living in the gray

it's been two months now since i left shanghai. almost a month and a half since i moved to new york city. china seems a distant dream sometimes - was it really 9 years? other times, recollections are sharp and palpable, hitting me at random moments and prompted by certain sights and sounds: the chatter of young chinese women, most likely graduate students, on the subway; the vendors lined along the street in chinatown, their carts spilling with vegetables; the food truck parked constantly near my school, dishing out containers of potstickers.

a lot of friends have asked me how my transition has been. to be honest, it's been much easier than i'd anticipated. reverse culture shock did jolt me upon arrival and occasionally still rears its head, but on the whole, life in america has not been difficult to slip into. and life in new york has definitely been exciting thus far - trying out restaurants and bars, attending exhibitions, parties and wine tastings...the glamorous sheen of an urbanite life is similar in any major city, i suppose. this isn't to say life here is without a dark side; in the past couple of weeks, my neighborhood has experienced cases of sexual assault and a stabbing at a subway station. and this is probably the safest area in brooklyn.

the things that have proven difficult to wrap my mind and heart around are not easily unpacked. the onslaught of power, money, beauty and sex in this city - pervasive and inescapable. destitution and depravity found on almost every street corner in the form of a homeless man passed out and reeking of alcohol or a young mother with a child at her breast and tears in her eyes, slumped in the corner of the subway station stairwell. the blind eye turned by many a passerby.

i'm re-learning how to filter new issues through the lens of my faith as a christian. in china, i had to navigate issues such as corruption in businesses, the cultural concept of "saving face", loving my neighbors cross-culturally, to name a few. here, i'm contemplating and conversing on issues of sexuality, gay marriage, stewardship of career and finances, religious pluralism....and so forth. still learning to love my neighbors.

whatever the issues are, i think we are people called to live in the gray. i believe i am called to seek God, know God, seek Truth, speak Truth, but it's all covered in Love. without love, all is naught. and i think to love is to plunge into the gray, the areas of uncertainty and ambiguity, to get messy in the lives of broken people who long for so much more, all the while acknowledging my own brokenness.

i miss shanghai but i'm so glad to be here in nyc. but most of all, i'm glad to be here living in the gray.

cups of coffee:  1

mood: happy