What Does It Feel Like to Lose Your Country?

The other day I encountered a posting from Mike Frost, a blogger I follow, titled So this is what it feels like to lose your country  He spoke of the loss and grief that comes when your home, your entire country is destroyed by fire, as was the case in Australia during the summer of 2019-2020.

The post evoked several memories of lost homes and countries. A few years ago, I was working into the Christmas holiday season along with a some colleagues who had also spent their allotted vacation during the summer months. A colleague and friend, a Chaldean Iraqi, invited me out to an Iraqi restaurant in the area, as a break from the monotony of being in the office during the holidays. For me, a Westerner of European heritage, it is always a treat to step outside my routine (and cuisine) to experience another culture. My friend wanted me to feel at welcome in his world, so he ordered up a sampling of Iraqi culinary delights, which needless to say, were delicious.

As I sat and took in the ambiance of the place, murals on the wall caught my attention. On the walls all around me were hand-painted images of village life in Iraq. I imagined these were images of life before the US invasion and subsequent flight of Chaldean Christians. It then dawned on me that my friend goes here to see pictures of a home country he can never return to. The thought saddened me.

Mike Frost's post reminded me also of my father, a refugee from Poland after it was invaded in World War II. He lost his family. The world and the people he knew were gone. Forever. He rarely spoke of his loss and grief. All he would say is "this is my country now". As I look back, I am also sad for his loss.

As a frequent visitor to San Francisco, I am also reminded of the homeless, refugees in their very own country. They are often economic refugees, unable to earn enough to keep a roof over their heads in the face of skyrocketing real-estate prices and stagnant wages. The addicted and mentally ill are also well represented among their number. They are truly refugees, although we don't think of them that way. The former are refugees, thrown out of the control of their own bodies, while the latter are refugees who have been thrown out of reality itself. When they are looked upon with revulsion or just simply ignored, when they are prosecuted or driven away by law enforcement, they are reminded of their status: they have no place in the land.

I live in Metro Detroit, home to a large community of immigrants, and now their descendants, of whom I am one. Metro Detroit is also home to a large Chaldean diaspora. A Lebanese diaspora. A Yemeni diaspora. A Balkan disapora. I could go on, but you get the point. America is home to a lot of ethnic groups, but we don't often think of the reason they are here. We assume that it is for economic opportunity, and often that is true. More often it was simply to escape persecution and violence in their homelands. That is even true for African-Americans who migrated from the South to flee racial persecution and poverty for economic opportunities in the North.

Nearly every one of the situations that cause people to lose their home and homelands are man-made. War and conflict certainly have a direct causal relationship to human displacement. Human-induced climate change also displaces people as ambient conditions and frequent catastrophes make areas uninhabitable. Religious and ethnic persecution add to mass of fleeing humanity. Today, there are over 70 million displaced persons world-wide by some estimates.

Perhaps the Biblical imperative to “not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners" (Exodus 23:9) is not such a dated concept. Rather it is a moral imperative. We should do everything we can to welcome the stranger. Everyone should feel welcome somewhere. We should also do more to change energy and defense policies which promote war and climate change, which in turn, drives people from their homelands. This will require much more of us who are privileged but not as influential as we could be. We will have to organize and engage the apathetic to make our voices heard. Otherwise, we too may find ourselves among those who know what it feels like to lose one's country.

Lost and Found

I am  an engineer who is a bit of a techno-geek. If there is one thing I hate is being lost. I like to know where I am and where I am going. So when I started using smart-phones, the map app was my favorite.  Not only could I see where I was, I could see the traffic ahead! This provided the opportunity to see problems in advance and detour around them. Knowledge is certainly power! However the information has to be correct.

Over time I began to notice that my map location was not following my true location. I also noticed that the exercise app was getting the paths and distances wrong. This was totally unacceptable.

I searched the internet to see if anyone else has had this problem. Indeed they did! It turns out that a GPS could have an accumulation of errors that might need to be cleared out. However, to do that required a GPS test app. So off to the app store I went.

I installed the GPS test app so I could clear out the errors. After  opening the app, I discovered a previously unseen world. It was fascinating. A live map showed the location of approximately 20 satellites orbiting overhead. At first the symbols were gray. One by one, the symbols changed to yellow, orange, and then green as the GPS locked on to them. When enough satellites locked, the GPS established a fix. I cleared the GPS and the location locks came much faster.

I have observed that life can be like that. Sometimes we get lost. Errors accumulate. Noise, stress, fatigue, grief, and difficulties of our journey all take their toll.  We lose our bearings. We can no longer see the "satellites" that guide us. I like to think of these "satellites" as clues to our location and direction in life. So what are these "satellites"?  Conventions. Manners. Ethics. History. Tribe. Religion. Our "spirit" or inner voice. Our conscience. Our upbringing. Our families. Consciously or subconsciously, we rely on these reference points for guidance.

Sometimes we don't know that we are lost. We have been running on auto-pilot for so long, we don't realize we have lost our way. However there may be hints. A short temper. Irritability. Depression. The need to "escape". The need for substances.

Not only do we need to know where we are, we need to know where we are going. What is the destination? Status? Wealth? Fame? Leisure?  Family life? Social life?

Once we have our destination in mind, we have to set priorities. What will it take to get there?  Is it worth the cost? Life tends to be a zero-sum endeavor. What things will we have to give up to get the things we desire? We cannot have it all.

Just like the GPS, we might have to do a reset, clear out the corrupt data, and re-establish the lock. We might need to simply rest. Take care of ourselves. We might need a spiritual retreat. We might need to work on our important relationships. We might avail ourselves of the wise counsel of friends and community. The point is that our internal guidance system has a limit. It needs to be cared for.

In the end I was able to reset my GPS and get pretty decent location locks. Then I dropped the phone and cracked the glass. No reset helps that, so I upgraded. Wow! The new phone locked instantly even if it caught a sliver of sky! In my office building however, was metal coated glass that completely block thermal and electromagnetic radiation. Inside this building, there is no GPS. There are times when you have to step outside to see to where you are.

The Meaning of Life

This Christmas I received a book from my son, "The Gulag Archipeligo" by Solzhenitsyn. He thoughtfully selected the book because of my interest in the great Russian writers. You might be familiar with the term "Gulag" and that it refers to Russian prison camps. The book is aptly titled because it is a detailed account of the entire process of spying, betrayal, interrogation, torture, confession, and imprisonment for millions of Russians.

After reading the first three chapters, I was overwhelmed. A neighbor, an acquaintance, or a friend could make the most incidental comment that could cause you to be arrested. For the most benign comment or no cause at all if a quota had to be met, you could be arrested and sentenced to no less than 10 years hard labor. From the October revolution of 1917 through the post-war years, huge swaths of the population were caught up in a system that not only presumed you had to be guilty of something, but preemptively punished you just in case.

I was astounded at the wholesale destruction of human dignity on such a vast scale. I was so overwhelmed, I had to put the book down for a time. With such pervasive accusation, betrayal, cruelty, fear, and suspicion inflicted on so many people, how could its effects not be felt for generations? Indeed the effects are being felt to the present day. A recent NPR feature titled "Epidemic of Addiction Threatens Russia's Future" describes the widespread alcohol and drug use that plagues Russian society today.

So what can I do? Perhaps not much for Russia. Russia is inaccessible to me both geographically and linguistically. Because of emigration and the internet, people may become accessible to me who otherwise would not be. But I don't have to go to Russia or seek out Russian people. I don't have to look far to find people in pain and people that are addicted. Regardless of where we are in the world, the motivation for addiction is the same: to anesthetize pain and salve lack of purpose.

I cannot arrogantly presume that I know the existential angst that my friends and acquaintances may or may not be feeling. However, I can safely assume that, as much as human beings need food, clothing, and shelter, they need meaning. The fact that I am a Christian does not put me in a superior position; it only means that I have started on a purposeful journey. Viktor Frankl said, "our meaning in life is found as we help others find their meaning in life." That is why the answer is so elusive. We think we can find it by ourselves. It cannot be found on our own, as an individual pursuit, but only as we help others find it!