An American Girl's Letter to the World

Well hello World,

Nice to meet you. Though I don't know you very well, you seem like someone who I'd like to know better. I'm rather frustrated with some I know of you so far, but I realize that there's a lot more to you that I haven't seen yet. I think you're mysterious and enchanting. I've become quite infatuated with you actually. I think you must be full of beauty.

I think there's people and places where things are more organic. And by organic I don't mean the kind that has the sticker and is washed by automatic showers every hour. That's the way it is here in America. We expect synthetic, we expected modified, we expect artificial so the more natural, the more real a product or resource is the more marketed it is. But world I think you are organic in a different way. Your realness is not advertised or labeled, it's dirty and painful. But I like to imagine that there is joy in you too, that there is hope and love as raw as your suffering.

World, I also know that there is more to you than what I would see if I were to visit you today. I know you have stories. You have a history. You've been blessed and cursed, and seen victories, tragedies, and triumphs. Teach me these. Tell me about yourself: who you've been and how you got here. The American dream is to forget the past, but I know the world remembers and values what has happened.

World, you might not want to know me. You may think that we have nothing in common. I've chosen department store over handmade, I shop at grocery stores not markets, I exercise on machines when I could walk outside, I'm part of an Internet community that replaces the face to face, I drive my car over paved earth, I straighten my hair, I take pain-killers with carbonated water, I use light bulbs and coffee to defy the sun and the night's opportunity for rest. And though these habits and lifestyles are much apart of me, I confess that am not created to eat Big Macs and shop at Wal-Mart anymore than you are.

World, I know God your Father and Mother. Your Creator is mine as well, and we are made of the same dust. The truth is I am in you and you are in me and God is in us. Though I more often worship under moving powerpoints and electric guitars than shaded trees and singing birds, we are made to praise the same God. This is the God that will bring us together and reconcile our differences and forgive our sins.

World I pray you have grace with me. I am made to love you. I am your neighbor. I'll see you when I see you.

With love,

Maddie