A Schizophrenic Life
By Ana Mullan
(From the October - December 2020 issue of VOX)
I have been living in Ireland for 36 years and have been an Irish citizen for the same amount of years. I got my citizenship at the Irish embassy in Buenos Aires a few weeks after I got married. No ceremony, no singing of national anthem, just the secretary of the embassy, Seán and I. But even though it was not a glamorous occasion, I am always thankful for it.
Even after all these years, I still have my distinctive accent that makes people wonder where I come from or if I am here as a tourist. When I tell people that I have been here 36 years, several have replied, “So, you are one of us.” That is an expression that I treasure very much, to be accepted and to be part of the country, which I love and call home.
However, there is the other side of me, the Argentinian brought up by Italian parents. That side is not that obvious while I live here but it emerges when I go back there. For a start, I speak a different language, Spanish. Also the volume of the voice goes up and the talking is done not only with the mouth but with the hands as well. Some time ago when I was chatting about this with my good German friend, she said, “We are a bit schizophrenic”. I think it is a funny way of describing those of us who might find ourselves in the same situation.
Last July, I went back to Buenos Aires, for a special reunion. Every time I go there, there are new things to learn. My friends and relatives are very good at telling me all the things that are different since the last time; the card that I need to buy for the metro and buses, the changes in the streets and some neighbourhoods, where the supermarket is and areas where I shouldn’t go.
“But despite all these similarities, I don’t see things in the same way; my years of being away have changed me.”
After a week, I begin to get used to most things. To the rest of the people, I am not a foreigner. I look like a porteño, a native of Buenos Aires. I speak the same language. I have the same mannerisms. But despite all these similarities, I don’t see things in the same way; my years of being away have changed me. Though I fit perfectly outwardly, I am a different person inwardly; I don’t feel I fully belong.
This made me think about a letter describing the first followers of Jesus, written probably in the 2nd century: the Epistle to Diognetus. In it, there is a depiction of these first followers who puzzled a lot of people at the time.
“Christians are indistinguishable from other people either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of people. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign.
And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country.”
This is a wonderful description of the tension that these followers experienced in their everyday, ordinary lives. They did not detach themselves from their homeland. They lived with their feet well grounded wherever they were. However, their hearts and minds were focused on what they considered the real homeland, a homeland shaped by the God they could call Father and the values of His kingdom, demonstrated in the life, death and resurrection of His son Jesus.
Some people reacted to them with admiration and puzzlement, others with hatred and disdain. In a world where power and authority was imposed by violence, where the rich lived as if the poor didn’t exist, where people could be bought and sold, where defeated enemies were paraded through the streets to show Rome’s power, Jesus and His followers were considered weak. How could someone teach that you should love your enemies? How could men and women be considered equal, regardless of background or race? And how could one follow a leader who was crucified like a common criminal and think that the death was a victory?
“This is the tension of the two citizenships, paying attention to what is happening here on earth and responding as a citizen of heaven.”
Despite all this, these followers were passionate about the message and its power. They might not have had much learning or training in communicating but they had one thing: they didn’t know about God, they knew God in the person of Jesus. Even when they didn’t have the Scriptures to read, they remembered together the stories of what Jesus had done. They entered those stories and became part of them. They could identify themselves with the characters in the stories. In all of these stories there was a common thread: Jesus’s compassion. They were able to have compassion for others because they themselves had experienced compassion. So out of hearts that were full of their Master’s love for them, they were able to live their lives for Jesus and for others, and people joined them not out of compulsion but out of attraction.
When Jesus gave His manifesto, the Sermon on the Mount, He repeatedly used these words: “You have heard that it was said… but I tell you…” This is the tension of the two citizenships, paying attention to what is happening here on earth and responding as a citizen of heaven.
In the conflicted world that we are living in, when our ways of understanding how to follow Jesus, have been disrupted, I ask myself: what is it that I have heard and what is Jesus telling me?
Ana Mullan is from Argentina but has lived in Ireland for 35 years, the last 18 in Dublin. She is an artist, a spiritual director, retreat facilitator and an enthusiastic grandmother.
