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.