I am a bicultural person. I’m both Burundian and American. I live on both continents – the school year stateside and summer on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. I juggled passports and, for a long time, identities. Being both wasn’t easy.
Then I realized that Jesus is bicultural, straddling two different kingdoms. He’s fully at home in heaven and equally at ease in skin. I began to see how many Biblical men and women moved between lands and cultures. Think Ruth the Moabite, Moses, Abraham and Sarah from Ur – people with multiple cultures that shaped their identity. Bicultural people kept the story interesting.
So I embraced my identity as bicultural, knowing this shaped both my identity and my story. Maybe being both offered a wholeness, not fracture. Maybe being both allowed me to embrace more of my true self as expressed in each culture, each place. This wouldn’t be the first time that two becoming one would be considered a good thing…
An obvious result of living a bicultural life is the movement between different places. I own more suitcases and travel locks than I can count. I can name the airline routes and carriers to and from Bujumbura as well as my favorite duty-free shops along the way. I’m in and out of countries so much I now carry the super-sized passport.
But the two becomes challenging in the daily living. The coming and going of it all creates disorientation well beyond a few days of jetlag. How do you live in two worlds as a whole person?
Read the rest here, where my friend Caris Adel is hosting a conversation on identity & vocation.
Kelley, I found your blog via Sarah Bessey’s. This is a beautiful meditation. Thanks for sharing.