The View That Changes You
🖋️ The OPPen
You can read about a place. Watch a documentary. Hear someone’s story secondhand.
But it’s not the same as walking unfamiliar streets. Ordering food in a different language. Realizing, as you stand quietly in a crowd, that you’re the outsider now, and that the world is much bigger than your hometown version of truth.
Travel doesn’t just teach us about others. It humbles us. It opens our eyes. It rewires our assumptions in the best way possible.
And if you let it, it doesn’t just change your passport. It changes your posture.
📘 Word of the Day: Pluralism (PLUR-uh-liz-um)
Noun — a condition or system in which multiple groups, beliefs, or identities coexist respectfully.
True pluralism isn’t about erasing differences. It’s about honoring them, while holding space for shared humanity.
📖 Verse of the Day
"After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation..."
— Revelation 7:9 (ESV)
God’s vision is big. Diverse. United by grace, not sameness.
💬 Quote of the Day
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness... Broad, wholesome, charitable views... cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime."
— Mark Twain
The more of the world you see, the more grace you tend to give.
🧭 OPP Mental Minute
When’s the last time you truly stepped into someone else’s world, not to debate, but to understand?
✍️ Author Reflection
I’ve traveled across the world, from remote villages to bustling cities, from familiar places to spaces that stretched me and in ways that rewired how I see the world. And each time, I’ve felt what Twain meant. It wasn’t just the places that changed, it was something in me that shifted too.
One of the most powerful memories I carry is the call to prayer echoing through the numerous Muslim cities I’ve visited. At first it caught me off guard, but quickly became something I cherished, a steady, sacred rhythm that reminded me I was standing in someone else’s world. It’s the epitome of why travel matters: not just for what you see, but for how deeply you begin to listen.
Travel hasn't just open my eyes. It softened my heart. And I’m still learning from it.
—Todd
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Next Move Wednesday
A weekly framework or mental model to help you pause, reflect, and make wiser decisions — one midweek move at a time.
July Theme: Lifelong Learning
The Humility Loop
Most people travel to escape something. But the wisest travelers use it to see something.
New places don’t just show you landscapes. They show you yourself, and your assumptions. They hold up a mirror. And if you’re brave enough to look, you’ll find something surprising:
You were never the center of the story. And that’s the moment you realize, freedom doesn’t come from being the center. It comes from seeing beyond it.
Framework: The Humility Loop
Every great learner, traveler or not, walks the same internal loop:
1. Exposure — You experience something new.
2. Discomfort — Your assumptions get challenged.
3. Humility — You let go of being right to make room for being changed.
4. Growth — Not just more knowledge — more wisdom.
You can’t shortcut this loop. And you shouldn’t want to. Because the best learning starts where your comfort ends.
Real-World Example
A U.S. college student spends a semester in Morocco. The heat is unfamiliar. The language frustrating. The call to prayer echoing through the city feels strange… until it doesn’t.
By week six, she’s eating tagine with locals. By week eight, she’s journaling less about culture shock and more about her old blind spots.
She returns different, not just because she traveled. But because she allowed herself to be taught.
Prompt to Reflect
Where in my life have I mistaken comfort for clarity? Where might curiosity lead to growth, if I let it?
Quote to Carry
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
— Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
Mini Reset Moment
The world doesn’t get smaller when you explore it. It gets richer. Softer. More generous. Travel is a tutor. Curiosity is a classroom. And humility is the passport that lets you grow.
We, as I write this, are traveling by train from Barcelona to Madrid. Todd is correct, traveling is a humbling educational experience and but so enjoyable. What a blessing to be able to see so many different cultures 😊
Could not agree more. The world would be a more peaceful place if we separate what we hear in the media from the beauty of the people God created. You can only do this by spending time with His people in their land.