.
The author pointed to many American protestant missionaries in southwest Asia who considered Gandhi, the great Indian freedom fighter (non-violent), to be among the most Christian people in the world. Gandhi, as you may know, was Hindu.
With that in mind, my best advice for you is to be intentional about travel. I say this knowing full well that many people do not have the means to travel a whole lot, especially at a young age (I was one of these). That said, try to think of “travel” in the broadest sense. Think of it as going places that challenge you, places outside your comfort zone, or maybe just someplace you know very little about.
And further, if you cannot go there in body, go there in mind. This is what I did when I was your age.
One of the few good habits I’ve developed in my life is related to travel. Wherever I go, I make a point to learn about its people before I arrive. In this most recent case, I wanted to learn about the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indiana whose ancestral land encompassed the whole of the Great Smoky Mountains.
I’ll spare you a history lesson, but it’s a really good example of a simple way we can learn about others, and how their view of the world might be a little different than ours. Like many of the missionaries of the recent past, perhaps we can learn more about ourselves and our God as we learn more about others.
Thanks be to God! See you at Family Dinner on Wednesday!
The Pipe 