Jetlag
Dear First Pres SLO Family,
Jetlag is a strange thing. When you travel far enough out of your time zone your body reacts in all kinds of strange ways. You get used to a certain rhythm and clock, and then you tinker with it and your body and mind team up in a rebellion. It’s strange.
We’re just back in SLO after three weeks in Italy. It was a great time of family connection and sightseeing and eating wonderful food. The trip was built around celebrating my Mom’s 80th birthday, so every time we gathered for dinner we had cake and singing and another little party. It was a blast.
Being back home is very good, too. As I wrote in the Kirk last month, vacations are opportunities to step back, to refresh, and to get out of patterns or ruts that keep me from doing my best work. I’m excited about the coming year, and ready to get started.
But there’s still the jetlag to overcome.
Coming west to the US is easier than going the other direction, but it’s still a challenge. When we get to California from Italy, we have a hard time staying awake beyond 8 or 9pm for a while, but we tend to wake up rested and ready to go. Who cares if it’s 4am? When you go east you can’t get to sleep until 2 or 3am, and then it feels impossible to wake up. The third night and the day following are always the worst for me, so I’m ready for that. I feel sluggish and off-kilter right now, but it’ll go away soon.
Why talk about jetlag? Because it seems to me, even though it makes us tired and grumpy and out of sorts, that jetlag is a persistent reminder that we left places and people behind. It reminds me of the sights we visited and the cousins we got to spend time with. The feeling of jetlag as I come back to SLO makes me tired and foggy, even if just for a few days. Part of me is living in both places this week. I’m back at work here, but part of my body—my rhythm of sleeping and eating and being productive—is still in Italy. It’ll go away by the weekend, but for now I’m allowing it to remind me of the great time I had with my family, and the beautiful things I got to see.
When my son was little and we moved to the UK, he was concerned that we might love London as much as we loved our hometown of Burbank. As I scrambled to think of something to say in response, I ended up telling him that we were blessed to have two places to live that we loved equally. As it came out of my mouth it occurred to me that it was true. How gracious God was to call us to a place far away from what we knew and loved, and to teach us to love it there, too. I wonder if that’s the gift that missionaries receive in order to survive the amazing work that they do. I know that traveling gives me a little bit of that feeling.
This sense of being in two places at once reminds me that there are people all over the world living their lives, doing their work, and communing with friends and family. The world is a big and messy and complicated place, and seeing some of it teaches us that our ways are just that—our ways. The billions of people outside our own culture have their own ways, and it’s part of our calling as Christians is to learn to see a listen and experience some of those ways, so we can do a better job of loving our neighbors.
That’s my jetlagged reflection for you all today. I’m looking forward to seeing you all again this Sunday!
Blessings until then,
Pastor John