IOWA

"I sense that seeing the world the way God sees the world means, in part, grieving in places the world does not forgive, and rejoicing in places the world does not notice. It would mean, therefore, to live with a patience that culture cannot sustain, and with a hope the world cannot imagine." 

– Krista Tippett

“Is this heaven?”   

“No, this is Iowa.”   - Field of Dreams

THE talk has always been that heaven would be a place in which you were fully in the presence of God’s love.  And, hell, was the abyss of being separated from that. What would be that ‘name of a place’ should one, upon death, awaken to be in a place near a flowing river, full of people, living in thatched huts, eating sparse food, where there was no crushed ice or sign of fast food restaurants, where you slept on the floor, where chickens, ducks, dogs, and pigs roamed freely.  And no one seemed to know your language, such as a place called “Mae Ra Moe Refugee Camp” on earth, only that there was no “there”, only “here”.  This was it.  The place of your eternity. But if you started to learn the language, you would discover there are no words for “heaven” or “hell”.  You were only to continue to grow in holy wonder, make your own conclusions by learning to live by them.

     YES, with these people, here,  I could well be in the presence of God through their very being, their kindnesses. And yes, I could very much be in the separation from God – in the agony of being distant, not belonging, clinging to what escape there may be to find another “there”. But as in Sartre’s work No Exit, imagine there was not there. No border, only a wall of white (or was it purple?) that one found in trying to break out, instead of letting grace break in.

    AND, yet, maybe the people in eternity shared would have a word that was also in your language.  The word?  “Iowa”.  Maybe then we’d discover the word “home” for the first time.

 

 

Sails

A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for.

And of what do recycled sails consist?  Of what tapestry of brokenness, mended stitches and patchwork? Don’t be afraid of raising your sails. It is the only way to grow somewhere. Raise them as you would a flag and let the Spirit take you.

Coming to America

"There was a time that I would reject those not of my faith.

But now my heart has grown capable of taking in all forms.

It is a pasture of gazelles.

It is an abbey for monks.

A table for the Torah.

A path for the pilgrim.

My religion is love. 

And whichever the route love's caravan shall take, 

that shall be the path of my faith."  - Arabi

On February 13^th, American embassy officials from Bangkok visited Mae Ra Moe.  In a camp that sees most families resettle in Canada, they were very curious to learn what the American staff would say about the new possibility of resettling in the United States.  Though I missed the hour long presentation at the football ground, many families attended, returning home with flyers written in Burmese and Karen about resettlement in America. For the next week, I heard more questions about America than I ever had here.  I have tried to be a welcome, to be a face of hospitality to those who might come live in America or another third country, a simple reflection of the welcome that so many Karen had extended to me. But I was unprepared to answer all of the questions. Here are some of the most common ones:

1. Are American people friendly?
2. How much does it cost to live in an apartment? A house?
3. What does American money look like?
4. How long does it take for me to become a citizen?
5. If I am a citizen and have an American passport, can I return home to Burma to visit family?
6. I have heard America is expensive.  If I couldn’t find a job, would my family have to sleep under a bridge?
7. Who will help me find a job?
8. What kind of job could I have if my English is so poor?

 

The Third Country Experience

Last week, my students participated in a two-hour simulation I designed on resettlement in the United States.  The goal was to give them an experience of what challenges, attitudes, and services they or their friends might face in America. The second-year students played the role of grocers, a clinic worker, bill collector, nursery school teacher, employment officers, factory bosses where participants built houses from legos, and a community college teacher. The results:

 

1. Many students decided to have 2-3 children and live in a 3-bedroom apartment.  I told them to imagine their infant children and represent each child through a 10-pound stone, but they choose small rocks instead, for ease over realism, but as with most teens inexperienced in parenting, the children (rocks) were left unattended at home or at the nursery school.
2. The families immediately used their funds to pay for rent, but rarely paid their food bills. Perhaps as food in the camps is always provided, perhaps because they weren’t hungry enough to remember. 

 

The Kingdom of Imagination

“The best definition of God is that all things are really possible”. – Soren Kierkegaard


Walter Benjamin tells this Hasidic story of wonder. In a small village, the locals were sitting together in a shabby inn one Sabbath. They were all Jews and village residents, with the exception of one person no one knew who was squatting in a dark corner at the back of the room. He was dressed in shabby clothes and many thought he must be a beggar. All sorts of things were being discussed. And it was then suggested that everyone should tell the group what wish he would make if one were granted to him. One man wanted money; another wished for a son-in-law; a third dreamed of a new carpenter’s bench; so everyone took a turn. After they had finished, only the ‘beggar’ in the dark corner remained. Reluctantly and hesitantly he answered the question this way, “I wish I were a powerful king reigning over a big country. Then, some night while I was asleep in my palace, an enemy would invade my country, and by dawn his horsemen would penetrate my castle and meet no resistance. Roused from my sleep, I wouldn’t have time to even dress and I would have to flee in my night shirt. Rushing over hill and dale and through forests day and night, I would finally arrive safely right here at this inn and in this dark corner. This is my wish.” The others exchanged uncomprehending glances. One asked, “And what good would this wish have done for you?” The man answered, “I’d have this shirt.”

Size Matters

“The church has gold not to store up but to lay out and spend on those in need, for would not the Lord himself say: ‘why did you suffer so many to die of hunger?’ – Ambrose of Milan “In an age of multi-million dollar mansions for God, it’s hard to imagine that our God has always preferred tents.” - S.C. The writer Shane Claiborne speaks prophetically against the tendency of churches today to be so focused on growing their numbers – in money, in programs, in people. There are good intentions behind those who want to contribute money for a larger church sanctuary, to install better speakers, even a large projector screen to make the message attractive and more visible, especially to the young. Can’t these actions be solely intended to give God glory? Can’t it be that through more money, more programs, and better buildings, that more people can ‘be reached’? But as Claiborne writes, maybe the Kingdom of God was meant to be small, with any corporateness being where 2 or 3 are gathered together. Maybe then, churches should always work to grow smaller. 

 

 I recall a story from Macarius the Great. He said a woman in his church community was eagerly wanting to buy gems to make the vestments of the priests more beautiful. “I want the priests to have the finest, all for the glory of God”, she said. Macarius applauded her intentions. He approached the woman and said he knew of very valuable gems that he could buy for the woman, but that she would have to give him the money and trust him. She did so. Weeks passed but the woman never heard from Macarius as to what gems were bought. She nervously worked up the courage to ask Macarius the whereabouts of her donation. He immediately replied, “O, I am so sorry! I forgot. Come with me and let me show you the gems that I bought with your money for the glory of God.” The woman followed Macarius to a poor, dilapidated house. Inside were people who the society had neglected – blind, orphaned children, widows, those with mental retardation, the elderly homeless, the couple in the corner who didn’t have any money for health insurance to buy their medicine. There they all sat around a table. “Here”, said Macarius, “are the gems your money has provided for. Here shines topaz, jade, ruby, gold, diamond…”  As buildings are built, perhaps human temples are being destroyed by hunger and homelessness.

Pharoahs Amongst Us

Raser is an FEC student. He is applying for a scholarship and admission to a school in Chiang Mai, Thailand. On the school's application it asks for Raser to put down a bit of his job history. He ponders what to write, having not been able to have a paid job before. And, in his own narrative, considers writing the following based on his experience in Burma, reflecting a common story of oppression: Recent Employer: SPDC Burmese Military Government Start and End Date: whenever they could see me, detain me; whenever they let me go, 2003-2006 Job Title: Slave Labor, Porter Main Responsibilities: carry soldiers food, water, blankets, clothes, rubbish, and non-military equipment for miles to their bases in the jungle. Salary: none Reason for Leaving: Once, I escaped; but mostly, they let me go if I said nothing, did what I was told, and was too tired to work any more.

Of What Are We Made?

The Man Watching – Rilke

“What we choose to fight is so tiny
What fights with us is so great
If only we would let ourselves be dominated as
Things do by some immense storm,
We would become strong too.
When we win, it’s with small things
And the triumph itself makes us smaller
Winning does not tempt that man –
This is how he grows – by being defeated decisively
By constantly greater things.”

Perhaps our human nature is a reflection of the Trinity that created us. Not in a Freudian sense (id, ego, superego) or that of Plato (the emotional horse, the appetite horse, the soul-driver), or Jonathan Haidt’s wonderful metaphor of our nature being like a rider on an elephant. Instead, maybe we are at our core a trinity. We are a soul who walks with two friends. Like on the road to Emmaeus, a resurrection revelation comes through two anonymous people, that have news of Christ’s aliveness, are messengers, but are not named. Maybe, even these two are friends, born beside each of us are also called to be with our soul, “where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, I will be present.” These two companions?

One is called Forgiveness, ever whispering, crying screaming for companionship, to know infinite grace for us;

One is called Mission, a presence ever wanting companionship through the sacrament of purpose, “Take up your mat and walk”, it says. Or, “go and sin no more”, but GO. Not a judging voice, not superior or condescending, but of celebration; a brotherly presence that says to keep rising, to go on, to spend your life on something that outlasts it; that you are a blessing and that that is not a Hallmark card nicety, but a universal fact.

These two companions, so often forgotten by me at least, are the sail and the rudder on the ocean of being alive. They make possible - when they are known not as strangers, not as enemies, but when they are known to be friends in life’s way – the surrender to let “the wind blow where it will” and move and transform us.

Try Singing

“IF I can’t dance, then it’s not my revolution.” – Emma Goldman

Friday afternoon my classes are canceled for the FEC school singing competition. Two students from each class are chosen to participate. They remove their shoes and take their places in shaky blue chairs on the stage before their classmates. One by one, the contestants are called by the judge. Each, after perfunctory bows to their teachers and classmates, they draw a small piece paper. The paper lists a topic of which the student has to then create and sing a song for 3 minutes. The improvising gets rowdy applause and laughter from the crowd. The song topics include: Our Education, Winning the Revolution, My Homeland, How to Be a Good Leader, and my favorite topic – How to Keep Food from Thieves. Singing is part of the fabric of life in Mae Ra Moe. When people walk, enter a familiar place, or find themselves at work, they sing. Though I am fond of all the singing here, and especially the Burmese and Karen folk songs played on the mandolin, I am most amazed by the symphony each evening that forms as stars appear. It is as though I have season tickets to a concert each night. The symphony begins with the crickets taking the string section. Then, the croaking frogs as a bass, and then the lifting hum of nearby mothers who sing their infants to sleep, who sweetly call their ducks to eat. Then the flock of goats ring their bells in the hills, and the monastery bell, ringing four times, calling it “a day”.

Whitenessing the Gospel?

The story of Christianity’s arrival among the Karens is well known in missionary accounts. In the mid-1800s, Judson, a Baptist missionary from America, came to Burma. He had no or so little success in converting or building ekklesia (churches) in Rangoon. Burmese were not too receptive to believing in the Christian God. However, one day, a Karen servant (to a Burmese) wandered under Judson’s Rangoon home, where the servant found a Bible tract. He struggled to interpret it, then realized he had the lottery-winning-ticket-revelation in the tract: The holy book that the Karen people had long lost, had returned! The legend goes that God had two sons. The older son was the Karen nation. The younger son was the white brother. God gave the Karen a book of law long ago. But because the Karen were careless, the book was lost, sending the Karen into a state of guilt and a great hope that one day God would redeem them by returning the lost book of God’s law through the messenger of the white people (younger brother) who would return from the sea. From the time of this tract’s discovery, the Christian message was spread, welcomed, and embraced by the Karen, fully empowering their own sense of mission. Missionaries from America were not needed. Only the book – the Bible, the lee saw see. And the Spirit that continues to flow through and empower people. In the refugee camp last week, I met four American visitors who had come to the camp's Baptist Church to “share Jesus”. The guests stayed for four days, and while they didn’t speak Karen language, they carefully taught the Bible, sang hymns, and brought supplies where children could make crafts based on the story of Jonah. Perhaps those who came to ‘teach the Gospel’ came to help educate others back in America about the plight of the Karen. Perhaps they wanted to learn from the Karen about the political situation in Burma. And, perhaps their goal was to missionize or strengthen the Christian believers who are already here. The missionary impulse is understandable, particularly rooted in the external words of Matthew 28, the Great Commission and placed within us – as all of us were created for a priesthood, a holy purpose, to be apostles – ones sent out on a mission to bring about His kingdom into the world. But, on can only hope that these four American visitors recognize that the choir already exists here, that they were teaching or preaching to it, in the Karen who already know and live the Christian message. There is a mission spirit here - a training school for those willing to take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, albeit through the perfect holy disguise of “resettled refugees with I-94 forms”. So many Karen faithful may go, carrying their experience of political exile, their knowledge of a transformative self-determination, their experience of the Holy Spirit’s sense of resiliency, welcome and community. That is, they may go to America, Canada, Australia as Christ’s missionaries, and share the Gospel – and if they must use words – with those of other nationalities and tongues and perhaps help Americans, Canadians, Australians among so many others - rediscover that they had lost a divinely-given book that would one day be brought back to them – by a brother with a “well-founded fear”, disembarking a plane at JFK, who asks to restart life, find a job if even cleaning rooms in a hotel, washing dishes in a restaurant; find a school to connect their children to their dreams, someone looking to understand the food choices at Wal-Mart and all the while help the world learn a common holy call to be free, to be one, to be love in this world.

The Year of Rat Curry

Don’t get even. Get odd. – Zen saying

Last night, Raser caught a forest rat in his homemade trap. The rat had been building a nest in the awning above my bed in the dormitory. Quickly, a trap of bamboo appeared this morning. Raser proudly displayed the caught creature, its head caught inside the bamboo on a string. The rat was quickly taken to the kitchen, placed on a skewer and roasted. The word spread among the dorm students about the appearance of the delicacy of rat curry for the evening meal. Sure enough, for dinner, amidst potatoes and onions, was a rat’s tail and other barbecued parts. The rat tasted terrible. I tried to smile. The boys laughed. But they ate every bit, reminding me of how the dorm students rarely have meat. Catching and eating a rat was a rare luxury, a fuller meal than the standard ‘rice and fish paste’, as they are only given 20 baht for extra food each week.

Attack of the Elephants!

One weekend last month, an elephant attacked my TPC classroom where I train teachers each week. I did not see the attack, but witnessed its effects. The elephant, who escaped from a local Thai village and walked freely over the nearby hills, ate much of the thatched leaves of the classroom roof and thrust a hole into the side of the wall with its trunk. It actually let more light in.

If you are solitary, you can remember that all beauty in animals and plants is a silent, enduring form of love and yearning, and you can see animals, as you see plants, patiently and willingly uniting and increasing and growing, not out of physical pleasure, not out of physical pain, but bowing to necessities that are far greater and more powerful than will and understanding. If only human beings could more humbly receive this mystery – which the world is filled with, even in its smallest things – could bear it, endure it, more solemnly feel how terribly heavy it is, instead of taking it lightly. If only they could be more reverent towards their own fruitfulness, which is essentially one. – Rilke

Boredom Weeds

   Evagrius, the desert Egyptian monk, once called the most difficult human temptation, acedie, or “the noonday demon”. This tempting spirit is that invasive presence between the hottest part of the day, when the color of monotony and boredom begin to appear. Here, in the refugee camp, on weekends, acedie finds itself afflicting many young people. Yet there is another spirit that looms other garments for many. My two house students, So Nga Gay and Washee, tell me that if they are bored, they have a long list of ways to combat the acedie, to best reflect what Annie Dillard once said, “Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.” Their list includes the following suggestions (notice there are no options involving electricity): 1. Walk somewhere, especially to visit someone; 2. Listen to music, starting with your own voice; sing a song you know; 3. Find a guitar and make up a song; it doesn’t matter if it has no melody or you “can’t sing well”; 4. Read a book; 5. Write a book; 6. Play caneball or soccer; 7. Did I say it before? Visit people. It helps if boredom is never alone.

How Children Play

Nietzsche once said that the problem with modern man is that he has yet to discover the seriousness of play that children possess. That thriving, vital seriousness of play shines in the refugee camp, among the abundance of children and their holy creativity. From a young age, children are active, they create their own entertainment. Here are some ways children play:

1. Spinning a bicycle wheel down a road and chasing it;
2. Affixing a bamboo stick to a small axel made of a stick with wheels cut out from discarded sandals, and rolling it on the ground in glee;
3. Swimming in the river;
4. Floating down the river on an old, discarded board, or making a float by filling a garbage bag with air, tying it, and tubing down a stream;
5. Making a parachute out of a plastic bag and string;
6. Stomping on an empty plastic bottle with a reattached cap, seeing the cap fly, hearing the pop sound.

Gifts Here

Every evening is a gift. And here.
What unwraps itself are
The curry of a meal with rice
The life by candlelight
The smell of blossoming flowers
The sounds of a flowing river, of croaking frogs
And, by a neighbor who plays his mandolin
So it too can sing the gift of the night.

Come and See

  Do not come to visit the Karen people in order to sing Christmas carols. Do not come to visit the Karen to visit without your own need to be moved to conversion yourself by listening to the Karen preach and sing hymns. Do not come to visit the Karen to experience exotic tourism, or to shop for the textiles to wear to show friends “back home” how far you came, the experience you had by meeting villagers (those who sold tourists traditional clothes) deep in a forest where the young people wear t-shirts that idolize Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, 50 Cents, or are leftover from the 1994 Michigan State Swim Team. Do not drop in one weekend to give Frisbees to the refugee children in hopes the round plastic disk will deter them from turning to drugs, or even finding a better use for the Frisbee as a plate to feed the family ducks and chickens. Do not come to study the Karen, to further your studies in International Development or complete fieldwork for an advanced degree in Anthropology. But do come and visit. Come live with the Karen if you only and are searching for who really is family in the world of being human. Stay awhile. Especially when you mostly want to leave to return to the “known world” or know the world news of the day. Come live with the Karen people and romanticize life. You will find that through the people you meet, who happen to be Karen by nationality, who have customs and traditions of so much beauty (just like your own), that it is not so much that here lies a lifestyle to romanticize (ex. “I really want to live ‘like this’; I wish I was Karen!”), but that through life among a different culture, you can better romanticize and idealize what an incredibly wondrous thing it is to be human.

A great human error is to use reason before finding out. - Simone Weil

More Quilt Squares for Future Sails

Subversive: means there is a ‘verse’ under the ground. Maybe it’s a holy-water pipe connecting us all, one to another. The love of which He gave us is like the ‘groundwater’, or even those systems of divinely-given knowledge that have used groundwater for good, and invented PVC pipe, cement tunnels, storm drains. His love is all around us, undercurrents, flowing to the tap, not to be hoarded or boarded or sold, but given away. Here in Mae Ra Moe, the Thai government forbids any permanent plumbing systems. So, alongside of trails are blue lines of PVC pipe, connecting water to houses, to hoses, for all to see.


What is love but to “give oneself away” or one’s pig? A man passed by the Guest House. I had never seen him before. I waved. He came in and shook my hand. He asked if I could eat breakfast with his family the next morning. He said, If you can come, I will kill my pig for you.”

The joy of living in a house made of bamboo is that you can feel the presence of every human step made. When someone walks, the floor shakes, coffee spills from a cup, papers fall off of a table. How are souls called to be made like this too?

At any moment, during the school day, if the goats on the hills above the classrooms get too close, the sound of their bells will convince some students that class has ended for the day.

My computer keyboard was broken. The two keys that did not work were “g” and “h”. The spell check didn’t catch these. I had to later look for them:

Wit (with)
Tanks (tanks)

In Genesis, God’s name was a breathing out, an aspirated “h” sound. He renamed Abram, Abraham, and Sarai became Sarah. And “sin also needed a “g” in forgiveness. It might be a reminder to “sing”.

When you find a regret for a commitment of soul and life, you can 1) stare at it, let regret haunt you become the only cup available for tea or coffee or a list of what you would ‘rather be doing’; or 2) wrap the regret up as a Christmas present. Place it under a tree of expectation, and when something extraordinary is born, you can unwrap it and see the splendor that regret became.

Two weeks before their semester examinations, the students at the refugee camp are given packets of candles.

We must work to live in a world where pronouns still exist, but matter much less than verbs do. There is too much tribalism in the world, leftover from a time of isolation, of real fear of the other, a “we” versus “they”. Now the world becomes smaller. An invitation to not simply redefine what it means to be “we”, but learn to live, give, work, grow, move – to rediscover verbs and let them live through us.

Soe Na Gei, one of the students who cooks for me in the Guest House, can easily navigate his way around the refugee camp at night. One evening, I followed him at a good distance, under a clear, moonless sky. He walked quickly over the forest path. I lost him. It was as if he were guided simply by the light of the stars. Maybe there are sources of light, faint, but strong enough to guide those who have learned to depend on them through winding forest trails and uncertainties. Here, it is easy to look up at the stars. It is, too, a place to discover that that the stars look down on us, and in their beacon and fixedness, help us move.

From Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ book The Harmless People, she writes about the San Bushman’s concept of a soul as a now: “The moment of birth is when the child acquires a power, or an essence, over which he has no control, although he can make use of it. It will last him all of his life. It is a supernatural essence called the ‘now’…..Now is intangible, mystic, and diffuse, and Bushmen themselves do not fully understand its workings. They do not know how or why a now changes the weather, only that it does. They watch the changes carefully, though, and by observing have discovered the limits of their own nows.”

Yesterday, my classes were cancelled because the students had “Landmine Education Training”.

To empathize, to “put oneself in another’s shoes” is impossible. There are too many real barriers to understanding despite the intentions of real empathy. But to put oneself in “the socks” of another? That is really possible, and a goal.

To see air. To live in God’s socks – to live in a world in which my perceptions don’t matter, only God’s And we might know them, live within them, and find them. Like the air we breathe.

When you sleep on a bamboo floor, even if you wear earplugs, you will feel people speaking.

Perhaps it is easier to feel guilty than to feel helpless. And yet the latter is often our true task. First, to know that one does not control what is going on. Can we, should we, ever know the guilt of assuming we are in control?

For my teaching two hours each week at the Teacher Preparation Course (T.P.C.), I am paid graciously in bananas.

From Henri Nouwen: “the spiritual life is not about mastering something (even perhaps “earning” a Master’s Degree), but about being mastered by the Spirit. Surrender has always been so much more familiar and a container than achievement could ever assume to be.

A lift – On Living, by Nazim Hikmet:

“The earth will grow cold,
a star among stars and one of the smallest –
a gilded note on the blue velvet, I mean,
I mean this, our great earth
This earth, will grow cold one day,
Not like a heap of ice or a dead cloud even,
But like an empty walnut it will roll along
In pitch-black space…
You must grieve for this right now
You have to feel this sorrow now,
For the world must be loved this much
If you are going to say, “I lived”.

2 or 12 Children?

If you ask the Post-10 students at Mae Ra Moe if they want to have children in their future, “yes” will be the common reply. If you ask how many children they would like to have – imagine 2 or 12 – the overwhelming answer would be “12 children”. The students explain that if you have many children, not all of them will die. Some will, and as in many economically poor farming communities in the world, children not only a help in the field, but are their parents’ only ‘social security’ during old age. It is no surprise that a common thanksgiving service is held when a child reaches its first birthday. Family and friends gather at the house. The pastor comes and leads a worship service. The parents give their blessing to all. At the end, a big meal is celebrated for all. A “First Birthday Service” is an expensive affair, but all is given in gratitude for what is most important: one’s child still lives.

One Summer Day, 1933

Alan Jones, the rector of Grace Cathedral, retells the following story from the poet, W.H. Auden:



"I was sitting on a lawn with three colleagues, two women and a man. We liked each other well enough, but we were certainly not intimate friends, nor had any of us a sexual interest in another. Incidentally, we had not drunk any alcohol. We were talking casually about everyday matters, when quite suddenly, and unexpectedly, something happened. I felt myself invaded by a power, which though I consented to it, was irrestible and certainly not mine. For the first time in my life, I knew exactly - because thanks to the power I was doing it - what it means, what it means, what it means, to love one's neighbor as oneself. I was also certain, though the conversation continued to be perfectly ordinary, that my three colleagues were having the same experience. My personal feelings towards them were unchanged. They were still colleagues, not intimate friends, but I felt their existence, as themselves, to be of infinite value, and rejoiced in it. And I recalled with shame, the many occassions in which I had been spiteful, snobbish, selfish. But the immediate job was greater than the shame. For I knoew that as long as I was possessed by this Spirit, it would be literally impossible for me to deliberately injure another human being. I also knew that the power would be withdrawn sooner or later and that when it did, my greed and self-regard would return. The experience lasted at its full intensity for about two hours. The memory of the experience has not prevented me from making use of others grossly and often, but it has made it much more difficult for me to decieve myself about what I am up to when I do."



Auden's experience speaks to the encounter with the spirit that inhabits us, as if our soul were a house, and suddenly, we discover that there is, in the house, a second floor, through finding the presence of stairs. All people are particularly unrepeatable. Each has a story to tell, holds a cup of wisdom to impart, a loaf of resiliency to offer anyone who wants to give up, something to teach, a light with which to shine.

Growing Somewhere?

We are people on the move.

It is our story.

Not the movement of emotions, or how we might change jobs, move into another job, or school, or resettle in a third country;

but the movement in the geography of spirit.

There are no eternal places here,

Only an eternal love

and a road.

Removing the Blog From My Own Eye

HEGO - a word for one who aspires, consciously or unconsciously, to the heroic and strives, as the writer Henri Nouwen says, to be RELEVANT, SPECTACULAR, and POWERFUL. These three are the temptations for us all as they were for Christ in the desert, who modeled a "downward mobility" and called us home.

To be RELEVANT, SPECTACULAR, and POWERFUL, to try to enlarge one's font size, to be a person of ALL CAPS - an image of pride that I know all too well, not only in my own fallenness, brokenness, search for approval, but especially in the temptation lurking to forever judge the motives of others as not being altruistic, but really efforts to be RELEVANT, SPECTACULAR, and POWERFUL. There is a temptation, that I know and fall into so often, to see a selfish gene lurking in "my brother's eye", when it is my own judgment that speaks of the arrogance I want to condemn in someone else.

How is it learned to be on the downward path of the spirit, to applaud, to celebrate not only the countless acts others show when they give themselves away, but equally when these can be viewed as arising from the most humble, and loving of intentions? I have a lot to learn.

And for a blog such as this? Maybe Christ's words can best apply, particularly as a Lenten reflection, to ask myself: HOW am I a HYPOCRITE? I need to take out the BLOG of my own eye, ask myself if I really only write for some pursuit of being RELEVANT, SPECTACULAR, and POWERFUL. It may simply be the underlying motive for me. But I will try and keep asking such questions, and ever write with a smaller font and smaller caps.


"The small man builds cages for everyone he knows.
While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low,
keeps dropping keys all night long
for all the beautiful, rowdy prisoners." - Hafiz

So Many Cousins

WE are all related. To the ugly. The beautiful. The kind. The desparate. And the boxtop? Consider among the separate pieces we are as individuals that we each have 2 parents. We each have 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents. Continue the math back 20 generations or so to about 1500 A.D. and each of us were related to 2, 339,904 different people at the time. Take that back a bit further when the numbers surpass the population of the world, and it means we are all related, cousins.

"Your offspring," he said to Abraham, "will be as many as the stars in the sky." And so might our ancestors.

Quilt Squares for Future Sails

"We are well instructed only by the words that God speaks to us personally. What instructs us is what happens from moment to moment." - de Caussade

"I don't want to be a great leader, I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oilcan, that is my ideal in life." -
Baba Amte (personal hero, created a home for lepers, recently died at the age of 93)

"God has given the universe a musical arrangement. He has placed the dissonant elements under the discipline of harmony that the whole world may be a symphony in his ears. He has orchestrated this pure concert of the universe." - Clement of Alexandria

The central question of faith is not, "Do we believe in God?" but "Do we know how much God believes in us?

Portrait of Kawthoolei, the Karen Nation

IN the universe of the peoples of the earth, the Karen are a 'globular cluster', that celestial fuzzy spot where, upon closer inspection, is comprised of thousands of stars. Each star is perhaps small, but because of the community, the reliance and interdependence of each, their light shines bright, making human hospitality more visible to the naked eye.

IN Karen language, the words 'you' and 'I' have no possessive forms. The lack of 'yours' and 'mine' are lived out in use. For example, If I have been using a particular pair of sandals, and leave them outside the entrance to a Karen house, another person might come along and not think twice about using them if needed. The shoes would come back. As is true of flashlights, bicycles, a candle, a pen, a piece of chalk. It's not stealing. It's simply that everything in public is for everyone public to use.

One Big Bright Pixel

• When can singing become stairs? Times when a melody is as though it were making a route to a second floor we had forgotten and moved us there.
  
• From a description of a Apple computer center invoice form describing a broken device and what God created us to be, however broken we ourselves may be: "One Big Bright Pixel".
  
• "The temple bell stops, but the sound keeps coming out of the flowers." - Basho
  
• A lesson plan for all those who's profession or volunteer commitment involve exuding comfort to the dying, to those in distress and pain: Pet a kitten. Your job is through touch and/or through your voice invoke a cat to purr and for the longest possible time.
  
• In Mae Ra Moe Refugee Camp, nothing is paved with certainty. The ground, like waiting, is covered with the dust and mud divots of 'maybe'.
  
• In the Buddhist monastery on the hill, the novices were left in charge because the abbot had to go to another camp. They found a way to put DVDs of Burmese cop shows on the television and turned on the generator. Some of my students joined. I don't know if the novices were reprimanded, but later that night, faithfully between 6:30 - 7:00, the gong again rang four times.
  
• My second year students completed their first English resumes. In the section heading "Work and Experience", being young people without "work experience", the following were listed, with a fun "marketable correctness":

cooked curry and rice (prepared community meals)
made pillows (designed bedding materials)
sold noodles
thatched roofs
raised pigs, chickens, ducks (specialized in animal husbandry)
collected cans, plastic, and paper for recycling (refuse elimination)
cut hair (barber, hair stylist)
built bamboo houses (construction engineer)
weaved baskets (crafted home furnishings)

"We are well instructed only by the words that God speaks to us personally. And what instructs us is what happens from moment to moment." - de Caussade

My Experience in Mae Ra Moe Camp

Written for my honored hosts at Mae Ra Moe Refugee Camp:

You might have seen a golawa around Mae Ra Moe the past five months, speaking really bad Karen language. That golawa would be me. My name is Scott. I was a high school teacher in America for 15 years. In 2005, I taught two years in China with the U.S. Peace Corps. After my time in China I decided that I wanted to work with refugee families who resettle in America. But I needed some experience. Mae Ra Moe was one of the few refugee camps that accept native English speakers as teachers to live and work within the camp. So I came to Mae Ra Moe last October to gain experience, teach English, and learn about the Karen refugee situation, as more Karen families are resettling in America.

Though I came to Mae Ra Moe camp to teach English, I felt each day that I was a student of everyone in MRM, as I learned more and more about Karen culture, language. Above all, camp residents have taught and inspired me. They have taught me a profound sense resiliency, hospitality and welcome, and hope – qualities people all over the world need, and certainly that my country needs. In short, I have found the camp to be a school for learning what it means to be human.

I have learned from Mae Ra Moe the value of resiliency. From the students who study by candle light for hours each evening, to the dedication of teachers at Number One High School who work long hours and for little available money to educate future generations, to families who use every resource they can and never waste these, I believe the people of Mae Ra Moe are models of a resilient spirit for the rest of the world. Camp residents have taught me that though SPDC may force you out of your Karen homeland, no one can ever take the Karen homeland out of your spirit.

I have learned from Mae Ra Moe residents the value of hospitality and welcome. Every day, I have been greeted my smiles, children who want to shake hands, and have been asked by residents who ask, “Will you visit me?” Every day, I have been invited to enter someone’s house as if I were a family member where I always found an open door, kindness, a sense of trust, and a gracious cup of tea. Through a deep welcoming spirit, the residents of Mae Ra Moe have taught me about the power of love that builds trust, builds community, and ends to fear and suspicion. It is that power of love that camp residents know that will one day replace the ‘love of power’ that poisons many places and governments in the world.

Finally, I have learned from Mae Ra Moe residents the value of hope. When I arrived on first night in the camp last October, I remember I couldn’t see anything. I simply followed the person in front of me. I trusted their direction as I walked over the bridge leading to the FEC dormitory. There are bridges in Mae Ra Moe, but not just bridges that pass over the river. Residents have taught me that there are also bridges symbolized in a hopeful spirit. There are bridges of celebration, of hope, where life will lead us, across voids of despair, doubt and uncertainty. In their faithful and patient hope, camp residents have taught me that God creates bridges for us, bridges of promise that we will continue to move towards home, if we will only keep moving forward.

Resiliency. Hospitality. Hope. These are three gifts I know that the Karen people I have met in Mae Ra Moe treasure and can continue to share with the world, whether they are shared in the camp, in Karen state, or in future life in a resettled third country. Camp residents of Mae Ra Moe have taught me that whatever we may do, we know that we will do it for good in the world. And because and through us, God’s love may be known.

"It began in mystery,

and it will end in mystery,

but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between." - Diane Ackerman

Directions

On a walk in the green hills above Langmusi village in northern Sichuan, cross the stream rock bridge. Then, turn left. Follow the sheep about a mile and over two hills. Then turn right. You will see a herd of yaks near a tent. The tent is a black tent of yak hair. It is secured by stakes where two barking Tibetan mastiffs let you know you have arrived. Then above the barking, will come a "hello!" A young 12-year old shepherdess will wave her arms and invite you into her family's tent as she knows it. But she doesn't follow. The blankets, the smell of sod, butter tea, wet boots. Outside, three young children will gather around Ren Xin Qiao, who minds dogs, yak and small children with the skill of an experienced shepherd. Still, in her Mickey Mouse shepherding uniform, and letting her little cousins wrestle each other playfully, she will take time to teach you how to use a slingshot to coax back a wayward yak. The slingshot - a simple long piece of rope with a piece of leather tied in the center where she places a perfectly weighted stone and throws with great accuracy. The Goliath of a yak, hit with the stone, stops in its tracks and wanders back to the fold. Ren Xin Qiao teaches slingshotting as patiently as a David of scripture would, not simply recounting personal achievements of killing Goliath, of being related to Jesse, Abinadab at the war front, or the marriage to King Saul's daughter. Out here in the tent, they don't know about front page headlines. Humility is at work in the shepherd who teaches you how to use a slingshot. You can try and get the hang of throwing the stone, and if like me, you end up throwing your own ineptitude around, hitting oneself with the stone. Ren Xin Qiao will then invite you to have tea with her family. And here is God at home among the tent of where true hospitality lives and breathes and throws kindnesses around to any passing soul. In Genesis 18, it is said that God came to Abraham's tent as "three visitors" who were welcomed by Abraham with the best that he had. And too, in the story, perhaps it was not only God who visited, but God who waited and waits at the tent, saying hello among the barking dogs, motioning each of us to visit, to have tea, to use a slingshot, and being on the road, know the meaning of home again.

If we do nothing else in life, let us try to do one simple thing: generate shade.

For

“for” written by class 2, Sichuan College of Education (my students from Peace Corps China)

For my parents calling me every weekend or when I am in a bad mood
My roommates looking after me
For the care of my tutor
For my eyes to see the colorful world
My friend Sue for helping me with my resume
For the college for the opportunity to do teaching observation
For the apple Jessica gave me yesterday
For my pen
For my glasses for helping me see clearly
For the boss of the cookie shop for his delicious cookies he made
For friendship
For the courage that my parents gave me
For people who hurt me, that have helped me to learn to be myself
For my grandpa who passed away last year
For my cat
For an exam, because after it, we will have holiday
For the light/lamp
For water and food
For parents hard work
For friends advice and help
For my mother’s good cooking
For the breakfast my roommate bought me this morning
For the warm weather
For having a good sleep last night
For watching a movie
For world peace
For the sunshine
For life that will be better and better
For the books I have read
For thinking about today
For breakfast
For what I learned from others
For an honest listener when I was sad
For God who created a colorful world for us
For my parents who give me the birth
For my teachers to give me lessons
For all the things my sister did for me
For salt that makes food more delicious
For my brother who helps me carry something
For my grandmother when she gives me some cake
For the chance to think about comfortable things I am thankful for
For my mother’s smart hands which made sweaters for me
For my health
For my roommates that wake me every morning and tell me which classroom I will go to for class
For the person who made the handbag that is on my leg because it is very beautiful
For my mobile phone so I can contact with my friends and family
For God who arranges my destiny
For my father who leads me into a bright future
For my younger brother who stayed with me in my childhood
For my boyfriend who helps remind me to be happy
For my relatives, my friends, my happy childhood, for teachers, classmates, the college
For my bed that gives me a sweet dream
For my motherland where we can grow well in her arms
For God who gives us sunshine
For nature that gives us water
For the computer that makes the world communicate easily
For knowledge that makes us understand
For electricity that makes the world bright
For the joy of a dog
For everyday
For my friends that help and support me when I am in trouble
for my roommate who takes my books back to the dormitory
For for

“if the only prayer someone ever said was ‘thank you’ that would suffice.” – meister eckhart

"Come and Visit Me"

IMAGINE a graduate student of Anthropology coming to live with the Karen people; unconscious of any perception of "them" as "unsophisticated" or "tribal", but as the subject of an ethnological study. She wants only to live "in the field", to conduct a study, to get 100 different householders to complete her survey on the "Level of Education of Each Member of the House", and the householders instead keep saying:

"Will you come and visit me?"

ENTER a missionary from a evangelical church team from the United States. They hae come to the Karen refugee camp to sing Christmas carols and teach the Karen - who already have more churches in the camp than most American towns do - about Jesus, with of course, a Karen translator, since the missionaries don't speak Karen language. The Karen church members, sitting on the floor, listen attentively to the white cousins who speak. The Karen understand. It is a preaching to the choir. And after the evangelicals have spoken and whitenessed, I mean witnessed, the Karen stand and shake hands with each visitor and say simply:

"Will you come and visit me?"

CONSIDER an aid worker, newly out of graduate school, working for a Non-Governmental Organization(NGO) and busily wanting a receipt from the Karen driver of the truck that has just delivered all of 240 bamboo posts for which the NGO would like to build a new house in the refugee camp for a "Sex and Gender Based Anti-Violence Program". While he counts each bamboo post as it is loaded off of the truck and carried by Karen men and women and placed under a nearby house (next to the pig sty), the local Karen turn to the NGO worker and say what is only on their mind:

"Will you come and visit me?"

AND what would we do if our world had all the technological innovations of the modern world removed? What if one day the television, the computer, the car, the air conditioner, the heater, the fridge, well they simply didn't work. Wouldn't we also, eventually, put down that book, take up a musical instrument and, while inventing a new song as we discover to live life out on the porch, outside of our private selves, learn to say to all who pass:

"Will you come and visit me?"

Camp Rations Decline

Karen refugees receive basic food, clothing, and building supplies. The funds that pay for these necessities do not come from the United Nations. The funds come from a variety of NGOs and governments, such as the United States and the European Union. This coming year, there are reductions in the rations that the refugees will receive. Why? As someone from TBBC, the Thailand Burma Border Consortium explained to me: All the donated funds that buy food, building materials and clothing come from the currency of the U. S. dollar that is then converted by Thailand into Baht before the supplies are purchased. However, because the American dollar is weak and because there is a blooming recession in the U.S. economy, there have to be reductions made to the amount of supplies that are available for the 16,000 refugees who live here and have no access to follow market trends. The basic conclusion (however simplified) seems to be thus: Because some houses are overpriced in the U.S. and people have had to default on their mortgages causing a credit crisis and slowed the American economy, the college students and families in the refugee camp will no longer receive the ration of fish paste and chilis for their traditional meals. Other rations may later be reduced further, but people learn to adapt as many have a Ph.D in resiliency. Families share what they can. They eat less meat, eat more rice, and listen for the hope that crows every new morning. If you would like to donate funds to help with funds, go to http://www.tbbc.org/donate/donate.htm for a terrific list of how to give.

Sails People

"When it's over, I want to say: all my life, I was a bride married to amazement. I, as the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms." - Mary Oliver

To learn the faith music of being a sailsperson -

that one lean to turn life over to the Spirit that blows where it will,
out past where anchors of dispair, guilt, regret used to keep things so small.
Past those docks.
It is hard to let go, to raise a sail,
and see it will make all the difference.

We Want Freedom to Move

The spirit of the Karen refugees - the communalness of it, the resiliency, the hopes, aspirations, ambitions, the pride - is strong and contagious. But there is also moments of longing, homesickness, despair, a feeling of being trapped, a common complaint among my students is that they want the freedom to move. To these realities and sighs can come this poem by Nazim Hikmet called "Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison": If instead of being hanged by the neck you're thrown inside for not giving up hope in the world, in your country and people, if you do ten or fifteen years apart from the time you have left, you won't say: "Better I had swung from the end of a rope like a flag"- You'll put your foot down and live. It might not be a pleasure exactly, but it's your solemn duty to live one more day to spite the enemy. Part of you may live alone inside, like a stone at the bottom of a well. But the other part must be so caught up in the flurry of the world that you shiver there inside when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves. To wait for letters inside, or to sing sad songs, or to lie awake all night staring at the ceiling is sweet but dangerous. Look at your face from shave to shave, forget your age, watch out for lice, and for Spring nights; and always remember to eat every last piece of bread - also, don't forget to laugh heartily. To think of roses and gardens inside is bad, to think of seas and mountains is good. Read and write without rest, and I also advise: weaving and making mirrors. I mean, it's not that you can't pass ten or fifteen years inside and more - you can, as long as the jewel on the left side of your chest doesn't lose it's luster.

Christmas in the Refugee Camp

I was fortunate to spend Christmas with my Karen friends in the refugee camp. Here are some traditions and experiences learned:

Before Christmas, each person in the community draws a name and buys that person a gift, given on Christmas Day.

At the Christmas Eve service, the light in the Anglican Church flickers on and off. It is connected to a turbine spun by the current of a nearby river. In the dry season, now, the current is a bit weaker because of the slower flow of water. Candles stand in, or the lector reading from the first chapter of John, moves to a window, leaning the Bible towards the last remaining hour of sunlight. The sketches from the Karen Bible I hear are: "there was a man named John. He was not the light, but was called to bear witness to the light that was coming into the world."

After the Christmas Eve service, the 200 parishioners remain on the floor, their candlelights illuminate all the walls around them, making a new truth come to light: there are so many shadows that are invited. The night celebration continues. The church building a place of reenactment of the Christmas story by the boarding house students, or a group sings a praise song. "What's the order of the program tonight?" I ask the priest. "Ask the Spirit."

As the night turns to early morning, people prepare to sleep in the cold air. Many have traveled all day from a neighboring refugee camp to attend the Anglican services. Many sleep outside and build a fire under a clear, moonlit sky. All around, the ducks, chickens, pigs, and goats announce their arrival. It's not that there is 'no room in the inn here', it's just that the room in the inn is first a sense of gathering, less a place.

After Christmas midnight mass, gifts are distributed. My gift? I received a small loaf of bread. It was bought with sacrifice, wrapped in colorful paper, and eaten with a new sense of what makes food holy.

Love is Really Still Here

The only answer that came before any quesiton was and is and will be: Love. Love spoke all things into being, love did. And we each were created to be wonderously curious, to live in mystery, to find that one answer again and again. So, a sentence to answer all questions asked - the who, when, what, where, why, and how - is this:

Love is really still here.

Two Poems

"Mere air, these words, but delicious to hear." - Sappho

We may compare life
to a shoe
or a laundromat
or whatever
nonetheless, we love it
for reasons of our own.
Let us carefully save our true souls
like our best suit of clothes
to keep them spotless for the days of celebration. - Attila Josef


The same water - a different wave.
What matters is that it is a wave.
What matters is that the wave will return.
What matters is that it will always return different.
What matters most of all:
however different the returning wave,
it will always return as a wave of the sea.
What is a wave? Composition and muscle. A poem. - Marina Tsvetaeva

Epiphanies Running Wild

"There is a piano at the top of the Alps." - Zhigniew Herbert It is hard to miss the Missionaries of Charity house on the streets of Phonm Penh, especially if you are on your way to eat, to find a market or a museum. But the blue and white metal doors are there, as well as a sign announcing the presence of an orphanage of the order that Mother Teresa discovered, that Love founded. I have to be in Cambodia to await a Thai visa. I decided to see if I could volunteer at the Missionaries of Charity, and knocked on the door during the afternoon hours for visiting. No one came out to open the door, but on the second floor, a row of toddlers appeared, waving and shouting. Then, a young woman exited the door. She did not speak English but conveyed that she was leaving and motioned that I could go inside. Maybe it was due to a late Saturday, a window when the Sisters were out, staff was off, and only one other volunteer was there; but no one was there to give me a "volunteer form", give me an interview, check my qualifications or even a background check. Instead, at the top of the stairs on this Epiphany Day, there is, like in the Kingdom of God, a two-year old Volunteer Director, who somehow knows how to unlatch the iron gate protecting the children from falling, and takes my hand, leads me to a desk, and points to a jar of water and cup, requesting a drink. The room is filled with about 20 children. They are running, they are crying, they are laughing, they are running into each other, falling down, pooping, jumping, sniffling, screaming, grabbing my hands for attention, the girl with no hands throwing clothes at me and laughing when they hit me in the face, the 3 year old who stole my glasses and threatened to throw them off the balcony into Phnom Penh traffic. For an hour, I stayed at the orphanage, sitting on the floor, speaking in English, trying to remember songs to sings, any kind of game. But the children, mostly toddlers, didn't need that. They simply wanted attention and wanted to give that attention back. It was loud, it was noisy, it was bizzare, it was frightening, and it was hard to leave. Christmas marks the time that Christ is born, that God announces, in a baby, that God and human beings are forever united. The manger seen is one of joy, peace, and a quiet sense of the gift of hope that has begun a story that will never end. And then comes January 6th, Epiphany. Epiphany marks the day that Christ was christened, given a name. And, maybe too, Epiphany marks the time when Christ, in his humanity of a baby with a few days here on earth, marked his presence with a sniffle, a cry, a first word, or later, an attempt to stand up for the first time, and a falling down. All an announcement that Christ is fully with us, fully being a gift to two human parents in Joseph and Mary, who wake up at night to feed the baby, make sure he has had all his shots, protect him from the Herods whose power and evil seeks to destroy what is most innocent and vulnerable. And here in Cambodia, Epiphany happens again. It's at the top of the stairs. Calling, crying, sniffling kind of love that wants to hold hands with our vulnerability, asks us for a drink, to be held, for a biscuit. Hope ain't leaving.

Proposal for a Future Karen Nation

Whereas, the Karen people have hoped for centuries for the right to have their own established nation;
Whereas, that national aspiration has been continually denied by the Burmese government;
Whereas, Karen people are refugees, eager to boldly stay in a refugee camp at the hospitality of the Thai government or accept an invitatino to a third country, such as Canada, Australia, the U.S., or Norway;
Whereas, the Burmese military government, known as the SPCD continues to deny the Karen people access to a decent education, adequate health care, and basic human rights;
Whereas, the Karen people continue to embrace a sense of innovation, resourcefulness and resiliency together, being gifted at constructing houses from the most rudimentary of materials and are willing to live and support one another in any adverse climate or condition;
Whereas Karen self-sufficiency, with adequate financial support from the international community, is a model for self-governance and educational vision; let the following be proposed...

Let the world community, led by the gracious hospitality of Canada, Norway, and the United States, support the resettlement of all Karen peoples to northern Alberta and North Dakota.

Let the Karen people be allowed to flourish in towns of every size, to contribute to the well-being and prosperity of their new homes and countries as they are so eager to do, and let them be allowed to purchase, at special rates, acres of farm and ranchland in otherwise blizzard-swept areas. (plug: http://www.ndrealestate.com/)

Let the SUV drivers, the fossil-fuel burning companies, the fumes of airplane traveliers, the recklessness of those who continue to use the earth's resources in spite of contributing to global warming.

And let the following wonderfully occur..

The earth will warm.
The Karen lands of Burma will become so uninhabitable because of climate changes.
The new resettled lands in Canada and the Dakotas will, however, warm also, providing, instead of blizzard conditions a temperate climate, productive soil, and land free from desertification and rising seas.
Perhaps floods of Americans from southern places will want to relocate to North Dakota or Alberta, as environmental refugees.
The Karen, and Native Americans, will be waiting not to criticize, but to welcome the refugee, the stranger that they have known so well. And they will help these new arrivals build a home, a new life and will say to a relocating American Global Warmer Migrant: "Will you come to my house and visit me? There, I have hot tea."

God's Spies

"We will take upon us the mystery of things as if we are God's spies. " - Shakespeare, King Lear

There are millions of stars that shine each night in the Mae Ra Moe Refugee Camp. It's the country in a land of no electricity , but candle flames and cooking fires. And it is the dry season. For all the stars above that shine, the call of wonder and conversion is to see how God sees things - looking at all the particular, unrepeatable stars that eat bread, carry backpacks to school, and miss their parents. The multitudes that eat loaves and fish. There are many millions of stars in the galaxy called the world of being human. All belong. All have purpose. All shine and are made to orbit around the greater, to celebrate the warmth of other of their fellow heavenly bodies, to know the limits of gravities.

People in the camp, mostly the young people, daily stop by the guest house where I live. They come out of curiosity, out of boredom on a weekend, out of wanting to improve their English, out of friendship. In short, they come For Good. I have to learn my own conversion. To put aside my own ugly pettiness, my own sense of wanting 'private time', a nap, and just be with each around a blue, thin, metal table, from which a guest serves me the gift of their simple presence.

Turning the Direction of Rivers

There is a story about a Karen family trying to escape the pursuing Burmese military after their home was burnt to the ground. It seems the family boarded a small boat, and, in the evening, quietly paddled away to seek freedom from oppression. But there was one last danger - bandits. Armed groups of young men were often along the river, eager and ready to stop and plunder any boat, no matter how vulnerable. So, as the family approached the bandits, they prayed to God for protection. Still, the group did not escape the bandits who halted the boat and made everyone get out. At this point, the grandmother of the family immediately said to the bandits, "Thank you so much for guarding our passage on this river. You all must be very tired and hungry, especially as your job is dangerous as there are often bandits here. And those bandits, wherever they are, how needy they must be. Really they are honest people who would only steal because they have no food or a place to stay. Here, have some of our money. And here, take this bread for yourselves. I and my family cannot thank you enough." The bandits listened and did not know what to do or say, only to wave the family's boat forward on the river and past the danger that they represented. Here was a grandmother, a woman, a refugee in her own land who exemplified the missionary spirit. She perceived not a group of bandits as such, but drew out what was intrinsically good and holy and hospitable about them. And in short, that's how they learned or remembered to see themselves. Who must have done the same for that Good Samaritan long ago? He whose table has served justice and drawn out compassion hidden within us all?

Befriending the Undone

After creating the world in 6 days, and resting on the 7th, rabbinic tradition tells of creation not being completely finished. There was an element left uncreated, or in Hebrew, "menuha", the terms for "tranquility", "peace", and "serenity" (the states of creation at its origin). All of life goes on creating, finding meaning in doing whatever our image compels us to do - be artists, as He was; to work hard towards something good, something that outlasts us, but without us would not be passed on, down into the faith of those yet to come. In sort, to keep building love.

"The small man builds cages for everyone he knows.
While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners." - Hafiz

Upstairs

"There is another world, and it is in this one." - Paul Eluard When clouds are lower than you and you know there is an "above them". That high shelf in the closet, above the hanging clothes, where some toy or forgotten thing dwells for discovery. When you have to climb a step ladder to see a space, covered with dust as in the library, in order to clean it, knowing no one might have seen it for years, but it was there all the time. When you find a way into the attic, the balcony, or to the roof as a child, discovering a new place to walk or crawl. When you dream like Jacob and know there are places on a ladder where the small ants of people, then vehicles, then buildings, then a planet, as from a space ship. When you know that second floor place that dwells within your soul, and when you first discover that there are stairs inside that really do lead somewhere. The top of the hill, the mountain above the tree line that doesn't have shade but lets you see the future across the valley and know it's already dusk there. Things will be different. When you fall at night, and land with your head pointed up and you remember the stars. When you sit in the highest branches of a tree you climbed, the ones that are most shaky, most vulnerable, but move just enough in the wind to give stability so you can look down, look out, look up, and look in - as if for the first time. Then we can know transcendence.