Traveling and always having a sense of "home"

I love to travel. I love going to new places, eating new food, meeting new people, listening to new music, hearing new languages, taking new pictures. And sometimes when I travel, no matter how much fun I am having or how much I am enjoying all of the new things, I think about home. I tend to travel by myself for the most part, and sometimes I just want somebody or something familiar around me. I want to call a friend back home, or eat some familiar food, or listen to some familiar music. I bring my bible wherever I go (actually, on this last trip to Ethiopia, my bible was on my phone which made it extremely portable), and that always helps. God's love is always familiar and is always present, wherever we are in the world.

When I'm feeling homesick, I seek out people or experiences that have positive connotations for me. I think everyone probably does the same. If you drink coffee and are in a foreign country, aren't you relieved when you see a Starbucks? When I was with a group of teachers in China, some people did not like having dumplings for breakfast, and each morning they would make a beeline for the nearby McDonald's. However, when I first started traveling (I think my first overseas trip was to Spain/Andorra in 2003), I was surprised that I even thought about home. I had wanted to travel so badly, and then here I was, all by myself in Europe and having the time of my life. Why was I thinking of home as if I wanted to be there? But I was. And my first instinct was to go find a Persian restaurant.

One of my best friends is Persian, and her family sort of became my 2nd family. They essentially adopted me into their family, even though I was 20 years old at the time I met them. Spending so much time with them, naturally becoming a part of the family, was one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.

So when I traveled, it became a habit to get off the plane, get settled in to my hostel or hotel or friend's house, and then seek out the nearest Persian restaurant to kind of ease into my new surroundings. Some places were more diverse than others, and in some places it was pretty difficult or impossible to find anything different from the prominant culture. And that was okay too. After all, the new culture/people/food were the reasons I traveled in the first place.

In the past couple of years, this has shifted a bit. I travel to a new place, get settled, and then, instead of seeking out a Persian place right away, I seek out a Christian Science church or organization or Reading Room (the Google search for "Persian restaurant" comes 2nd :). I have been attending a Christian Science church pretty regularly for 3 years now, and it is like a second home to me. I also really enjoy meeting people in other cities and countries who attend Christian Science churches. I feel like when I am in a new place and don't know anyone, don't know the landscape, don't know the food, I can walk into a CS church and feel like I sort of know what's going on. I feel a sense of familiarity with the lesson (the same CS lesson is read all around the world on any given Sunday), the music in the hymnals, and sometimes even the people there. The CS community is pretty big, but small enough that I recognize names and faces from articles that they have written in the periodicals. Or maybe I attended a lecture that they gave when they traveled to Seattle. Or maybe they are a friend of a friend of someone who goes to my church back home. Whatever the case may be, it feels like home when I walk into a Christian Science branch church, no matter what city or state or country I'm in at the time.

It is funny how our sense of home changes and shifts throughout our lives. I still always make sure to look for Persian restaurants, because Persians will always signify "home" to me. But my sense of home is broadening and widening as I learn more and live more. And with each new experience, I find that there are always things, both little and big, that give me yet another feeling of being at home. It may be a dog park on a busy thoroughfare in Barcelona; a gelato shop in Ethiopia; a Shakira song playing in every Peruvian store and cafe, the same song that played in Seattle months before leaving for Peru. These things all make me feel at home, and feel connected to the place I happen to be in at that moment.

At one point I feel that the world will not seem quite so big. We are all connected, all wonderful beings, all a part of this beautiful existence. We are always home.

Hitting the Financial Wall?

This is an experience I had recently, in the past couple of weeks. Sometimes I'm amazed at the number of blessings in my life, and how they come about. Always a surprise and always a gift.

A couple of weeks ago I thought I had hit my financial wall. My roommate moved out in early December and I had made the choice to, for the time being, not advertise for another roommate. I opted to live by myself and see how that played out financially. However, in the few months since December, things seemed to get tighter and tighter, money-wise. From the material standpoint, I faced a daunting challenge. I did the math again and again, and it just didn't seem as though I could continue living by myself and also pay the mortgage. Also, there were a number of projects and activities that I was (and am currently) working on, and these projects, while inspired by love and good intentions, did not seem to be helping the financial picture. To sum it up, I was starting to feel as if I was speeding head-on towards an impenetrable wall.

I spoke with a dear friend about this, and was gently reminded that God is always there with me. We talked about how it was guaranteed that the resources would be provided; we are God's children and He cares for us. Our future is secure, our present -- our NOW -- is secure, our health is secure, our well-being is secure. My friend's loving comments, inspired by Truth and God's word, were such a relief to me. For the next few days, I thought about the concept of always being provided for, of always being in the presence of God's Love and care and generosity.

Mary Baker Eddy has a statement in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that talks about this divine provision: "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Pg. 494). I thought about this, and prayed to see how this would be manifested in my life. And then things started to happen, 1 by 1, and the situation didn't seem nearly as challenging as before.

Some of these happenings seemed to be so random, but I knew that these things were all orchestrated by God. In the book of Romans it says, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good" (Romans 8:28). For example, I was driving up to Canada for the weekend and remembered that I had a bank account in Bellingham, which is between my current home and Canada. The account was from my days at Western Washington University, and the bank account still had some money in it. I checked my wallet and sure enough, the debit card was still there and was current. A few days before, I had received a random check in the mail (a Jiffy Lube rebate) that I had forgotten about. And even the smallest things were so appreciated and, frankly, made me realize that God was looking out for me and maybe even had a bit of a sense of humor about it. I laughed one afternoon while I was walking Vinnie, my dog. He stopped somewhere and was sniffing something; I looked down, and he had found a crisp $1 bill in the grass. So small, but it was just a reminder that things happen in ways we would never even think of. Furthermore, if I could train Vinnie to sniff out money, that would be something else...

I was already feeling pretty good at this point; not because the material situation had changed that much, but because I was feeling God's presence and realizing that I didn't have to worry. These events were like little gifts, and they gave me hope that things were going to be all right. In the next few days, I received 2 inquiries about dogsitting, something that I do on the side for friends and coworkers. A few other things happened over a course of 2 weeks that were just more reminders of God's constant care and love.

As I thought about the above quote from Mary Baker Eddy, and thought about the recent blessings I was allowing myself to be aware of, I also was reminded of a similar experience a few months before when I was preparing to go on my trip to London and Ethiopia. The financial situation seemed a bit grim then too, but in wonderful and unexpected ways, everything was completely provided for. I hadn't needed to worry. In that situation, I was starting the preliminary steps to establish my non-profit, and was buying plane tickets to Ethiopia and back. At the same time, I still needed to put time and money into the non-profit to get as much work done on it as I could before I reached Ethiopia; once I got there, I wasn't sure how much time I would have for paperwork and for getting things in order, so I wanted the organization to be up and running by then.

But... things kept happening before I left for Ethiopia and I wasn't sure I was going to be able to go. And with each thing that happened, there was suddenly a solution. My car broke down a couple of times right before I was going to buy the plane tickets, but a mechanic friend fixed it for me both times. One evening, I wasn't sure how I was going to afford to buy gas for my car to get to work the next morning. I was packing for my trip and cleaning my room at the same time, and as I was cleaning, I found a gas gift card that I hadn't used yet. Also while cleaning my room, I found a bunch of foreign currency (bills from Malaysia, Thailand, China) that I hadn't yet exchanged at the bank. Also in the weeks before I left for my trip, I experienced so much love and support from my friends and family; it was so heart-warming. I don't even remember talking about the tight situation that I thought I was in, but it didn't matter that I hadn't talked about it; God knew, and that was all that mattered. People reached out and helped me with everything that I needed. It was remarkable.

There are so many things that we don't know, so many situations we are faced with that may seem difficult or extreme or impossible... And in my experience, it seems that the solutions come in ways that I never would have expected. God provides so much good in our lives, so many gifts and blessings, and I find that when I take a deep breath and trust in Him, I enjoy seeing how all of these things unfold. It is always a surprise, always a blessing, and I'm so grateful.