Home Again

Tad and Nort never did meet in China as planned. Nort never made it out of the Pudong airport. The H1N1 flu intervened and sent Nort home after one week spent in quarantine in an airport hotel. However six months later, their paths cross again during the Christmas holidays. They meet at a local Starbucks. Nort is already seated with his latte and netbook. As usual Tad is a few minutes late. But what is a few minutes in over thirty years?

Norton!

Tad. It has been awhile! Good to see you!

It's good to see you! Let me get a cup of coffee...

How, long has it been?

Too long! We have talked on the phone and emailed, but never quite hooked up. China was a fiasco for you! Sorry that happened to you!

Yes, that was ridiculous! But I might have a chance to go back next summer. How did it go for you?

It was a good time as before. I love China. I cannot get enough of it. If I could I'd go back tomorrow. I'd even consider living there.

Really! Never had that strong a feeling about it beyond a curiosity. Of course it is an important place in the world today and we need to know more about it. You speak some Chinese, right?

A little. I took it in college and have tried to keep it up. It helps. I was surprised how much of it came back when I was there. How many characters I was able to recognize. But I have a long way to go to achieve any kind of fluency.

I imagine with any language there are different degrees of fluency. Learning a foreign language is a lifetime pursuit.

You're absolutely right. The subtleties and nuances of meaning you have to learn in a language are enormous. I don't ever expect to be truly fluent. Of course, you have to live there to achieve a real competency. At least that would be true for me. So you have plans to try again and return there?

Yes, I hope to. I am curious as I said, very curious! I am curious about Christ in China. What the faith looks like there on the ground. To what extent has it become indigenized? What can we learn from it? Christianity is a universal faith. It gains from all quarters, allowing for reflection. What is happening in China is siginificant for the faith as a whole. It's exciting!

Yes, from my experience teaching with this Chinese Christian NGO, there is a great emphasis on service, which is certainly a Christian practice, but also dovetails with a strong Confucian social ethic. This emphasis of a social gospel is in response to the social need and political upheavels that occured there this past century. I found this service orientation quite freeing. Here it seems all motives are suspect. Anything not done for money and personal gain is suspect. Even in the church it seems that the empahsis is on your own personal salvation, period! The culture and the church have us bound up and immobilized. You have to constantly explain yourself and your actions. You cannot act unless you have been saved! I find it tiring!

Hmm. You've said a lot there. Let me get another cup of coffee...