I was sitting at my desk a few weeks back, browsing through a Vanity Fair magazine that one of my coworkers had left in the hallway for us to read. Yes, I know, the name of the magazine is “Vanity Fair,” and although it is a rarity for me to peruse a magazine rather than a book; when I do read a magazine, I go from cover to cover, making sure to read each article carefully. Surprisingly, the magazine had some pretty good pieces! I found myself reading about the evolution (and consequent decline) of the printed newspaper, to the war in Syria and missing foreign reporters. I was highlighting little glimpses of goodness and in my mind I was attesting these to God. Here’s an example:
“Former Times executive editor Bill Keller just quit the paper to help start a non-profit to cover justice issues. Paul Steiger, formerly managing editor of The Wall Street Journal, founded ProPublica – a non-profit that produces top-quality investigative journalism.” I nodded as I read these, yup, there’s God.
Goodness in this world of ours, especially here in the first world, is much rarer a find than I would like. A much rarer find than God would like. Among the clothing, make-up and perfume advertisements, here I was, looking for goodness. It’s okay, right? Reading magazines like this? To dip my feet into the world, and still be completely of God’s? But then I started to think… What if I were to become part of the world again, could I still be of God’s? I always fiercely believed it was one or the other, and this is a stance I try and advocate for. “We are not of the world, we are of God’s,” “if you stand with the majority, rethink where you stand,” etc. etc.
This is something I’ve been trying to come to terms with lately. (Note: this lack of busy-ness was pre-TNC prep) I had quiet lulls in my day and I found some afternoons free to meet up with old friends whom I haven’t seen in at least a year, if not more. I’ll write briefly about these two encounters here.
The first of these meetings was with my childhood bestfriend, who now has this beautiful almost-one-year-old. I had spent time with her last at the hospital, where I curled up next to her baby on the bed, giving her some time to relax and shower. As she took her seat in front of me, her first words were to ask me what my skincare routine was, did I change my foundation, did I start shopping at different stores now, etc. etc. But after receiving our large bowls of soup, I looked at her with awe and amazement as she patiently and lovingly kissed her baby boy’s nose and tickled him in between spoonfuls of broth. A lot has happened since we were young… our birthdays were a day apart and I had met her when I was five, since our moms had been roommates here in Canada. We went to the same elementary school together, and after every school day, she would be at my house. However, although our similarities as children were mild (I was very into power rangers, she… well… wasn’t), we started growing up and the differences became more pronounced. She started liking boys and wearing makeup eons before I did, and there were times, even up until our late teens, when I no longer thought we would be able to reconcile such vast differences. Time, distance, and different groups of friends only made the schism between us grow. After pho, we shopped together and she began “swatching” (the act of taking a lipstick and swiping it on your hand to see the colour) and telling me to get different shades, which although at first hesitant, I finally succumbed to. She’s always been girly, with different boyfriends, and up until today, she manages to look like someone who’s “youtube famous” (LOL, yes I just used that term).
The second of these meetings was with my highschool bestfriend. We were going to eat lunch at a Greek restaurant in Little Italy, where I work. As I sat in my seat sipping water, I glanced up and saw her walking to the restaurant from her parked car. At first glance, I was surprised to see her, as pretty as I had remembered. She had reminded me very much of Victoria Beckham, who she still sort of resembles, both subtly in her features, but more-so in the way she dresses and carries herself. Through the years, this friendship too endured its fair share of stressors. I was falling more in love with God and increasing my service, while all along, I was never really quite sure what her sentiments were about Him. Was she agnostic? Atheist? Like the first friend, I was unsure how to close the gap between us that had formed. We were too different now, right? But lunch together was just as it had been back when we were inseparable. We spoke about work, our aspirations about the future, travels… it wasn’t the same awkwardness that I had experienced when I was with her and our old group of friends. How they laughed and spoke of things I didn’t really… well, not that I didn’t understand… but more like things that I found unable to relate to. After lunch, we went into the store next to the restaurant, and for 20 minutes, I pretended to care about 200 dollar jeans and hundred dollar shirts.
So why did I go on at great lengths about these encounters? Because, as I had said up there: this was me, dipping my toes back into the world. We often refer to our non-CFC-Youth friends as our “secular” friends, and I am definitely guilty of doing this. And although I had made life-long friends within the community, I am now at a point where I wonder and worry about the relationships I had left behind. There must be a reason why God had wanted me to talk to them again… and with my first friend, I was able to speak to her briefly about God (and His love for us, hayyy talk 1), but with my second, I found it much more difficult. I’ve been praying for courage to speak about my life as a missionary (which is in itself, sort of difficult to explain), and perhaps suggest the idea of a loving God to her.
Shortly after these encounters and even more wondering on my part… God had answered me. I’ve been slowly reading the Imitation of Mary, and right there, smack in the pages, He answered me. Here is what it said:
“Find your delight then, in living far from the world and pay no heed to yourself apart from necessity. And when necessity does force you to take heed, be like the dove that, when forced to leave the ark, returned immediately because outside it could find no place alight… Bear in mind that never yet have you had dealings with the world without being worse off in God’s eyes than when you began.” – pg.35
“Can anyone breathe the poisoned air of the world without being infected by it? Pull back often into solitude and breathe its purer air.” – pg. 36
In those pages, I found my answer. No matter how we like to deceive ourselves, believing that in moderation, going back to our old ways and past indulgences would be okay, it really isn’t. If I went into these encounters without God in my heart, then it would have been in vain. My love for my friends does not mean that I regress back into my former self, or the person the world (or my friends) want me to be. My love for my friends means that I also want them to experience the love of the Father that longs and pursues them, just as much as he continues to long and pursue me.
“The world and all it contains is as nothing to the man whom God is everything.”