The best piece of advice that I received this summer can be summed up in one sentence:
“Listen to more dissonant classical music.”
Let me explain.
I had an opportunity to travel to and participate in my company’s international conference, and on top of that, I had the honor to lead worship for our company! It was such an amazing experience- getting to be around people who love Muslims and intentionally share with them was an absolute joy- to see so many people in one room that share my passion makes my heart explode with joy even now. God did a great work in us at that conference, and I am abundantly thankful.
During that time, I had the opportunity to talk to someone who did our “psych evaluations” before I made the move to my new country. I had the chance to talk to him briefly, and was able to ask him questions about what I was struggling with back in my context. He brought up some notes he had taken when we had last seen each other in the States, and promptly said in a caring way, “Okay. So how do we make you feel okay with the tension you feel every day?”
I had not been able to articulate it, but my friend had been able to see that I felt and still feel like the “other” in my new context with little change since I first arrived. I am a white girl in the Arabic-speaking world, and even in the midst of learning the language and acclimating to my surroundings, I am still a white girl in the Arabic-speaking world, and there is little that can be done to change that. What I perceive to be tension exists everywhere, especially in the way that the culture grates against me.
I have a long standing history of being a peacemaker, like one who pursues peace above all else as a part of personality, history, and brokenness. A lesson that I am currently learning is that peace is a great goal, but not always a reality. Kids are still going to fight in the street, and nations will continue to war against each other. Peace itself is complete only with the cross, with our fully reconciled Savior, and it cannot be found it anything but. That being said, I find it difficult to function when peace cannot be found in things here. As God continues to draw me in the himself, I am stretching and growing in my understanding of peace and tension. I live in a part of the world where peace is not a reality yet, both in everyday life and in the global culture. I dream and see the father’s vision of seeing people of every tribe, tongue, and nation to be present before him singing and worshipping their creator as king. I see that as a developing reality here, and it is a great beacon when times are hard. But as I wait, I am learning how to still follow the Father into tough places, and be okay when I don’t feel comfortable.
So how do I sit with this? God gives me comfort through John 15:18-26, which includes things like (in ESV), “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own…but I chose you out of the world…” These things are comfort to me because I know that God knows my circumstances (Jesus experienced it here), and walks with me through every emotion that I feel.
So, for me, I am learning that God can among other things use tension as a sharpening tool to point us towards him. As I approach conflict and dissonance in my everyday life here, I see the need not to run to hide and ignore the tension but to run to the Father with my emotions in surrender instead. The lesson for me is still in progress, but I am comforted to know that even as I am anxious about every day tensions that the Father has my problems in his hands, and desires to plug me into my new context.
My friend used classical music as an example to invite tension into my life in a safe way- to foster faster emotional processing and to just be okay with something that I am not used to listening to (though sometimes music here can get a bit atonal in its complexity as well!). So now I sit struggling to follow my friend’s advice, listening to atonal masters like Schoenberg and Penderecki that I struggled to study even in my collegiate music studies. But, I continue to see the God’s hand in leading me closer to him, even as I can’t handle atonal block chords. The Father is leading me towards inviting tension in and growing accustomed to it so that I can continue to thrive in my new country, and I am thankful for the gift of that lesson.