A Home for the Alien

My family never made a pretense of anything even slightly nearing normalcy, and that penchant for the peculiar extended to the realm of holiday celebrations. We particularly embraced Epiphany, the celebration of the coming of the kings to worship Christ. My parents hosted a yearly Epiphany party at which we all dressed in costumes from various cultures and ate international food. The point of the international theme is that Epiphany is the celebration of Christ coming to the gentiles, as Christmas is the celebration of Christ coming to the Jews.

In recent years, Epiphany has come and gone, and I haven’t really particularly felt any excitement in the celebration. But this year seems different. I’m genuinely thrilled about the holiday, although I have no particular celebratory plans. Living as a foreigner gives a new perspective to many things, Epiphany among them.

It is hard to truly understand what life as a legal alien is like unless one has lived it. In many ways, there’s a glamor to it. Everything is new, strange, unique, adventurous. Friends make envious comments about the romantic nature of one’s life. People are genuinely interested in pictures of the food one is eating. My taste for travel finds many opportunities for satisfaction. Life is exciting.

But there’s another side of life as an alien that is harder to explain. There is the unending sense of “otherness.” When I first moved to Athens, the only everyday hat I had was embroidered with “U.S.A” across the front. I’d never felt conspicuous wearing it in the States, but in Greece I soon decided to buy another hat and put my U.S.A. cap away. I hated the feeling of being immediately recognized as different from those around me (as though my blonde hair and blue eyes don’t already do that). The same phenomenon applies to speaking to cashiers. I smile and say Eff-hairesto (thank you), but all the while I’m silently hoping they don’t ask questions or try to make conversation.  Then the secret’s out, and I’m not one of the everyday people anymore—I’m different.

For the most part, the language barrier isn’t too difficult to deal with. I’ve become very used to sitting on the metro surrounded by conversations that I don’t understand. Most of the signs in Athens have English beneath the Greek. It isn’t that hard to get from here to there.

But it’s still a great relief when I find someone who speaks English outside of school. In November, I went to the post office to mail a package. After figuring out the que (an adventure all its own), I spent the next forty minutes praying that one of the staff knew English. To my great relief, the woman who helped me figure out how to send my parcel spoke excellent English, and I had to restrain myself from jumping over the glass and hugging her.

While I’m relieved to find people who speak English, and I know that I should work more on learning Greek, there’s a part of me that struggles to put forth an effort in that direction. I know more Greek would mean an easier time with cashiers and store clerks, but it will take years before I’m able to have a really good, heart-to-heart conversation in Greek. To me, the point of language is to know another person. Being able to ask, “Where is the WC?” won’t really help me make a close friend.

Then, of course part of being an alien includes the simple fact that I’m not Greek. There’s a neo-Nazi party here in Greece that has gained a startling amount of support. It’s called “Golden Dawn,” and they espouse highly nationalistic policy, even going to hospitals to donate blood, but refusing to give blood to anyone who is not Greek. Their ideas are clear: Greece is for the Greeks. Immigrants are not welcome.

I wonder a bit if non-Americans react to extreme forms of American nationalism the way I feel when I hear the ideas of Golden Dawn. Do they want to say, “Hey, I’m human too! And being from here doesn't make you more valuable.” Do they feel the same sense of otherness? Do they suddenly want to go home?

But that’s problem for many expatriots. Going home may not be that easy. There’s always a reason for leaving one’s country. After teaching in the American public school system for years, I became so thoroughly disgusted with the legislation that reduces children to numbers and strips away the beauty of childhood to make education mainly an enterprise aimed at raising test scores that I knew I had to leave. It wasn't that my job was in jeopardy. To the contrary, I was considered a good teacher. But when laws become oppressive, the heart is willing to depart from the homeland.

But no matter the reason for leaving, all of us wish to belong, to no longer be "the other,” to not just be welcome as a visitor—but rather to be a member, a citizen, a part of the family. And that’s the blessing of Epiphany. It’s a throwing open of the doors to the family of God, an invitation to a heavenly citizenship, a comfort to the alien. Epiphany is the celebration of adoption, when those who are not the natural children join the family. It is the discovery that no matter the country on one’s passport, one can find a father here—and not just any father, but one to whom, as the Book of Common Prayer so perfectly states, “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.”

On Epiphany, we gentiles ceased to be the other, no longer spiritual foreigners or expats any more.

On Epiphany, God spoke our language, and the orphans found a father.

On Epiphany, the heart of the wanderer can find rest, even when we dwell in foreign lands.

For it was on Epiphany that the alien was given a home in the Kingdom of God.