Lingering Dust
As you unpack your suitcase, you may notice some dust from the roads you traveled lingering in the cracks or clinging to your shoes. You detect a scent of a home in which you stayed. You find a stain on a shirt where you splashed some sauce during your last dinner.
If there were such a thing as a baptismal mirror, you might look very closely and discern on your forehead the cross with which you were marked at your baptism. The dust from your journey attached itself to the oil of that cross. This dust mixes with the other elements of your being and contributes to your daily rebirth. Others will not see the dusty cross, but they will see its effect integrated into your life. They may not understand this new you. You may feel at odds with yourself and the environment in which you formerly felt more at home.
You may find yourself asking new questions about your faith and seeing your home in a new light. You acquired new perspectives on the world and new standards by which to make decisions. Very few, if any, of the people at home share these perspectives and standards. They may see this distorted image of you and laugh or walk away. You can also try to walk away from the experience, denying it. Or you can get acquainted with the new you.

Picture the New You
If you kept a journal on your trip, you might begin by reviewing your journey. Identify transforming moments. Describe for yourself the affect on you. Before you can explain the changes to others, create a self portrait that you can study. List the thoughts, the feelings, the actions which are now part of your being. Maybe you learned a new handshake you would like to continue to use. Possibly the smell of coffee recalls the sweat of the coffee growers and makes you cry. Perhaps you scrutinize the benefits you offer your employees to insure they are adequate and just.

You may feel alone, but you are not alone. Your experience may be unique among those with whom you live, but it is not unique among those who have traveled as you have traveled. You can seek ways to connect with other travelers using mail, phone, or internet.

Recreation -- A Gift to Take Home
If the witness of those you met on your trip empowers you to make different decisions at home, those decisions may not be affirmed in your home environment. Paul wrote to the Corinthians about this experience of being new creations (II Corinthians 4-5). He states that with your newness comes the gift of the ministry of reconciliation. You feel like an odd duck because you are now called to reconcile the old with the new. You will find it difficult to resume life as if you never took the trip. Your choices at home now may seem more clouded precisely because you see another part of the world more clearly. The work of reconciling the two won’t erase the differences. But it may help to bring your experience into focus.

You may need to use the memory of those you met to give you strength to continue on a new path at home. You can call on the faith stories which were alive for you on the trip to uphold you now. You can use your prayer life to explore with God the meaning of this transformation which God is working in you.

Even after you have been home awhile, you may look at yourself and think you are a reflection in a funhouse mirror. What seems like a distorted image is the new you taking shape. It may be at odds with the reflections of others around you. But look closely, and see if you recognize in your funny looking figure shadows or imprints lovingly left by those who showed you a new part of the world.