This week I surrendered my passport to the authorities and they punched it full of holes. It wasn’t expired (2 years left) and it wasn’t full (6 of 48 pages remain), but with the holes it is no longer valid.
This experience gave me reason to reflect on my citizenship. My perspective is from one who has lived 10 of the last 13 years outside of the U.S. You might think that my U.S. citizenship wouldn’t matter much to me, since I don’t live there. You would be wrong
. In fact, the opposite has occurred. While living abroad, my citizenship has grown more prized by me. My passport is a symbol of my citizenship and I’m glad to have it and I can’t imagine the thought of losing it. I understand this more personally because I know what it’s like to be in a country where you’re not wanted. For the last two years, we’ve been in “visa limbo,” waiting for a call about our application. Some years earlier we were unceremoniously told to exit (we did). My U.S. passport thus is a real security to me; I know that whatever happens, there’s always a “home” to return to. This is real and this is meaningful. It’s not necessarily something that you think about if you never leave your homeland and you never face the threat of deportation.
I treasure the United States for more reasons than that. I treasure its freedoms, its privileges, and its honesty. (You may not agree with that, but it is relative to what you know. I know that honesty is rare in these parts.) Compared to the countries that I have visited, the U.S. is unique. I would say God-blessed and truly amazing.
This teaches me about heaven. As a believer, the Bible says that my citizenship is in heaven. This should be a great security to me. The ultimate security. Because of this I know that no matter what happens – harrassment, expulsion, or execution – I always have a “home.” My heavenly passport will never have holes punched in it. Of course, a citizenship is only worth as much as the place where it is from. And heaven is a place of perfect peace, perfect justice, and total righteousness. You can’t beat that. I’m still thankful for my U.S. citizenship, and thankful too what it teaches me about my eternal citizenship.
After the consular agent punched holes in my passport, he handed me a new one. I decided I needed to retire the old one after various border authorities threatened to keep me in their countries because the passport photo had deteriorated. The new passport will expire in 10 years. I wonder where I’ll be then.
todd, thanks for your perspective on this. I’m glad you got a new passport,too. I hope that before this one expires our paths may cross again…
Since you’ve lived in Israel for so long, has it ever started to feel like home to you? Or have you always felt like a displaced American?
Todd: Although I haven’t learned the citizenship analogy as well as you have since I haven’t lived overseas, I remember thinking some of the exact same things whenever I’ve returned to the States after a trip.
Standing in the U.S. Citizens’ line at LAX, watching the ease with which I pass through the line, watching the inconveniences and questions the internationals are facing, and realizing that I’m home (with all of what “home” means) has impressed upon me the great blessing of being an American and the infinitely greater blessing of being a Christian.
Thanks for this. Many of us won’t learn this lesson like you have, so it’s good to learn from you.
so…is Damascus in the future with the new passport??? You could always sneak across the boarder so you don’t get an Israeli exit stamp and then go in through Jordan or somthing :)
Christian – tough question. In some ways I feel more at home here than anywhere (most of my adult years have been here). But my “home” here is largely an American bubble with travels around to ancient sites. So I sometimes say I love living in “ancient Israel.”