Epistemology

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from ash to make them like princes and princesses.

Lord, make them like princes and princesses...

On our last night on the streets, we stayed out all night (until 4am) to watch and see. We wanted to see what the kids on the street see all night or what they do all night. Here is the cast: the ringleader, boy, 17; a family of 4 girls, 6-18; a pair of sisters 6, 16; boy, 15; many other kids ages ranging from 4-18 selling things and begging on the streets.

We watched. We said our goodbyes in our best, broken Thai. It was a lot harder than I thought to leave. Walking away from a 7 year old, who begs Western men to give her money at 4am every night, was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Her family of 9 lives in a one room, room (you cant call it an apartment). She is needy in more ways then materialistically, so am I. As we walk away, while she cries to her sister, I cant help but entertain ideas like "I should stay here, because I can help her. I should adopt her and her sisters. I can get a good job if I wanted. It would be better than the life they are living, right?" then I think "Would it? To take them away from their biological family and their street family?Would that really be better?" We kept walking.

Then, I turned around to make sure they were okay. Catching eyes with her older sister (17 year old) who is usually cold as ice, she smiles at me. She runs to me and grabs me, hugging me and hold me tight. I swear she was saying "thank you, but please don't go". We let go. I turned looking at my friend who was waiting for me and began to cry. Then, I heard these sloppy footsteps that sounded like they were running. It was her, running after me with a bunch of her roses she sells to make income for her family. She hands them to me ever so graciously. I tell her "No, don't give them to me. You need the money". She said "For you." I again, not being able to control my heart and emotions, said "goodbye" and walked away bawling. How does one even begin to fathom what that experiences says or means? I know it was one of the most gracious moments that has ever happened or will happen to me. Thinking about it again, brings me to tears, which is why I have yet to post this story. I saw Jesus in her, in her eyes, in her gift of the only thing she had to give. I learned how to live from her. I pray you will learn how to live from her, too. Give what you have to give. Love how you know how to love. Let yourself be changed by this girl who works nights on the streets of Bangkok.

We can not forget them. Is there any way God can use us to make them like princes and princesses?

This Advent season don't get caught up in how many gifts you got, don't compare how much your William Sonoma pots cost with a lady in your book group's new single-serving coffee maker, don't... forget the rest of the world. Don't forget that most of the world does not own a home or that there are kids in every big city in the world begging for their family or that there are women and children being exploited right now, probably in your home town. Don't be afraid to be angry or sadden by statistics. Listen to real, personal stories. Don't get stuck. Don't let it suck you in. Don't forget this princess of the Bangkok streets and God's heart. Do something. Say something. Give love. Have mercy. Say thanks. Be generous with your money but mostly with your heart and time. Pray not to forget.

God will raise the poor out of the dust and make the needy like princes and princesses. I know that to be true. I am sure you and I have a role in that reconciliation and redemption. How and when will we make that obligation a priority on our list of things to do? Does it fit in between grocery shopping or taking presents back to the mall? Or does it go before finding a new job and after who do I date? Maybe it's on the list of obligations like attending church and work out on a regular basis? No, it should be etched on our hearts with the greatest commandment, "To love God with all of me". To love God and to love others- so simple, so hard, and so intentional. When will I learn how to actually do this right? Intentional takes so much energy. Doesn't it?

My prayer:

Father, thank you. Teach us how to love you. Enable us to not forget those who are dearest to your heart, the "least of these" that you are going to make like princes and princesses. Empower us to be an active lover. Use us to reconcile.

Only through Jesus powerful, mighty, merciful name. Amen.

Lost for Words

For two months now, I have been, to use a Pink Floyd song title and idiom, lost for words. In order to update those who may care and to solidify my journey I will write post using my journal from those two months.

I couldn't write anything for I had no words. November 8, apparently all I wanted to do was run away. "I just don't know what to do with myself so I decided to leave the house and go somewhere with my IPod on and the wind from the bus window blowing right through the heat of Bangkok. I didn't get off at my intentional destination. I pray my favorite artists would speak to my broken heart. Today is the first day in a long time that I wanted to run away- from our house, Bangkok, my indecisive life, my horrible decisions, my mind, my heart. I want to take a bus to Cambodia. How can I let something so seemingly insignificant affect me like this, but something as heart wrenching as kids on the street don't bring me into a fury that I storm out of my house, hop on a bus until I cool off enough to get off?"

As I reread this overly dramatic journal, I can't help but to like the authenticity of those feelings and thoughts. Essentially, I was speaking to this innate longing of be-longing. Don't we all desire to belong somewhere, fully and wholly? Can any of us actually belong, really? I went on to write a rather embarrassing line "My body feels hot, I'm such a sweaty mess in this place, I'm fat, my face is covered in zits and worst of all, I am so alone. Speak to me." Have you ever been to that place of feeling so inadequate, so helpless, so frustrated and alone?

1 John 4:7 "Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God and whoever loves is born of God and knows God". My prayer for us all today (the same prayer as November 8) is

Help us to love. Help us to see and experience love.

"To become truly free is to give more importance to truth and justice than to the desire to fulfill at all costs our own compulsive needs." - Jean Vanier from Community and Growth (I think)

To You Christ is Born

Therefore let us beware of all teaching that does not set forth Christ. What more would you know? What more do you need, if indeed you know Christ, as above set forth, if you walk by faith in God, and by love to your neighbor, doing to him as Christ has done to you. This is indeed the whole Scripture in its briefest form: that no more words or books are necessary, but only life and action.

-Martin Luther from "Sermon for Christmas Day; Luke 2:1-14

There must be a time of day...

There must be a time of day when the man who makes plans forgets his plans, and acts as if he had no plans at all.
There must be a time of day when the man who has to speak falls very silent.
And his mind forms no more propositions and he asks himself: Did they have a meaning?
There must be a time when the man of prayer goes to pray as if it were the first time in his life he had ever prayed, when the man of solutions puts his resolutions asides as if they all have been broken and he learns a different wisdom:
distinguishing the sun from the moon, the stars from the darkness, the sea from the dry land and the night sky from the shoulder of a hill.

-Thomas Merton

I love this quote from Thomas Merton, and I would add "there must be a time of day when the man who has to be productive puts productivity aside and sits still with another human being and just be." To me, this is loving without using words. Have you ever thought about how often we use words or gifts to let someone know we love them? When was the last time you showed love to someone by just sitting with them praying for awareness to see that specific person just as Jesus Christ sees them? Or praying to see Jesus in them? When was the last time you sat with your wife or husband or sister or mother and just sat with them without an agenda? I believe that these are the precious times when "deep speaks with deep" and "heart speaks to heart". Have you ever been with a person and without saying a single word you connected in an indescribable way? Your humanity spoke to their humanity and their humanity spoke to yours? It is a mystical experience.

I wasn't in India long enough to really have profound cultural thoughts or any type of quasi-understanding of the country, however I do believe that I was confronted with a lot of "big" questions I wrestle with on a monthly basis. Questions about injustice, poverty, sin, hate, exploitation, joy, hope, resurrection, redemption and overall, humanity. There where thrown at my face. Kolkatta is a place you can not deny darkness or light? It is a place where I could not hide from any emotion. How can we say we love Jesus and in the same breath, act as though everything is fine in the world? 2/3 of the world are not living like you and me in the US. How can we know this and ignore it? How can we have so much and not give? How can we pray so much and not love? Is all of it idle chatter? Am I living in vain? Am I taking seriously the command to love God and to love each other seriously? There must be a time of day where these questions are confronted and wrestled with and acted upon. That was a bit of a tangent... back to loving by being still.

At the Sisters of Charity House for the Dying and Destitute, we were asked to do a lot of things , but the moments I will take away with me (I pray forever) were those of tenderness and intimacy with a woman who only wanted me to sit with her and scratch her back. I had no idea what she was saying when she spoke (language barrier), but it didnt matter. I could see the pain in her eyes and the relief she felt when I scratched where she could not reach. We sat with each other for a long time, there I saw Jesus. I saw Him in her. I saw Him with her. I saw Him starring at me telling me that I was redeemed and so was she. I believe that the most important and meaningful moments come in silence. I believe that in silence we recieve and give a love like we can not with lots of words. Hopefully, I am starting to see a glimpse of the love, compassion, truth and grace Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen experienced in L'Arche. I pray we will all experience and see grace, love, compassion and truth from and through Jesus Christ apart from theological words or idealogies or doctrine or dogma, but in pure human to human contact and intimacy. We need to pray for the needs of each other and be bold enough to ask what each other need. It could be as simple as scratching a place that they alone can not reach.

"There must be a time of day when the man who has to be productive puts productivity aside and sits still with another human being and just be". To me, this is sacrificing our sake for the sake of others and doing that which we dont want to do and doing it because Christ commanded us to love each other just as He loved us. We must learn to distinguish when we are loving and when we are only speaking about loving.

how do you get your head back on your shoulders?

There is a terrible hunger for love. We all experience that in our lives- the pain, the loneliness. We must have the courage to recognize it. The poor, you may have right in your family. Find them. Love them.
- Mother Teresa

This week I am heading to India, but before I start thinking about that I must process the past couple of weeks especially, this one moment of utter beauty and pain wrapped in a bundle in a 14 year old girl. She shines shoes in a RLD, begging for money. Last night was her birthday, she turn 14. We met her around 10:30pm on the streets to wish her a happy birthday. Several weeks ago, she asked us to attend her birthday party. We gave her small gifts, wished her happy birthday, and sat with the kids for awhile. As we were leaving, I saw her, her two older sisters and a friend sitting crossed-legged on the ground, eating street vendor noodles with a big birthday cake with the candles lit and a couple of beers. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and one of the most sad.

We, humans, all long to belong to something or to someone or to a group of someones. We all desire to be loved and to love. We want someone to know when it is our birthday and to celebrate it. Here in the middle of a Red Light District, a 14 year old girl found just that: love, acceptance and relationship. A place where she is known. She was legitamately happy. I forgot where I was in that moment. I could have been in someone's home or Buffalo Wild Wings, but the reality is we were on the streets at midnight in a notorious RLD with 7, 14 and 17 year olds. They weren't having a sleep over and yelling at their 7 year old sister to head to bed because she is too young to be there. Instead, they were doing what they know a birthday party to look like. This is their reality. This is where she believes she belongs. This is the place she looks for love and in some ways, finds it.

What can we take away from this? I am still not sure yet. I think it could be profound, but I am not there yet. Any insights?

But for now, I leave you with the thought of "who exactly are the poor?". Who is it that will inherit the Kingdom of Heaven? Where are the poor? Are they in your own family? Next door? Maybe the mirror is as far as you need to look. Take Mother Teresa's advice: Go FIND THEM and LOVE THEM.

Let you know how India goes! Cant wait.

officially intimidated

Once I read somewhere, if you have nothing profound to say then quote someone else who does. Since I incredibly intimidated to blog (I am working on it), my first post will be a prayer from St. Teresa of Avila. I pray it for me and for you.

"May today, there be peace within you.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have recieved, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.
Let this presence settle in your bones and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of you."