"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.