Kids say it often - "Prove it!" Or they ask scornfully, "What have you got to prove? " In my case the answer is everything.
Scripture talks about the proof of our faith, being more precious than gold, even though tried by fire. Most trials come unbidden like tragic accidents, physical illness, the horrors of war, the rapes of Burmese women and girls, the attacks on Somali believers, the beating of Indian believers , the imprisonment of Chinese pastors. No one asks for them, though they may receive the grace to welcome them as friends like the Apostle Paul did.
What about we soft Americans? How do I prove that I don't just love God for what He has given me - which is staggering - as Satan accused Job of doing. I know that death is the final proving ground for the Christian unless he's taken suddenly, but short of my dying moments, how do I know if I really believe the words I've spoken so often, both inside my heart and through my lips. How do I know that don't love father and mother (or sons and daughters and husband) more than Christ, and so become unworthy of Him? Jesus Himself made the test of true repentance and belief, for the rich young ruler at least, selling all one has and giving it to the poor. He said the ones whom His father would ultimately recognize as His own were the ones who had given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, shelter to the homeless, clothing to the naked, comfort to those in prison.
Wasn't He in essence saying, "Prove it"??
Am I going to go to my grave remembered as a nice woman who raised a happy, healthy family - no small accomplishment in this day and age - but still wondering if I have done "no more than sinners do" - loved those who love me.
We denigrate or question the wisdom of people who take outlandish, radical actions "just to prove something," but is that necessarily foolish? How else can you know? You can spend your life waiting for the extraordinary moment to arise - the child asleep in the burning building you happen to be passing, or the person falling through thin ice - or you can become an Army Ranger or a rescue swimmer, or sell all you have and give it to the poor, or choose to share the sufferings of the poor and oppressed of the earth, or take up your cross which is heavy and hurts to carry and may actually cause you to fall under its weight like our Lord's did.
These days I keep seeing in my head the classic bully scene from a clicheed movie where the tough guy asks, "Hey kid, you got something to prove?"
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
states of residence, states of mind
I have felt largely unable to write since I moved to Malaysia. I'm not sure why. I have a few theories, but no way to judge the worth of any of them. I realized this week that most of my pre-Malaysia thinking was done on my daily walks, that I would often sit down at the keyboard as soon as I arrived home from a walk to record ideas which had come, seemingly unbidden while I walked. I don't walk here: it's too hot, for one thing, and too urban for my taste. I try to keep my heart in shape by walking on the treadmill at the community exercise room, but it does nothing for my thought life.
I miss my daily 45 minutes in the fresh air, charmed by the subltleties of the seasonal changes which made the same route through the woods a different walk every day. A favorite pastime of mine was to take a mental snapshot of some stretch of the path and ask myself if I would be able to guess what month of the year it was from this photograph alone. I loved searching for the minute cues of color, angle of light, bough-dressing and ground cover that I had over the years come to intuitively associate with each page of the calendar on my kitchen wall. Here such a game would be pointless and unwinnable. Each day looks like the last looks like the next. I have been told in the market that certain fruits are seasonal, but I believe they are fruits imported from China, not ones grown here.
A weekend trip to northern Thailand suggested another hypothosis to me. My daughter and I sat beside a charming street musican on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chiang Mai. Richie had shoulder length, thick wavy black hair closely shaved about the temples, dark eyes framed with thick black lashes, the whitest teeth I have ever seen and a soft but animated voice. He and Anna and I talked non-stop the 2 hour flight and hour long wait in the immigration line. A Colorado native of Cuban descent, he'd spent the last ten years or so travelling, playing music and busking to support himself through Barcelona, Croatia, Mexico, Germany, the UK, Thailand and Malaysia.
He clearly loved his music, and as we chatted he asked what I loved - what I did for pleasure. I said I wrote. . . or used to, and mentioned how I had stopped writing the last few months. He assured me that I was going to the right place. He told me how many painters came to Chiang Mai to create the works they sold elsewhere, how many people wrote there, how Chiang Mai had released the songwriter in him. I didn't know how much credence I put in the powers of place to foster creativity, but I did remember those walks in the woods.
We absolutely loved the three days we spent in Chiang Mai; I was reluctant to come back to Kuala Lumpur at the end, though I wonder how much of my hesitance was just not wanting to face my responsibilities again after three days chilling and drinking great coffee! I've thought a lot this week about place and atmosphere and and how they tend to support or squelch creativity. I've even remembered my first mid-wife walking through our 200 year old log house and affirming that yes, this felt like a good place to have a baby - as opposed to the sterile hospital room I gave birth in on another occasion (both babies were fine.) I've pondered Kuala Lumpur and Chiang Mai ad nauseum, and weighed them against each other, and decided maybe Richie was on to something.
I think Kuala Lumpur is hard. Not difficult, but unyielding. Not rigorous so much as rigid. While the houses in Chiang Mai were made of soft, dark weathered wood, homes here are constructed of concrete, marble and tile. Chiang Mai was full of deep shade and quiet temple gardens, colorful, rustic benches under drooping trees, and dusty by- ways bordered by walls just high enough to obscure the sight of what mysteries lay within. KL is characterized by gardens which are beautiful but sterile - full of clipped, controlled plants, carefully situated around golf-course neat lawns which dare you step off the manufactured stone pathways. Every house has a concrete wall with steel gates around it, gates which are either locked elctronically or with a large padlock.
Chiang Mai was full of street bazaars and shops selling goods created by local artisans - hand-woven cloth, hand-carved wood, locally made garments and hammocks and jewlery. Granted, Chiang Mai had its share of copied goods - Birkenstock sandals complete with tages printed in German which had actually been manufactured somewhere down the road, cheap toys from China that broke the first time a child played with them - but the majority of items in the stalls were locally made, as opposed to the famous Kl markets which are overflowing with manufactured goods, often imported ones, which are largely cheap copies of Western brands.
Chiang Mai was a clean city, but not ritualistically clean like KL, where you cannot walk through one of the many mega-malls without encountering dozens of immigrant floor moppers. Chiang Mai actually smelled of flowers, not disinfectant. The roads were full of motorbikes and tuk-tuks, the tiny open-air taxis that look a bit like a Jeep Landrover mounted on a motorbike. In the heat of the day their drivers nap in the back seats while waiting for a customer.
People walked in Chiang Mai and rode bicycles. You could rent a bike to get around town and hope to make it back to your guesthouse that evening. KL is so jammed with cars that bicycles are practically unheard of and legendary traffic jams are a fact of life. Cars here are shiny and new; a status symbol and a point of pride. They also seem to be a way for Malaysians to vent the frustrations inherent in life in a big, crowded, noisy place. Going anywhere is a wearying, irksome ordeal involving a lot of rudeness and risk-taking. There's so such thing as the Sunday afternoon drive in KL.
A more subltle difference, but one which was probably fairly significant, was the religious climate. Northern Thailand is primarily Buddhist, while Malaysia is officially Muslim. Disregarding the truth claims of competing religious systems, you can classify some as friendlier, softer, nicer than others. I found the monks intheir orange robes and babyish bald heads friendly-looking. They hung out in nice temples with big, shady courtyards that were open to anyone for a nap or a rest. They appeared humble and poor, whether or not they were, walking the streets in their sandals and loose garments. Malaysia, however, is a land of religious enforcement officers, of religious courts and judges, of official religious ID cards and of strict laws . The enforcement officers don't bother me, in the sense of harass me, since I am clearly a hopeless infidel, but they do bother me in the sense of irritate or annoy me. I don't like knowing they are there.
Last, but far, from from least, I noted the prevalence of books and coffee. As far as I am concerned these are the staples of the creative life - the life worth living - and Chiang Mai was full of them. Used book stores are everywhere and most are next door to cafes with real, Western style coffee which invite you to sit for hours reading, chatting, discussing the meaning of life. Malaysians are known for their disinterest in books; they freely admit it and always talk about how they should read more, but they don't like to read. Bookstores here are perfunctory; they exist chiefly to sell school texts, and just include some other books for effect. Chiang Mai is full of shops lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves divided into satisfying categories for easy browsing. I spent three times as much on books as I did on lodging the three days we were there, and I left so many books I really wanted on the shelves for another day (yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.)
Just when I am tempted to excuse my lack of creativity on my environment, I remember how many of the most beautiful works ever penned came out of prison, poverty, war and deprivation. I think of the British WWI poets, of Pilgrim's Progress, of Solzenitsyn and my own brother, and know that one's inner life can be beautiful and rich and productive, no matter what circumstances one finds oneself in. So, I don't get a pass on writing just because I live in KL. But I know where I'm headed on my next vacation!
I miss my daily 45 minutes in the fresh air, charmed by the subltleties of the seasonal changes which made the same route through the woods a different walk every day. A favorite pastime of mine was to take a mental snapshot of some stretch of the path and ask myself if I would be able to guess what month of the year it was from this photograph alone. I loved searching for the minute cues of color, angle of light, bough-dressing and ground cover that I had over the years come to intuitively associate with each page of the calendar on my kitchen wall. Here such a game would be pointless and unwinnable. Each day looks like the last looks like the next. I have been told in the market that certain fruits are seasonal, but I believe they are fruits imported from China, not ones grown here.
A weekend trip to northern Thailand suggested another hypothosis to me. My daughter and I sat beside a charming street musican on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Chiang Mai. Richie had shoulder length, thick wavy black hair closely shaved about the temples, dark eyes framed with thick black lashes, the whitest teeth I have ever seen and a soft but animated voice. He and Anna and I talked non-stop the 2 hour flight and hour long wait in the immigration line. A Colorado native of Cuban descent, he'd spent the last ten years or so travelling, playing music and busking to support himself through Barcelona, Croatia, Mexico, Germany, the UK, Thailand and Malaysia.
He clearly loved his music, and as we chatted he asked what I loved - what I did for pleasure. I said I wrote. . . or used to, and mentioned how I had stopped writing the last few months. He assured me that I was going to the right place. He told me how many painters came to Chiang Mai to create the works they sold elsewhere, how many people wrote there, how Chiang Mai had released the songwriter in him. I didn't know how much credence I put in the powers of place to foster creativity, but I did remember those walks in the woods.
We absolutely loved the three days we spent in Chiang Mai; I was reluctant to come back to Kuala Lumpur at the end, though I wonder how much of my hesitance was just not wanting to face my responsibilities again after three days chilling and drinking great coffee! I've thought a lot this week about place and atmosphere and and how they tend to support or squelch creativity. I've even remembered my first mid-wife walking through our 200 year old log house and affirming that yes, this felt like a good place to have a baby - as opposed to the sterile hospital room I gave birth in on another occasion (both babies were fine.) I've pondered Kuala Lumpur and Chiang Mai ad nauseum, and weighed them against each other, and decided maybe Richie was on to something.
I think Kuala Lumpur is hard. Not difficult, but unyielding. Not rigorous so much as rigid. While the houses in Chiang Mai were made of soft, dark weathered wood, homes here are constructed of concrete, marble and tile. Chiang Mai was full of deep shade and quiet temple gardens, colorful, rustic benches under drooping trees, and dusty by- ways bordered by walls just high enough to obscure the sight of what mysteries lay within. KL is characterized by gardens which are beautiful but sterile - full of clipped, controlled plants, carefully situated around golf-course neat lawns which dare you step off the manufactured stone pathways. Every house has a concrete wall with steel gates around it, gates which are either locked elctronically or with a large padlock.
Chiang Mai was full of street bazaars and shops selling goods created by local artisans - hand-woven cloth, hand-carved wood, locally made garments and hammocks and jewlery. Granted, Chiang Mai had its share of copied goods - Birkenstock sandals complete with tages printed in German which had actually been manufactured somewhere down the road, cheap toys from China that broke the first time a child played with them - but the majority of items in the stalls were locally made, as opposed to the famous Kl markets which are overflowing with manufactured goods, often imported ones, which are largely cheap copies of Western brands.
Chiang Mai was a clean city, but not ritualistically clean like KL, where you cannot walk through one of the many mega-malls without encountering dozens of immigrant floor moppers. Chiang Mai actually smelled of flowers, not disinfectant. The roads were full of motorbikes and tuk-tuks, the tiny open-air taxis that look a bit like a Jeep Landrover mounted on a motorbike. In the heat of the day their drivers nap in the back seats while waiting for a customer.
People walked in Chiang Mai and rode bicycles. You could rent a bike to get around town and hope to make it back to your guesthouse that evening. KL is so jammed with cars that bicycles are practically unheard of and legendary traffic jams are a fact of life. Cars here are shiny and new; a status symbol and a point of pride. They also seem to be a way for Malaysians to vent the frustrations inherent in life in a big, crowded, noisy place. Going anywhere is a wearying, irksome ordeal involving a lot of rudeness and risk-taking. There's so such thing as the Sunday afternoon drive in KL.
A more subltle difference, but one which was probably fairly significant, was the religious climate. Northern Thailand is primarily Buddhist, while Malaysia is officially Muslim. Disregarding the truth claims of competing religious systems, you can classify some as friendlier, softer, nicer than others. I found the monks intheir orange robes and babyish bald heads friendly-looking. They hung out in nice temples with big, shady courtyards that were open to anyone for a nap or a rest. They appeared humble and poor, whether or not they were, walking the streets in their sandals and loose garments. Malaysia, however, is a land of religious enforcement officers, of religious courts and judges, of official religious ID cards and of strict laws . The enforcement officers don't bother me, in the sense of harass me, since I am clearly a hopeless infidel, but they do bother me in the sense of irritate or annoy me. I don't like knowing they are there.
Last, but far, from from least, I noted the prevalence of books and coffee. As far as I am concerned these are the staples of the creative life - the life worth living - and Chiang Mai was full of them. Used book stores are everywhere and most are next door to cafes with real, Western style coffee which invite you to sit for hours reading, chatting, discussing the meaning of life. Malaysians are known for their disinterest in books; they freely admit it and always talk about how they should read more, but they don't like to read. Bookstores here are perfunctory; they exist chiefly to sell school texts, and just include some other books for effect. Chiang Mai is full of shops lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves divided into satisfying categories for easy browsing. I spent three times as much on books as I did on lodging the three days we were there, and I left so many books I really wanted on the shelves for another day (yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.)
Just when I am tempted to excuse my lack of creativity on my environment, I remember how many of the most beautiful works ever penned came out of prison, poverty, war and deprivation. I think of the British WWI poets, of Pilgrim's Progress, of Solzenitsyn and my own brother, and know that one's inner life can be beautiful and rich and productive, no matter what circumstances one finds oneself in. So, I don't get a pass on writing just because I live in KL. But I know where I'm headed on my next vacation!
Monday, March 12, 2007
losing weight
I've been thinking lately about losing weight. And not in the usual way. As the calendar reads Spring, I've discovered that one of the benefits of living in a climate without seasons is that you don't have to endure all the get- ready- for -your- bikini articles. But I have more weight-loss issues than the ones my scale and mirror create.
This morning I experienced again the relief I always feel at the airport when, after struggling with luggage whose wheels never run smoothly, whose handles never fit my hands just right, whose weight and bulk trip me up over and over again, I hoist it onto the conveyor belt and watch it disappear into a dark tunnel, knowing I will not see it again till it magically reappears at the end of my journey. As I leave the check in counter I always fumble around for a moment, feeling as if I have forgotten something, feeling too light, too unencumbered for the trip I'm taking. Then I remember that I am no longer responsible for that weight. I can take the escalator, go to the restroom solo, squeeze into a tiny booth at the coffee shop, browse in the bookstore; it's not my responsibility any more. Someone is taking care of it for me.
The weight of all the things I could not leave home without. . .things which seemed so essential as I crammed them into my suitcase; Now I find I can scarcely remember what is in the bag I just checked. If I had to make an inventory I might forget half of it. Even if it never shows up again, I'll probably be just fine. I'm so happy to surrender it to the man behind the counter; I just don't want to fight with it anymore.
Why is is so hard for me to travel light? Why do I never remember when it's time to set off again what I learned last time. . . that, in the words of Jesus, "only a few things are necessary". Why can I not remember the relief of being relieved of my baggage, both literal and figurative?
As I was shaking my head over my reluctance to shed those pounds, I remembered a picture which has been in my mind for several years now. . . a scene I witnessed once at the small Vermont lake where my children used to swim. I sat on the beach and watched as an elderly woman with a walker slowly approached the water. She made her way across the gritty sand in an old, faded bathing suit, moving her walker forward step by step right into the cold water. She leaned hard on the walker for stability until the water reached her hips or so, and then she slipped into the dark coolness and was free, the ugly walker left standing in three feet of water looking utterly out of place in the glow of the late afternoon sun reflecting off the deep green surface.
For a time she was free - weightless and graceful as a girl again, no longer hobbled by the walker, by the aching joints and the feeble bones, buoyed up by the water which carried her as easily as it carried the children splashing nearby.
I could not shake the image of rebirth, of rejunvenation I had witnessed. For nights I actually lay awake wondering at it. I imagined how she must have hated to come back; to give up the liberty of the water for the weight of her aging body on the shore. I wondered if she would ever decide not to return - to just stay in the water and let someone else retrieve the symbol of her weakness and frailty, to just let it rust. I wondered how she could ever bear it again.
I felt as if I had watched something very profound, something almost like a revelation. I felt as if I were watching a preview of her death, and my own, a final laying aside of every weight and infirmity and slipping into the comforting depths, feeling the years slip away and the weight of mortal flesh which has become increasingly hard to carry dissolve, becoming bouyant once again.
So I've been considering these two stories about weight which seem to have little in common, but are really just a few more earthly images of heavenly Realities - opportunities to stop and remember yet again that the things which are seen are not the only things that Are. It is good to be reminded of the need to lay aside the weight that so easily besets us as we journey through this life- the things we can't seem to bring ourselves to leave home without. Life maybe a series of lessons about the weight of all those things we can't seem to leave behind, leading up to that day when we may ,through Christ, finally achieve a lovely weightlessness - free from the weight of our sinful flesh that has dogged our steps for all our lives.
All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight
You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom
Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can’t sell it, can’t buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme...
This morning I experienced again the relief I always feel at the airport when, after struggling with luggage whose wheels never run smoothly, whose handles never fit my hands just right, whose weight and bulk trip me up over and over again, I hoist it onto the conveyor belt and watch it disappear into a dark tunnel, knowing I will not see it again till it magically reappears at the end of my journey. As I leave the check in counter I always fumble around for a moment, feeling as if I have forgotten something, feeling too light, too unencumbered for the trip I'm taking. Then I remember that I am no longer responsible for that weight. I can take the escalator, go to the restroom solo, squeeze into a tiny booth at the coffee shop, browse in the bookstore; it's not my responsibility any more. Someone is taking care of it for me.
The weight of all the things I could not leave home without. . .things which seemed so essential as I crammed them into my suitcase; Now I find I can scarcely remember what is in the bag I just checked. If I had to make an inventory I might forget half of it. Even if it never shows up again, I'll probably be just fine. I'm so happy to surrender it to the man behind the counter; I just don't want to fight with it anymore.
Why is is so hard for me to travel light? Why do I never remember when it's time to set off again what I learned last time. . . that, in the words of Jesus, "only a few things are necessary". Why can I not remember the relief of being relieved of my baggage, both literal and figurative?
As I was shaking my head over my reluctance to shed those pounds, I remembered a picture which has been in my mind for several years now. . . a scene I witnessed once at the small Vermont lake where my children used to swim. I sat on the beach and watched as an elderly woman with a walker slowly approached the water. She made her way across the gritty sand in an old, faded bathing suit, moving her walker forward step by step right into the cold water. She leaned hard on the walker for stability until the water reached her hips or so, and then she slipped into the dark coolness and was free, the ugly walker left standing in three feet of water looking utterly out of place in the glow of the late afternoon sun reflecting off the deep green surface.
For a time she was free - weightless and graceful as a girl again, no longer hobbled by the walker, by the aching joints and the feeble bones, buoyed up by the water which carried her as easily as it carried the children splashing nearby.
I could not shake the image of rebirth, of rejunvenation I had witnessed. For nights I actually lay awake wondering at it. I imagined how she must have hated to come back; to give up the liberty of the water for the weight of her aging body on the shore. I wondered if she would ever decide not to return - to just stay in the water and let someone else retrieve the symbol of her weakness and frailty, to just let it rust. I wondered how she could ever bear it again.
I felt as if I had watched something very profound, something almost like a revelation. I felt as if I were watching a preview of her death, and my own, a final laying aside of every weight and infirmity and slipping into the comforting depths, feeling the years slip away and the weight of mortal flesh which has become increasingly hard to carry dissolve, becoming bouyant once again.
So I've been considering these two stories about weight which seem to have little in common, but are really just a few more earthly images of heavenly Realities - opportunities to stop and remember yet again that the things which are seen are not the only things that Are. It is good to be reminded of the need to lay aside the weight that so easily besets us as we journey through this life- the things we can't seem to bring ourselves to leave home without. Life maybe a series of lessons about the weight of all those things we can't seem to leave behind, leading up to that day when we may ,through Christ, finally achieve a lovely weightlessness - free from the weight of our sinful flesh that has dogged our steps for all our lives.
All That You Can't Leave Behind
U2
And love is not the easy thing
The only baggage you can bring...
And love is not the easy thing...
The only baggage you can bring
Is all that you can't leave behind
And if the darkness is to keep us apart
And if the daylight feels like it's a long way off
And if your glass heart should crack
And for a second you turn back
Oh no, be strong
Walk on, walk on
What you got they can’t steal it
No they can’t even feel it
Walk on, walk on...
Stay safe tonight
You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been
A place that has to be believed to be seen
You could have flown away
A singing bird in an open cage
Who will only fly, only fly for freedom
Walk on, walk on
What you've got they can't deny it
Can’t sell it, can’t buy it
Walk on, walk on
Stay safe tonight
And I know it aches
And your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Home… hard to know what it is if you’ve never had one
Home… I can’t say where it is but I know I'm going home
That's where the hurt is
I know it aches
How your heart it breaks
And you can only take so much
Walk on, walk on
Leave it behind
You've got to leave it behind
All that you fashion
All that you make
All that you build
All that you break
All that you measure
All that you steal
All this you can leave behind
All that you reason
All that you sense
All that you speak
All you dress up
All that you scheme...
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