Direction

I am in Amsterdam this week (The Netherlands is one of my most favorite countries) meeting people and making connections for 13thFLOOR. We are in day three and we have endured a stolen wallet (Lourens), crashing motherboards (my computer), overnight bus ride, and learning how different Dutch and Afrikaans are. Yesterday Lourens and I managed to get lost.

Now I am not talking a little lost, I am talking LOST! This happened after Kelley, Lourens and I went to Almere to meet with the Salvation Army and every person we asked to help with directions sent us in opposite directions; so our trust level for asking for help was dashed before our big excursion later that afternoon. So we felt that with our map we should be able to handle finding our way in a section of town that was semi-familiar to both of us. HAHA! We walked for three hours trying to make our way back to a place we turned from only a few blocks from our destination. By the time we figured out where we were and how far we needed to walk home we were a bit weary and dejected.

As we were literally passing where we started our unexpected trek we could see the familiar landmarks and celebrated being within minutes of our home. Our feet were killing us and we had dreams of devouring the delicious treats we commandeered on the way. The Promised Land was close at hand we could taste it! At that moment we were confused about the reason for such an unnecessary blunder of judgment but all that was about to change.

A young woman in here twenties approached us and asked in Dutch if we could help her. She was late for an audition and could not find the address. She was very frustrated, but you could see that she was trying to put up a brave face, but internally she was shattered. I explained that we were not from here and we mentioned that we were also licking our wounds after being defeated by the Dutch street system. We pointed her toward what we thought was the right direction but she was anything but satisfied with our response.

She vented and told us that our directions were not right (I love Dutch directness) and we should come with her to see that we were erroneous. So beleaguered and defiant, we accompanied our fellow trekker down, what only turned out to be another trick down a rabbit hole.

We arrived at the place where the address should be and tit clearly was not there. It skipped the address she was seeking. It baffled our three minds and mocked us mercilessly. It just did not exist in our space-time continuum. Now our new friend could no longer hold back the tears she fought so bravely to hide. I hugged her and Lourens said we would help her find her way. We walked on.

Eventually we came across a police station and went inside for some insight. It took consultation with a few officers to determine that we just had to keep going in the direction we were headed and get there. We even called the people staging the audition and they reassured us that we were going the right way. The three of us had to fight our rationale as the numbers kept going in the opposite direction of what we sought. Everyone said we had to keep going straight and trust that the destination would appear.

We pushed onward and onward. Finally we crossed the magic street, you know the ones that have numbers that ascend in both directions even in one direction and odd in the other. While I feel that fault the Dutch for the execution of city planning but I have to credit them Dutch for creativity. In a matter of moments we stood across from our holy grail.

As we reflected over the journey we realised that everyone giving us directions thought we were standing in a location that mirrored where we actually were. So from their perspective they thought we were close and could not understand why we could not see or understand their perspective; we on the other hand were further away with similar landmarks thinking that were idiots. The light went on when we saw where they thought we were standing. From there it was easy, but where we were standing was hard and the destination was not within sight.

I know that this blog is lengthy already, but I have to say that this experience was a microcosm of political and world-view clashes. One person thinks that we are all coming from the same place, but the reality is that we cannot and we do not. So do we really have the right to get made at someone for seeing things their way when we have not bothered to walk with them in their experience? I think not! No wonder we as Americans, Christians, Muslims, Iranians…People in any affiliated group seem like morons when we broadcast a viewpoint as truth and assume it is common sense to everyone on the planet, yet have not done the footwork to see things from another vantage point. Could you imagine the conflicts we could master if we climbed down from our self-made ivory towers and just walked with people on their journey.

Had Lourens and I not accompanied our friend, we never would have learned how wrong we were, and judging from her frustration no one else was willing to hear or embrace her experience. On paper it made sense that the address should be where they pointed, but one would have to walk there to realise that what she spoke had merit. It is so much easier to discount another's perspective so one can hold on to our own, but if we sacrificed our position and move we might learn something and bind our hearts to another's experience. Allowing ourselves to be lost… again…meant that we gained something precious.