A New Beginning

The structure of Chris’s company was contractor work. Just like the owner/operators at Expedited, we owned our own business but contracted exclusively to Precision. Chris gave a generous percentage but it was fully commission work. So, despite this being a prospective way to do better financially, there was no guarantee.

I worked out a goal based on my budget and went about seeing if I could meet that obligation. Slowly, steadily, as I built up my week, I found that I could meet and even exceed the objective. That first year I ended up making two and a half times what I had been making at Expedited.

But it wasn’t just a financial burden lifted. It could be long days and we had occasional after hours calls. But, for the most part, unlike Expedited where it seemed like the job was always with me, we could leave the job at work. The dark, heavy burden had been lifted and my soul felt alive again.

Not too long after I started at Precision, another significant milestone happened in my life which I didn’t think was necessarily any big deal when it began. For the past twenty plus years, I had been living in the United States with a Green Card. I had never made the move to become a citizen because the only thing I would gain is the ability to vote. I also wasn’t sure if I could actually pledge my loyalty to a country when my ultimate loyalty and belonging were in God, something I had been constantly reminded of during my untethered, temporal life.

Green Cards have to be renewed every ten years and the price goes up every time. Becoming a citizen costs more on a one-time basis but in the long run, if I had to renew my Green Card more than once more, citizenship would cost less overall. Since I am a chintz, I decided to take the plunge. So it started out as purely economical.

I filled out all the paperwork, went to all the interviews and was approved. Then came the day when I had to go to the courthouse for the naturalization ceremony. My family was away at the time and disappointed they couldn’t be there for what they thought was a pretty significant event. I told them it wasn’t a big deal.

Then, all of a sudden, as I was saying the oath, this process that I had been looking at as just something practical and economical became something very powerful and mythical. I was becoming a citizen of the United States of America. I have been to some fantastic places in the world but in my opinion, America is the greatest country of all. 

That’s not to say that America does not have problems. Some people endure tremendous suffering in this country and every person’s pain has its own unique challenges. But, in general, the people of America enjoy a remarkable quality of life compared with most of the world

What has made America so great? I believe it is the result of its foundations - the freedoms and opportunities that the Founders articulated and built into its founding documents. Unfortunately, I see many of those qualities being assaulted by excessive government. I see people trying to move away from those qualities to fit in with other countries. But becoming more like other countries is reducing America’s uniqueness, its greatness, and moving us back toward the kind of tyranny that the Founders were trying to escape.

Many people around the world have various reasons to not like the United States and its citizens. But I would venture to say that most people in the world would give almost anything to be able to do what I was doing that day. And I had been almost flippant about it.

Most people who are born here don’t really know how privileged they are. If they haven’t done much travelling, they can’t really understand what they have. There’s a reason hundreds of thousands of people risk their lives just to get into the United States. When you’re born here, these are not matters with which you have to grapple.

After we said the Oath of Allegiance during the naturalization ceremony, we said the Pledge of Allegiance. When I lived in Hawaii, the kids at school had to say the Pledge of Allegiance. As someone from New Zealand, I was exempt but I used to join in by changing the words to fit New Zealand – “I pledge allegiance to the flag of New Zealand, two islands under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” 

But as I said the Pledge of Allegiance, I realized that I was no longer just an outsider. I was no longer just that eight-year-old, changing the words because it was not my country, not my flag. It was now not just my wife’s country and my kids’. I was now pledging allegiance to my flag and my country, the most powerful and prosperous country in history. And in that moment, it kind of blew my mind and brought tears to my eyes.

Now, for the first time in my life, I had the opportunity to participate in something that, up to that point, I had only been able to give great positive mental assent to. I could vote. Up until then, I had been able to participate in democracy by calling and writing and emailing government representatives. But from then on, I was able to participate in holding those representatives accountable. I consider this a great privilege because, however small the power of my individual accountability may be, not everyone in the world gets that opportunity.

Even though one may be British, when you’re not born in England (like I wasn’t), you’ll never be considered English. When you become a citizen of the United States, you become part of the melting pot that is America. You become American. And even though my true citizenship is still in heaven, I now had all the rights, privileges and responsibilities that the Constitution, now my constitution, guaranteed me.

And so began a new chapter in this long, winding road we call a life. I had come from being born on a small island in the middle of the vast South Pacific Ocean, traveled around the world and was now living as a citizen of the Unites States of America in a great but comparably normal existence. At this point, I don’t see how I will ever get into the film making that I thought God called me to when I was sixteen. Since I started doing dents, it’s not something that I have pursued. If God still wants me to do it, He will make a way. But if not, I am content, as travel has become more of a passion now. So this is my ordinary life. This is my extraordinary life.