The whole is greater than the sum of its parts

I find myself asking myself again what I am doing here. I almost don't care what the answer is because I want to be here and really think that this is where I am supposed to be no matter how dissatisfied I may be with the "official" reason that I am here: school. I am not enjoying it at all right now, but I am so glad that I came out here for it. I may not have been here long, but it doesn't take long for a place to become part of who I am. My brief experience with my students over the past few weeks has reminded me of that. The way I think and the way I interact with people are things greatly influenced by my experiences with my culture and other cultures. A little part of me is from college in Santa Clarita. A little part of me is from my semester in Israel. A little part of me is from trips to Mexico and Panama and Costa Rica and Romania. A large part of me is from growing up in Whittier. A growing part of me is from living here in Binghamton. All of these parts make me a little bit emotionally torn, because each of these parts carry memories that are about people. They are family and friends with whom I have shared so much of my life. They are also strangers who crossed my life "like ships that pass in the night," but those ships have lights. I carry the words of strangers whose lights I saw years ago. There are chapel messages from college that I remember. I remember the message about Moses spending 40 years with the Midianites before God called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but I have no idea who spoke that day. I remember Francis Chan speaking in chapel a few times and sharing very memorable visual images of spiritual lessons. I take the memories of life in the dorms with me and could find my way from one of my rooms to the restroom in my sleep, but I cannot go back there. I relive moments on foreign shores in my mind, precious memories that leave me with bittersweet emotions, but I cannot go back there. I cannot even really go back to where I lived just months ago although it is the place I know best filled with the people I know best. I have left these things behind in my chronological past, yet they are still ever present with me because they are part of who I am. It is a paradox of life experience. Yet all of these parts of me do not compose the whole of me. There is more that transcends experience. I may ask myself who I might be if I had never left my parents' home for college, missions trips or graduate school, but I cannot answer that question. I cannot measure the influence that my specific experiences have on me, my worldview and my identity. I remember my grandmother, recently confined to a nursing home, and her failing memory. When my memories are gone, what will be left of me? I would rather not find out. As for now, I am here. Here, as with other places, what makes me want to stay are the people. I have blossoming relationships with some people and see so many potential friends all around me, especially at church. Memory doesn't make me fond of this place because I have not left it behind. It is the hope of many memories yet to be created that makes me want to stay. This part of me is still a work in progress!