Poor Mouth

2009-11-27T11:17:00.002-05:00

It's been a while. I apologize.

Here's a recent gem...

From an essay on the 18th century: "...when the poor couldn't afford to keep their children, they placed them in fondling hospitals." (I do believe she meant "foundling hospitals.")

In other news, we just completed angel/mortal week. I found myself really, really, ridiculously amused by creating gifts, for some reason. I suppose I needed the distraction. Why are gifts so much fun? The endearing gifts I received from what I am guessing is a Korean girl (we find out Monday):

1. 1 piece of cornbread (gift-wrapped)

2. 1 Cadbury's eclair (gift-wrapped)

3. 2 labels that say, "Ms. Seefeldt," made with a label-making machine. They're red. And they arrived gift-wrapped. In a very small package. I've already put one on my calculator. Useful.

4. 1 packet of seaweed. Also gift-wrapped. With instructions to try to stay warm. It is definitely cold here, and staying warm is a challenge, but I'm not sure how to utilise the seaweed. Ideas? Wearing it doesn't seem a viable option.

5. 1 hand-written copy of the "Footprints" poem. With little heart stickers instead of footprints in the sand. I find this one oddly endearing. It must have taken hours.

Deep Thought for the Day: Yes, it's true that it's the thought that counts. Maybe it's the individuality of gift-giving that makes it so precious for the giver and the receiver. Even when we try to think of the receiver in the choosing of a gift, the gifts inevitably reveal our own priorities, tastes or senses of humor. In the giving and receiving, there's the potential for a moment of rare understanding, a moment when we genuinely pause to consider the Other. How may I serve in my giving? How have I been served in my receiving?

2009-10-07T10:18:00.002-05:00

Boarding schools bring some unexpected challenges and opportunities. I seem to be wading into a number of these, lately...

The end of school today found me hunkered down at my desk in the staff work room, frantically trying to reply to emails and prepare the lessons for tomorrow. A soft knock came at the door and two brave Korean boys whispered, "Can we talk to you?" I knew it was serious when I stepped out in the hallway and they asked if we could find a quiet place to talk.

One of their close friends faces charges of bullying, an offense this school takes particularly seriously. Naturally, they worry for him. Our conversation became one of those aching moments when you wish you could fix everything by turning back the clock a few days, before the trouble began.

What I found enlightening, however, was the urgency that filled their pleading. Words stumbled over each other in the attempt to explain to me what had happened. I could do nothing. I didn't even know the incident had taken place. I have no authority, but these boys kept begging me simply to understand. "Cultures are different," they said. "Every culture has different ideas, different ways, and we don't act the same way here that we do in Korea." It shocked me to learn that one of them has been beaten up three times by groups of older boys who were strangers, simply because he did not bow when he passed them in the street. The other student explained that if a group of older boys thinks even that you are staring at them, they will come beat you and take your money.

A strict age hierarchy exists among the Korean students here, I knew that, but this afternoon I learned that younger students must address the older Koreans by bowing, and using a formal title of "Elder Brother." These two boys seemed genuinely offended that the younger boy who had been beaten refuses to bow to his elders, refuses to use the correct forms of address, and even sometimes swears at older students. One of them said, "I don't mind if he calls me Elder Brother or not, I know we're not in Korea, but at least he should bow when he passes me."

They agreed that the correct response to these cultural offenses should not be violent, but they insisted that nobody had listened when they tried to explain that the beating, while wrong, had not been unprovoked.

This is precisely the sort of situation that tests a multicultural community at its core. Will the values of one culture "win" over the values of another? Should they? How do we protect the safety of all, while at the same time protecting the heritage and traditions of each group? The question of respect for each other becomes incredibly complicated.

I sat quietly at the end and said that I wished I could fix things, but that I have no power or authority in this situation. "That's okay, we know that, but we just wanted to explain our culture to someone who will listen." Made me want to cry.

Sometimes, I feel like we work so hard to tell children how to respect and be kind and lecture them on effort and give them spiritual lessons, that we forget simply to listen: they may have already learned the lesson and be able to teach us a thing or two about bowing to each other.

2009-09-24T10:48:00.001-05:00

Fragility

2009-09-22T10:19:00.002-05:00

Beauty and the Bizarre

One of my jobs as a junior advisor here is to help the class prepare for the annual student talent show, which happens to be this Saturday. We're managing to procrastinate wonderfully and chose the theme last week: Freak Show. Yes, that's right: Freak Show. And all I can do is conjure up images of the Elephant Man. Or the Human Fountain I read about, who used to be a staple feature at Coney Island. He had somehow worked tiny pipes under his skin, and would contort himself into strange positions. Then he would turn the water on. I confess, I'd like to have seen his act. Or the Tattoo Lady.

I tried, in vain, to explain to students why this theme might carry connotations of exploitation, why some might be offended. Didn't work. A "Freak Show" is way cooler than a simple circus.

I think I agree. Why is that?! Why are we drawn to the bizarre, even the hideous? So we feel better about ourselves? That's the psychobabble answer, but I don't entirely buy it. So we can mock the outsiders? Partly, certainly. I learned a few weeks ago that medieval villages used to carry out an annual "perambulation" before planting a new crop. The entire village, led by the priest, would walk a big circle around the land of the village, praying about the next harvest. The perambulation effectively outlined the village insiders and outsiders. We never run out of creative ways of naming us and them.

I remember a psychology/philosophy professor in college talking about an "apologetic of beauty." He showed us pictures of children with progeria, a disease which causes people to age at a rapidly accelerated pace. The photographs caused a visible shrinking back in the class. He went on to say that we don't need to be told that this is not what a child should look like. He took our reaction of horror as evidence that this world is profoundly broken. We have some internal recognition of "rightness" and "wrongness," even about beauty and the bizarre.

Our final response to recognizing brokenness in the world and in ourselves becomes a longing for wholeness that gnaws away at us. We seek the profane, at times, to remind ourselves of how much we long for beauty, purity, and redemption.

Hmmm.

Meanwhile, in the next two days, I have to figure out how to transform the school's auditorium into a circus tent. Equipment? Old drapes, lots of streamers, ribbons, and glitter. Anyone seen MacGyver around?

2009-09-17T10:16:00.004-05:00

Confession:

I know I've written about it before, but the subject comes back to haunt me. This afternoon, as I left the staff room, a French colleague said, "You shouldn't carry so much sadness on your shoulders. It weighs you down." We had been talking about the great slaughters of the 20th century and how I always wonder whether I would be one who simply went about her business quietly, as great wrongs went on around her.

As I walked home and then on around the top of the mountain to clear my head and heart, I began numbering the great wrongs going on around me even now. And in me. They range from exploitation of poor day laborers to communal prejudices to the usual school issues of cheating. Then there are the more insidious evils of teachers not truly caring for their students. When I see students struggling under what seems an unfair burden, I get so angry. Even more stomach-churning: what do I do with those who claim to bear the name of Christ and stand in opposition to His love and mercy and self-sacrifice? I begin to taste bile.

Feet get so dirty here, it takes constant scrubbing to try to keep them clean. Even then, I despair when I look at the cracks of dirt in my heels that I never seem able to scrub away. And you should see my heart: I'm returning to some of my old high school questions about hypocrisy when I look around me. Dark cracks of anger and frustration are starting to creep up. But what will I do to stand up to the evils around me? In me? What will I do to insist that all of us faculty treat students kindly, fairly, lovingly? What will I do to make myself more patient with the student who calls for study help at 10pm? In the end, these failures of ours become great evils.

Sometimes I want to weep at the hunger I see in students for meaning and for true peace. The classroom offers so much more than the chance to get ahead in life. Students learn to wrestle with the deepest, darkest areas of our hearts--and I'm privileged to share in their wrestling. I had a student today write that he has a theory about history: everything we do really comes down to seeking comfort. That's all humans ever really care about. They'll sacrifice everyone around them for the sake of their own comfort. But he obviously wasn't satisfied with his answer. Who thinks that seeking your own comfort is noble? admirable? achievable, even? I want to tell him, "Yes. You are correct. We only seek our own comfort. I know One, though, who gave up His comfort for the sake of ours. His life in me makes me able to daily lay down my comfort for the sake of yours."

...then I hear a little accusing voice say, "Oh really? How much of your comfort have you actually been willing to give up?"

Forgive me, Father.

2009-09-12T04:44:00.003-05:00

I teach History. But...if I could teach just one selection of literature in my whole life, I would choose this sonnet, Shakespeare’s 116th:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to ev’ry wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I first heard it read aloud on an old cassette of the soundtrack to the ‘80s series, Beauty and the Beast. This sonnet, in combination with Matthew Arnold’s, “She walks in beauty like the night...” filled my adolescent ears with an almost palpable nostalgia I couldn’t escape or understand. I don’t know that I comprehended much more of the poem than that Shakespeare believed two minds could marry. Even now, the thought makes me sigh. He said two minds, not two hearts. The prospect of uniting my mind with someone else’s feels as dreamily impossible at 34 as it did at 15. Incomprehensible nostalgia isn’t why I want to teach this sonnet, though.

I want to share Shakespeare’s almost incomparable definition of love with pop-culture-drugged students. He captures love’s essence even down to the sound of the words he chooses: “...within his bending sickle’s compass come...” Read that line aloud a few times. The rhythmic sounds of those hard c’s mimic the sickle of Time cutting into rosy lips and cheeks, and he goes on to say that Love persists despite the harsh blade of Time. It’s perfection, I tell you.

If I taught this sonnet, I would have to pair it with I Corinthians 13. Each selection equally praises constancy and steadfastness as the mark of love. Paul, in I Corinthians, goes beyond Shakespeare to claim that if “I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am nothing.” In his straightforward prose, Paul agrees with Shakespeare: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful...love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

I woke up this morning with both descriptions of love churning around in me. About ten years ago, I joined with people I didn’t know at all to build a church in Atlanta. As a member, I vowed to “practice the purity and peace” of this community. I came to love and depend on so many brothers and sisters profoundly, as we worked together to figure out what it means to follow Christ. Now, I find myself on the other side of the world and hear of fractures appearing, of relationships being tested. Time’s bending sickle is cutting into the community. The rosy lips and cheeks of new friendships and a new building and a new excitement about worship are perhaps fading. My heart and mind desperately need the reminder that love alters not when it alteration finds.

I also need the reminder that Love finds its only constant origin in God. My love on its own will alter when it finds alterations in the people or communities I love. I am full of envy and arrogance. I can only be patient when I’ve slept well, and I have a hard time believing that my own way is not the best. So, ultimately, what binds me with these brothers and sisters in Atlanta is not our own ability to look on tempests and remain unshaken. Rather, we jointly seek God’s unchanging hand of Love to redeem our broken human loves. Here’s William Rees’s beautiful description of Divine Love. It’s one of my favorite hymns:

Here is love, vast as the ocean,
Lovingkindness as the flood,
When the Prince of Life, our Ransom,
Shed for us His precious blood.
Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten,
Throughout Heaven’s eternal days.

On the mount of crucifixion,
Fountains opened deep and wide;
Through the floodgates of God’s mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love, like mighty rivers,
Poured incessant from above,
And Heaven’s peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love.

2009-09-10T11:47:00.002-05:00

Something tells me that the rhetorical skills of our youth may not, ummm, shine the way we would hope.

Yesterday, we held the third Model United Nations meeting of the year. Along with simply gaining familiarity with parliamentary procedure, we want to give students practice speaking in public. Specifically, we give them opportunities to practice debate. The topic? The success of the school's relatively baby Honor Council in educating the student body on issues of integrity (I confess, I am one of the staff advisors and feel absurdly protective of Council members. However, I entered the meeting looking forward to a spirited debate on how best to cultivate integrity. I even expectd to get some good ideas about how to move forward.).

Predictably, the Council's president approached the podium first, in support of the organization. With a quiet, nervous calm, he laid out the number of cases the Council has seen so far, followed by an explanation of the educational events the Council has planned. He ended by soliciting suggestions for how he could do a better job. He may have lacked fire on the surface, but his humility and sincere desire to change the community compensated (In my previously acknowledged-to-be-biased opinion).

Then....the whole debate unraveled. Two students stood to speak against the Council. The entire argument of the first speaker ran thus: "The Council has not succeeded in its goal of educating the public, because it has not educated. Education is a good goal. But if the Council wants to educate, then it should educate, because education is good. Actually, education is very important. Yes, education is important and the Honor Council has failed to educate. It should work to succeed, so that it can educate." You get the picture.

The second speaker then rose, and meandered around for a couple minutes before reaching his point: "Even members of the Honor Council cheat, so what's the point of even having a Council." Now that caught my attention. Cheating? How dare they! When he finished speaking, I asked him where he had obtained his information. He replied that once, he had witnessed a Council member cheating. When challenged on it, the Council member said, "Oh, it's okay, I won't get into trouble, I'm on the Council." Little stars of fury began bursting behind my eyes. I foresaw the entire endeavor and the work of several months spiraling down in inglorious shame flames.

Tempers on both sides rose from there, until about ten minutes later, when the second speaker revealed that he had made up his story "in the spirit of debate" #*^$*@&#?!???

Taking a deep breath to halt the Big Bang going off in my head, I stood and said, "Making up information is not in the spirit of debate." I went on to add that I would not take students to external conferences if they insisted on inventing information.

This brings me, finally, to my point: We have forgotten how to argue. I love a heated, passionate debate. I'm not afraid of intensity in argument. I'm certainly not afraid of disagreement, if the discussion is about the pursuit of truth. I am terrified, however, of a world in which we care so little for our ideas that we would fabricate false support to win a moment of debate. Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" eloquently demonstrates the hollow result of this language with no meaning.

My own endless pedagogical battle is to persuade students that to argue, we must know. By far, the most common comment that I scribble in the margins of essays is, "evidence?" I keep asking myself what will make students want to find support for their assertions? Better still, what will make them wait to form an opinion until they know something about a topic? The answers lie tangled up with awakening students to the questions they may not even know they have burning around in them somewhere. I must make them curious enough to want answers, and critical enough not to accept false answers. Then, if I can teach students how to winsomely share the answers they have honestly uncovered, I will have become an educator.

And that's good, because education is good.

2009-09-09T10:58:00.002-05:00

My first unmitigated culinary disaster in several years:

Tomorrow, one of my students has her birthday, so I thought I'd treat her to a cake. What makes this particular disaster even funnier than it looks is that I was using a MIX for angel food cake. All I had to do was add a cup of water and stick it in the oven. How?!? How does this happen?

2009-09-08T09:13:00.002-05:00

Much as I love the lush monsoon green of new life, I confess I don't love the mildew that has crept its way into every crevice of my damp house. My asthma makes me feel like I'm perpetually running a marathon. The sound of rattling lungs has become my morning alarm clock. I exaggerate. Slightly.

Then there's the monsoon sights that take away my ability to breathe in a totally different way:

Doon Valley

Tiger Lily after rain

Moon rising over the chukkar

2009-08-18T11:45:00.003-05:00

Sepia monsoon ferns. Some day, I'd like to wallpaper a room in this.

Saturday afternoon, I walked to one of my favorite local spots: Fairy Glen. Ferns and these peacock orchids carpet the ground there this time of year. No better way to find serenity...

Saturday was also Independence Day here and it's quite the event. Everyone wears formal national dress, so it's colorful. Unfortunately, my camera les fogged up in the monsoon mist and I got zero pictues of the people. Right at the end of lunch, as everyone was leaving, I caught sight of this ambitious monkey trying to sneak across the top of the tent and snatch some food.

2009-08-12T09:54:00.002-05:00

In preparation to begin examining the Renaissance, I've been teaching my European History class about the way people in medieval Europe viewed the world and their place in it. Today we discussed a medieval person's sense of identity. If you asked a medieval man, "Who are you?" What would he say?

Communal identity meant more than individual identity to someone living half a millenium ago. The man would have no last name and would explain his identity almost entirely in terms of his relationships--his family, his lord, his church. Even more importantly, his membership in groups would define him. Banishment served as one of the most powerful medieval punishments.

To explain the contrast to our identities, I found myself talking about facebook. We develop individual profiles, defining our independence by listing books and movies and music. We choose profile pictures that represent our selves the way we'd like to be perceived, or to defiantly state that we don't care how others perceive us. We selectively reveal and conceal. The privilege of privacy allows us to create a virtual self that may bear little resemblance to the selves that walk and talk through real space.

And yet, and yet...even as I illustrated the hyper-individualism cyberspace allows, even encourages, bizarre facebook groups popped into my head....are you a member of the I-turn-my-pillow-over-to-feel-the-cool-side group? Or what about the fans-of-lego-stop-action-spinal-tap-videos group? Then, of course, there's the endless tally of facebook friends to monitor. Maybe we aren't so different, after all. We still define ourselves by the groups we join and the groups that exclude us. But we have a mind-numbing degree of choice about how to mold our relationships to others. A medieval man was born into his relationships, for the most part.

I can't decide which I'd prefer: The security of knowing where I belong and feeling little privacy or the freedom of choosing where I belong and feeling little intimacy. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), we have no choice about when and where our lives begin.

2009-08-10T11:53:00.003-05:00

So, I have a new monthly project: "Short Stories and Supper," I call it. Life here at Woodstock gets more than a little insular. I get tired of recycling the same five topics of conversation, all of which have something to do with school.

Enter The Project....

We all read the same short story and then get together to discuss it over dinner. Brilliant, isn't it? No one has time for a book club, but everyone can squeeze in a short story.

We met for the first time tonight. Embarrassingly, I've been here a year and this was also the first time I've had some of these guests in my house. I haven't entertained much, and I realise that I've missed it. I love serving good food and trying to make people feel like they're being "treated." I love bringing people together who normally might not talk to each other and I love hearing what they have to say.

I sent out the story on Friday; a short, short story by Kurt Vonnegut: "Harrison Bergeron." It's Brave-New-World-ish, about a dystopic society in which everyone with any gift must wear a handicap to be equal to the rest of the population. It's brash, unsubtle, and as some pointed out, "child-like." But that's deceptive. I have never been able to forget it in the way I forget so much of what I read. The climax comes when a man calling himself The Emperor charges on to a television set, and grabs a ballerina. They throw off their handicaps and dance, floating up to the ceiling on "love and pure will." Right before they're both shot by the wicked Handicapper General.

We had some interesting discussion, but I felt nervous (mostly, I think, because I have no sense of the group yet, and what people were feeling/thinking/expecting, and because two English teachers came). What I was not able to articulate clearly in the group was how--from the first time I read the story--Vonnegut provoked this visceral yet profound response in me. It's why I can't forget his story, or maybe it's his parable. I want to keep the ballerinas and Mozarts. I want to read writers who take me to a different world or help me see my own. I want life not to be fair.

2009-08-07T23:24:00.002-05:00

Writing Guidelines for the Inspirationally Impaired:

A mechanical pencil squeaks its way across a line in lukewarm lead. Give me a freshly sharpened pencil any day. Intoxicate my brain with the smell of graphite and wood shavings and I will think great thoughts. Or my thoughts, at least, will seem greater because they appear in bold, dark strokes. If I must write in pen, then the ink of inspiration can only be blue-black. And the paper must not blind me with white. Filling college-ruled legal pads of recycled paper with loopy 'g's and dramatically crossed 't's makes me sigh in satisfaction.

I don't know how many times I have set down a three-quarter-filled journal to begin a new one, only because the new one was prettier. I love new beginnings, before the pages grow messy and cluttered.

For every class I teach, I begin with crisp sheets of handwritten lecture notes in the form taught to me by Miss Carolyn Hames, my empowered kiwi Chemistry teacher of the silk sarees and stilettos. She dictated color-coded notes in class. I feel secure when I teach from a page of beautifully organized blue-black notes with the headings in dark green ink. As the course gets repeated, though, I begin to scribble extra notes in the margins. Blue-black pens are not always handy, so I resort to red color pencils and black pens and, heaven forbid, even pink pens when that's all I can find. During class, I find myself continually distracted and disturbed by my circles and arrows delineating extra enlightenments I've received since I first planned the lesson. Every year, I say that I will take the time to sort and redo my notes, but that never actually happens. I never have time to clear out all the extra garbage and clarify the thread of the lesson.

New school years mean new beginnings--lots of them. With a fresh journal and a new set of teaching notes come new students and new friends. Like the Doon Valley sparkling after rain, with every line highlighted against the sky, I sigh with satisfaction at the clarity and the potential. Nothing is messy or hazy. Yet. Soon, both students and friends will begin writing in my soul and I will write in theirs. Some will be faint mechanical markings, while others inspire me instantly with bold, singular statements. Come October, relationships will grow messy. I know this. I will clench my inward fist towards an abrasive colleague. I will offend a student whose heart I did not consider when I spoke. I will forget something important and wound others with my carelessness. And it will seem like there is no time to stop and sort it all out. As with my teaching, I will prefer to simply keep moving and ignore the mess.

Ah, but what if this year, this beginning, could be different? What if I armed myself to write carefully on the lives around me? What if I managed to love my neighbour as myself? What if I pledged to work at untangling the mess and to seek clarity? We love to start over, with journals, with work, with homes, with relationships, but what if we chose to write till the book was full and see what pattern emerged? This requires a patience I'm not sure I possess; a steadfastness, too.

John Donne speaks of this in his Meditation XVII: "...all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall lie open to one another."

THe translation he speaks of here is death, the final end. We often encounter the idea of chapters of our lives being written, but we rarely hit upon the idea that we each are chapters of some larger book God is writing. We are all connected to each other in some bigger, deeper story. When I see the people around me as part of myself, as part of a grand pattern we're being made into together, then I am compelled both to know them and to make myself known to them. Even more, I want to see how God is working in them, how he is writing our "scattered leaves" together.

Looking for the bigger story inspires me.

2008-11-19T09:47:00.002-05:00

I wish I had more time to write; many thoughts, but so little time to organise them. In the meantime, here's an exquisite poem a colleague of mine handed me today. If you persevere through the old spelling, it's full of such beautiful images.

Hymne to GOD my GOD, in my sicknesse
-- John Donne

SINCE I am comming to that Holy roome,
Where, with thy Quire of Saints for evermore,
I shall be made thy Musique; As I come
I tune the Instrument here at the dore,
And what I must doe then, thinke here before.

Whilst my Physitians by their love are growne
Cosmographers, and I their Mapp, who lie
Flat on this bed, that by them may be showne
That this is my South-west discoverie
Per fretum febris, by these streights to die,

I joy, that in these straits, I see my West;
For, though theire currants yeeld returne to none,
What shall my West hurt me? As West and East
In all flatt Maps (and I am one) are one,
So death doth touch the Resurrection.

Is the Pacifique Sea my home? Or are
The Easterne riches? Is Ierusalem?
Anyan, and Magellan, and Gibraltare,
All streights, and none but streights, are wayes to them,
Whether where Iaphet dwelt, or Cham, or Sem.

We thinke that Paradise and Calvarie,
Christs Crosse, and Adams tree, stood in one place;
Looke Lord, and finde both Adams met in me;
As the first Adams sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adams blood my soule embrace.

So, in his purple wrapp'd receive mee Lord,
By these his thornes give me his other Crowne;
And as to others soules I preach'd thy word,
Be this my Text, my Sermon to mine owne,
Therfore that he may raise the Lord throws down.

2008-10-05T12:03:00.002-05:00

This is from 16 Horsepower's album, "Sackcloth & Ashes." It fits today.

I can sense it all around me
There's somethin' in this room
It ain't magic nor no witchcraft
No witch on no broom

Look see his bones are gone
He done left the grave
The grip of death it could not hold him down no
It's for him that I rave

My knees was made for kneelin'
An that's just what they'll do
One of these days little girl
I'll go down an pray for you

Look see his bones are gone
He done all my dyin'
Sometimes the hope's so strong in me girl
I commence to cryin'

O my brothers
These are the great dust bowl days
Just take a gander round ya
Everything in a wicked haze

"The wind blows like the devil when it blows
An a boy grows up an like the wind he goes"
--David Eugene Edwards

2008-09-30T02:14:00.001-05:00

The Chicago Tribune's take on what's going on here.

2008-09-28T10:40:00.001-05:00

The monsoon is over.

Everyone's smiling now.

2008-09-19T08:39:00.002-05:00

A few pictures from last weekend's visit to a ruined palace just outside Mussoorie, Radha Bhavan. I don't know anything about the building, other than that the former front verandah is lined with hand-painted tiles of Chinese scenes. Beautiful and in terrible disrepair. Could make a fantastic story, though....

And I believe this is a no smoking sign? I think?

2008-09-06T03:19:00.002-05:00

Cleft of the Rock Anne Brigman

Tempestuous Time

A true tempest roared through here last night, leaving assorted branches and leaves strewn around my yard. I had forgotten how astonishing the wind can become here. It took all my strength to lean into the screen door and swing it open. Even this morning, the gnarly old oak trees outside are swinging around like giddy maidens and we’re surrounded by grey. This storm heralds the change of season, I think. A new chill has entered the air, a new brown has crept over the monsoon ferns, and I’ve started considering electric heaters and where I can buy wood for my fireplace.

The last few months have brought their share of tempestuous change. I’ve had a few branches and leaves clipped off, myself. Maybe it’s this season that has me looking for wise words on change, for a lens through which to perceive it. Witnessing the power of the storm last night, with all its crashing and flashing, reminded me of what it means to claim the unmoving shelter of a Rock, and why we so crave that presence.

Even if we remain in one place our whole lives, the pace of technology and the level of activity in this global village dictate that we can’t keep up. We all feel this. It’s like the old I Love Lucy episode where she takes a job in a chocolate factory. She can’t possibly wrap the chocolates as fast as they come down the conveyor belt, so she starts stuffing them into her cheeks and her pockets and anywhere else she can think of. That’s often how my day progresses: I have classes and grading and new people and language learning and current events and students and meetings and new computer programs all flying at me in a constant stream. I grab at what’s directly in front of my face and shove it somewhere, promising myself to handle it later. But later, there’s a whole new set of worries, and suddenly I’m gasping for breath. I need shelter.

I’m finally nearing the end of Augustine’s Confessions now, where he explores the nature of time, heaven, and earth. Here’s how he explains what it means for God to be eternal: “His substance is in no way changed by time, nor His will separate from His substance. Wherefore He wills not one thing now, another later, but once, and at once, and always, He wills all things that He wills; not again and again, nor now this, now that; nor wills afterwards, what before He willed not, nor wills not, what before He willed; because such a will is mutable; and no mutable thing is eternal: but our God is eternal.” Isn’t that a beautiful expression of the I-AMness of God? Shelter. He has willed our good eternally, once and always, for all. It brings me such peace to contemplate.

So what does it mean for us, then, to abide in this place of shelter? Again, Augustine: “By this may the soul, whose pilgrimage is made long and far away, by this may she understand, if she now thirsts for You, if her tears have now become her bread, while they daily say to her, Where is Your God? If she now seeks from You one thing, and desires it, that she may dwell in Your house all the days of her life (and what is her life, but You? And what Your days, but Your eternity, as Your years which do not fail, because You are always the same?); by this then may the soul that is able, understand how far You are, above all times, eternal; seeing Your house which at no time went into a far country, although it is not coeternal with You, yet by continually and unfailingly cleaving to You, suffers no changeableness of times. This is in Your sight clear to me, and let it be more and more clear to me, I beseech You, and in this manifestation, let me with sobriety abide under Your wings.”

Augustine understands time as this ever-shifting stream that we can never quite grasp hold of—as soon as we realize we are in the present, it has already passed. What we look forward to comes and goes in a moment. The only Rock or Shelter, then, the only Refuge, must be a Being outside of time, unmoved by this stream which He ultimately controls. If we cling to Him, recognizing Him as immutable, then the “changeableness of times” does not shake us, and our wills in submission to His become more like His. We begin increasingly to will once, for always. Which is why, I think, Jesus says to let our yes be yes. This concept has nothing to do with being flexible/adaptable. Jesus Himself certainly had no trouble adapting his speech for different audiences, for example. But His message remained the same. Likewise, our essence, our place of being (namely, clinging to our unmoved Shelter), must not change, even as we flow with the changing times.

So God does not change. He wills good for us once and always. We abide in His Shelter, trusting His essential Goodness. This enables us to stand and to will good for others. When others see our yes being yes, see our constant willing of good, of love, then perhaps they will be drawn into the same Refuge. All this talk of time, and eternity, and unchanging essences, really just comes down to talk of faithfulness. God is faithful, we are not, the world is not, time is not. Therefore, we cling to Him and He births faithfulness in us.

Which brings me to the book of Job, who had to endure the Mother of all tempestuous change. I had a fascinating conversation with a colleague last week, who, though he doesn’t believe in God, loves this particular book. He says he loves it because it’s like God and Satan are the same person, and evil is not really evil, because it makes Job stronger in the end, like a Herculean challenge, of sorts. This drove me back to the text, to try to understand where this interpretation had come from. It’s true, God and the Adversary make a kind of bet to harass Job and see whether his faithfulness will stand. It’s also true that in chapters nine and ten, Job addresses God as his Accuser and asks for an audience with Him. Job seems to take for granted that God has sent the suffering upon Him. Job’s friends continue to argue that Job has committed some great sin to merit great suffering. Job continues to argue that the suffering is unjust, unwarranted, and He wants to speak with God face to face. So far, I began to see how you could walk away from Job thinking that God is the omnipotent author of good and evil.

The key arrives at the end of the book, though, when God indeed comes and reminds Job of all His power. He also condemns Job’s friends, even saying to Eliphaz, “My anger burns against you and your two friends, for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.” What had Job spoken that was so right? He had ranted and raved, cursing the day he was born and bemoaning his losses. Most of Job’s anger stems from sensing that His suffering is not right, that God is supposed to be good, that He is supposed to reward righteousness. Essentially, Job was angry at God for not behaving like a good God. And God says Job is right, that Job did not sin. Job stood in the shelter of God’s faithfulness, angry, but trusting that God wills good once and always, for all. In the end, Job’s dogged belief that God is supposed to be good proves true: He is good. There’s no room for evil in him, or for vindictive and petty acts of sadism. The great temptation for Job, all along, was to see God as all-powerful but not good. The Adversary loses because Job affirms the goodness of God. I hadn’t thought of seeing Job this way before, but I actually believe the exact opposite of my colleague: Job is fundamentally about separating good from evil.

I don’t know what challenges to my belief in God’s goodness await me today, but I know that God gives me liberty to yell and scream and rage, provided that I keep insisting that God, His very essence, must be good—eternally good. He has willed good for me, once and always, and in this Truth will I find faithful Shelter.

2008-08-26T02:27:00.000-05:00

Check out this himalayan woodpecker...I caught him right outside my front yard.

2008-08-24T08:01:00.002-05:00

On the Soul, Suffering, and Salvation:

One of my classes just finished studying the emergence of the Buddhist and Jain religions. I asked them to create a table comparing Buddhist and Jain views with their own views on the nature of the human soul, the origin of suffering, and how we achieve salvation. Some interesting responses:

On the Soul:
1. I believe that when we are born, the soul is clear and transparent. I believe our actions imprint our soul and make it turn more and more opaque. It is the soul that is judged after death, by God or any higher life form, to decide how close we are to salvation.

2. The human soul exists and everyone sticks with their soul. After a person dies then the soul goes with him to heaven or hell, and after that the soul comes into a body and is reincarnated.

3. The nature of the human soul is to achieve the best that one can get from life. Self pleasure is most important.

4. I believe we all have a soul. I do not agree that god gave it to me, but feel that it is formed by my experiences in life. It points out what I was taught is right and wrong and gives me a sense of feeling.

On the Origin of Suffering:
1. Suffering is an essential part of life is not necessarily created by desire, it is created by our karma--what goes around comes around.

2. Suffering is created by oneself or others, and ignorance is sometimes bliss.

3. I think that if you do not cause pain to others they will not cause you any pain. The origin of suffering is greed.

4. I think the fact that Adam ate the apple and disobeyed God and hence God decided to take his revenge by making us go through pain and problems. (from a devout Muslim)

On how we can achieve Salvation:
1. Whatever religion you are, through really believing the words of your own scripture

2. I feel that salvation can be attained by following your duty and making sure you have good karma. All we have to do is fulfill our duty as an individual.

3. Humans can attain salvation from meditating, doing yoga, and thinking of god. When you leave the rest of the world apart and just think about the one and only god you believe in, and try to search for him.

4. I believe that there is no need to live an extreme life filled with sacrifices. It is important to live an equal life and avoid causing pain to others, as we are not perfect. If we were, we would worry about salvation.

Hmmm.

2008-08-05T01:47:00.003-05:00

Some Monsoon Photos for Your Viewing Pleasure:

I caught this langur in deep thought.

Here's the bazaar ringed by mist. The sepia seemed fitting. I'm experimenting with camera settings.

Note the ferns covering this entire oak tree. Every oak tree looks like this right now.

And, finally, some wild ginger flowers, my current favorite blossom.

2008-08-05T01:39:00.001-05:00

Most Awkward Cross-Cultural Moment To Date:

So Sunita, my ayah, has been anxious to prove how invaluable she is in the week since I hired her. I came home Sunday evening to find “proof” around the house that cleaning had been vigorous. The cushions on my couch were all pointedly askew. All the carpets had been moved. My bed had been thoroughly rearranged. My toothbrush and soap had been transferred to a different shelf. I spent half an hour wandering through the house re-organizing and musing on the dubious value of household “help.” But I was smiling. It was pretty funny.

Sunita had grown worried that I didn’t want her to cook for me, that I thought she wouldn’t know how or something. In an effort to reassure her that, yes, I’d be happy to eat anything she cooks, I told her she was welcome to cook dinner for me tonight. When I walked in the door around 6:30, her husband Sunny was waiting for me with a glass of cold water. He insisted that I sit down, so he could bring me tea (delicious, incidentally). Awkwardly, I plopped down into the nearest chair, a little confused.

For the next half-hour, I heard a series of bangs and crashes coming from my kitchen. Sunny reappeared in the room to inform me that, “Khaana thai-arr hai,” or, “Dinner is ready.” Again, somewhat awkwardly, I plopped myself down at the dining table. Home cooked rice, lentils, curried mustard greens, and a hot, fresh stack of chapattis (tortilla-like breads) appeared in front of me. So did Sunny and Sunita. Right in front of me. Watching me eat the whole meal. I exclaimed at the superb taste of the food, the softness of the chapattis, and whatever else came to mind. I learned the names of their three girls: Sanjana, Joyna, and Jessica. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awkward in my life, or so, I don’t know, colonial.

Having a servant is proving to be the most difficult adjustment for me. I just don’t know how to navigate this particular kind of relationship. I do love having dishes washed for me, and the food was delicious. I also like knowing I’m helping a family find employment. But it’s so weird.

2008-07-20T02:57:00.002-05:00

From about a week ago, here's the last entry that Christina and I co-wrote. The internet has been down for the last few days. I do have lots of pictures that I'll hopefully be able to add over the next week.

As we leisurely savored our whole-grain toast slathered with nut-hut peanut butter and apricot jam (all made locally, by the way) (and whose delectable flavor cannot be expressed inhuman language), my father interrupted with a gentle gesture towards the clock, and a, “And what time were you supposed to meet Manoj in the bazaar?” The leisurely savoring turned into rushed scarfing down as much as possible as we scrambled to get out of the door. We would have made it on time, had we pedestrians not been forced to weave through the perils of two-way SUV traffic on a ten foot wide road. Once safely navigated, we met Manoj at the chowk (town square). With his expert assistance, we left the traffic to weave through piles of animal excrement and the assorted debris that townspeople so freely disperse on the hillside. Picture lots of trash. This is the beginning of a normal day for Manoj, followed by an hour’s walk to the village of Jordi.

Once there, we joined the faculty of six teachers for their morning devotions. Two of them, Beena and Ajay, Manoj informed us, had just two days earlier received baptism. He wanted to strengthen and encourage their faith, so he shared the story of how Jesus battled the temptation he faced after he received baptism. Manoj warned his faculty (and us) that we should expect temptation, but he offered assurance, too. He reminded us all that we can stand, as long as our focus is stayed on Christ. As believers, we are in Christ the same way that Christ is in the Father, so we have nothing to fear. The time of devotions ended with a sweet time of prayer for the teachers and the school in Jordi. What a privilege to enter into their labor through prayer, but we considered it an even greater privilege to kneel with them in the same room.

From our time of prayer, we walked across the corn field to the headman’s house. When I had come with my students in March, Manoj had asked us to pray for the headman, who was in the final stages of leukemia. All sixteen of us had crowded around his darkened bed, and offered up what we felt were feeble prayers for his health. We left saddened at the seeming impossibility of recovery. He couldn’t even sit up, let alone walk. In May, Manoj’s newsletter contained the wonderful news of a miracle—that the headman had recovered, and as a result, accepted Christ as his Savior; him and his entire household. On the path down, one of the villagers had told us that he was up and walking around today. Christina, Julia and I then came with joy, because we heard of his continuing recovery.

We entered his gate to find him walking with his cane, enjoying the morning sun. After an invitation to sit, Manoj asked for their family bible and read Romans 6. Each member of the family laid down their work and came to listen. What was so powerful to witness was the way a new believer hears a Scripture passage for the first time. The headman would repeat the end of every phrase and insert an affirmation. So, when Manoj read in Hindi, “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,” the headman would say, “Yes, we died with Christ, we will live with him.” From the reading, Manoj went on to explain that, in Christ, we are a new creation. The old has died and the new has come. We found ourselves humbled and full of joy to sit in on the instruction for which new believers seem so hungry. Manoj asked that we close the time by praying specifically for each member of the household. Chachi-ji (Auntie) then brought us buffalo milk tea, the delectable flavor of which also cannot be described in human language. The one shock was to discover, about twenty minutes after we arrived, that a pile of blankets actually held a two week old baby, buried underneath several layers. How fortunate that God brought two kinds of new life at once to this family.

Our final destination was the actual school building, which our church has joyfully invested in from leveling the ground back in the summer of 2003. Almost two floors are done, but when Manoj took us into the classrooms, we were dismayed to find that the monsoon rains are taking a serious toll on the building. The constant leaking down the inner walls is causing the whitewash to take on a greenish, mildewy hue, and the floors are constantly wet. Just standing in the middle of the room for a few minutes, we felt the occasional dripping from the ceiling. As we at St Paul’s know quite well, problems with the roof do not make for a pleasant experience, not to mention a very pleasant educational environment. Crossing the tin door/bridge onto the incomplete second story allowed us to see what was causing the leaks below. The second floor has no roof at all. The unsealed concrete continues to absorb more and more of the heavy rains, and the water seeps down into the classrooms. Manoj explained that the only obstacle to completing the roof is the current lack of funds. After some consultations with the carpenter/mason, they concluded that the total amount required to complete the second story (which would house the teachers) would be about 130,000 rupees or $3300. Despite the bleak situation, Manoj confidently reminded us that our Father provides. Once again, we ended the time with prayer, this time for the building. We’ve come from God providing St Paul’s with a $40,000 roof for free, so surely with prayer, God will meet the needs of the Jordi school. The need is urgent.

Re-crossing the tin door bridge, we descended to the classrooms again. Manoj appointed Julia “The Storyteller” (which was great, because Christina and I definitely weren’t ready to share so spontaneously). She chose the story of Jonah and the whale, while Manoj translated. We smiled to hear the school children answer all of her questions in chorus. When their answers weren’t forceful enough for Manoj, he would make them repeat themselves, and louder. Yet again, we ended the time in prayer for the school, and the children, specifically. Are you noticing a theme here? We certainly find the centrality of prayer to this ministry remarkable and humbling. We’re looking forward to seeing how God will continue to answer the faithful prayers of his people in Jordi and across the world.

2008-07-13T09:00:00.002-05:00

So, today was Sunday, and I attended Kellogg Church, the congregation I'll be a part of here in Mussoorie. Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the entire service revolved around the subject of giving. In particular, the theme was how God gives to us. Two young girls sang a beautiful acapella Hindi song called, "Yahowah hai meraa Baadshah," or, "Jehovah is my King of Kings." After our obstacle course of a journey, it was indescribably fitting to hear these sweet voices raised, praising God for being a merciful and gracious King who grants the petitions of all who come before him in Jesus' name--petitions for strength, grace, wisdom, health...

We experienced the whole service as a precious and personal gift from God to us, reminding us of His power. When the pastor got up to preach the sermon on giving, he told the story of a Sikh taxi company owner, who drove 500 km to the Golden Temple in Amritsar (a holy city for Sikhs), to thank God for the gift of a new car. This despite the fact that he already owned a fleet of cars. The pastor pointed out that our Christian offerings of thanksgiving to God look pretty paltry by comparison. He then recited a litany of passages that remind us of how God gives to us. Malachi 3:10 struck me: Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the LORD of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

If the constant monsoon rain and the cascade of water rushing down the middle of the road are any indication, God has indeed opened the windows of heaven for us.