Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… – 2 Corinthians 5:17-18

There I was, making my way to our apartment from the grocery store, wrestling two heavy bags, walking along the banks of Krakow’s Vistula River – as one does – and it hit me: this is surreal; I am carrying groceries home in Krakow and it feels normal; I have been in Europe almost three weeks without once getting behind the wheel of a car and I am absolutely getting used to it.

The sun was going down over the river and I saw a group of tourists taking a selfie up on the embankment, silhouetted against the reddening sky. I found myself shaking my head; tourists!

Two competing states of being. First, feeling the wonder and the magic of a place like this: me, carrying groceries to my apartment in Old Town Krakow – I can’t believe it. Then, feeling completely at ease and natural, the sensation of being at one with the city, comfortable, as if I could exist there indefinitely.

This is what is so great about travel, about wandering. This becoming one with the world and at the same time feeling so completely in a fantasy or a story or a dream.

Personally, I recommend it. I believe one of the great challenges for us as Americans right now is to understand our place in this world and our relationship to the family of nations. It is not just we who are special… it’s the entire world.

But isn’t that the point of the gospel, the good news? Isn’t God’s message, the Creator’s big picture plan about understanding who we are as One People?

Is not this plan for reconciliation a world-centric view?

that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. – 2 Corinthians 5:19-20