(Post by TR)
This photo (above) I like to call my Chinese version of Grant Wood’s Painting, American Gothic. I shot it when I was in rural China a while back, and while it brings back a lot of memories, perhaps more importantly as I look back on it now, it brings me to a simpler time.
The time I spent in China was a whirlwind of experiences, and much of it felt like I was moving along a timeline, between centuries in a sense, as we would travel between large cities and very small rural villages. We would typically start out on a bus, and when the bus road ended we would find a small breadvan (‘mienbao che’) driver to take us further into the mountains, and when the breadvan track ran out we would swing our packs on our backs and begin to walk among the mountains, walking along foot paths that had likely been carved out of the mountainsides centuries before, trekking our way along. Without fail, the paths would always lead to a mountain village – even if it was one of only a few houses – and the time I spent in these villages just resonates with me, even now. I will never forget the simplicity under which these people lived, and the bonds that tied them together. I’ll never forget my times spent in the ’18th century’, hanging out, dancing, singing, and talking around the fire deep into the night with these people, just ‘being,’ no more, no less, and loving every minute of it.
Now and again these thoughts evoke in me feelings of desiring again to experience such simplicity – especially in juxtaposition with the world I feel I have built around myself of seeking to accomplish, to gain approval, to impress you with my photography(!), to feel like I haven’t wasted a day….the list goes on – and in striving for all these things, letting more important things of life fall to the wayside. Mainly, letting rich relationships with people fall to the wayside.
I met yesterday with a good friend of mine, and I feel like, in a way, that in his presence I rediscovered a little bit of the joy of connecting with someone without pretense – we met to play ping pong, but instead we just kind of sat around next to the pong table and just talked, and it was good. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t bettering myself in some way, wasn’t multi-tasking, wasn’t accomplishing anything but sitting on the gym floor and talking to a friend. It was good.
When it comes down to it, I know with my head that my life, my success, my contentment doesn’t depend on what I do or how much I gain your approval (sorry!), or the approval of anyone else in my life. I know that living in that way isn’t the path to life, it’s more the path to finding my identity in what I do, and I just don’t think that what I do to make bread or to gain your approval is a healthy place to rest my self worth. The trick, now, is finding a way to not just ‘know’ this, but believe it and live it out. (cont’d below)
The people I met in rural China, such as this couple, they are still there, and for the most part they are still living as their ancestors did centuries ago. Living a simple life, mostly just existing and not so much accomplishing anything noteworthy or great in the eyes of the world. I don’t know what they find their identity in, but i do know that apart from whatever it is they do with their lives, just like you and me, they are valuable. Like you and me, they have value not because of what they do or accomplish, but simply because they exist. They are valued by God. And they share with us the human experience.
I think that if we could only grasp onto this truth, that us and others are valuable not because we attain high-powered jobs or people admire us, but just because we exist and share the human experience, a lot of things about our lives and about the way we view others would change. In a good way.
