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Be "In" Preposition



When I moved to Memphis I wanted so badly to fit in. I was excited about being in a new context, about landing in a place where, at last!, I would be meaningfully working to make a difference in the lives of people that really needed someone like me. But it was a myth of a story I was telling myself that just wasn't true. But perhaps I shouldn't be so harsh; really, it was a story that was still immature. 

I'm listening now to the audiobook Pedagogy of the Oppressed. It's strongly resonating with me. I am seeing more clearly why I feel like I don't fit here in Memphis. There are lots of reasons. I'm not from here, and Memphians tend to want local solutions... and I can dig that. It's a stretch to trust an outsider solution (though, for sure, one that should be made sometimes). Somehow I don't match up to what an administrator should be. I'm not good with laws and policy, I'm much more inclined by the spirit of a thing, good practice. I'm in line with resonance. But I'm also beholden to some methods (data stuff), which has been a recently seen limitation that I'm seeking to distance myself from. I'm not a "careerist", a term just discovered in the introduction to Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Instead, I am more of an idealist, someone who seeks to have deep-rooted meaning in the work that I do. That makes me all the more untrustworthy when considering the good people who really just want to do the things, check the boxes to advance in their careers and head onto retirement. 

But let me not make myself out to be some hero. It is wise to do the things, check the boxes, work within an established context to make meaningful change. And so sometimes I may just be a proponent of being at odds. That is a very meager position to take. This post was originally conceived with this thought: 

You have to belong to somewhere to fight for it. 

And there was an ancillary question associated...

Where do I belong?

The idea that stuck out to me as I cruised the web was: "don't force yourself to fit in where you don't belong". Simple. Profound. But the most profound part about it is the "don't force yourself" part. I have forced myself to fit in in ways that don't make sense. And it is that forcing that does harm to me. I will always find myself in places that I don't belong. That is the life of a pilgrim, right? But forcing myself into the mold cast by those from that place is ingenuine. How could such a position be trusted? 

And so now I find myself having to work through how to belong. I obviously do. I'm human, right? I'm not much different than anyone else except in what my life experiences have taught me. And for sure, that can amount to a dazzlingly different outcome than my friends, sojourners and locals alike. But the well from which we draw our water is the same. We are all emergent from the same context of right now. And it is imperative that we fit in in that place.

There's a phrase in Christianity that captures my sentiment: be in the world, but not of it. Meaningfully, lovingly, devastatingly, I have to be here... right here, in the midst of exactly where I am. I must belong to myself and to all of those around me, because what the world needs most is to bear witness to freedom! 

But from where do we derive our freedom? Who empowers us? We deems us free?

Who?

The answer to this question is all important. And serves the basis for where to position ourselves to exert force. 

Heavenly Father, I get to You roundaboutly, after thinking things through some. You are the logical conclusion. But do I ever reach You? Do I ever reach Jesus Christ? O God, I sure hope so. I'm adrift searching for meaning, searching for the assuredness of Your hand guiding me. And sometimes faith seems such a meager device, something to appropriate all that You have deemed toward me. But let not my faith be of that variety. Let it instead be the type that "worketh through love". The type that is compelled to press on, to lay hold of, to see what is unseen. Let what is working in me actually work in me, more powerfully than in the world. 

In Jesus Name,

Amen

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