dear friends,
i write first to apologize to those of you who have written desiring to hear of what is happening here in chiang mai, with us, with our work, with the women, & within ourselves. i have to admit that i put off writing not just updates, but also any thing of real substance regarding my time here. the thought of reflecting, learning, & truly challenging myself is far more tasking than simply going through the motions & allowing situations to arise as they may. true thought requires true reflection & that ultimately requires genuine obedience to the lessons & glimpes of Christ that we see through the lens of this beautiful place. i find that i am the type of person who needs some serious time to formulate any sort of sense out of what is going on around me so that i can report back to each of you a real account of my perspective understanding of it. oftentimes, i fear on a subconscious level, that i really am not understanding or internalizing any thing that is going on around me ... i came home from thailand last year very unsure that any thing had really 'sunk in' beyond my desire to maintain obedience to the calling which we are all summoned to - to be a people of Love. however, the past week has been a time of immense reflection & i find that my spirit is in a state of cleansing & renewal. much of that is due to the events taking place, kelly’s patient persistence, & to the people who have been able to join with us - both in person & also in spirit - who are able to pull me out of my comfortable yet unhealthy state of emotional disconnection & isolation. to truly be obedient one must engage not only in the required actions of service & obedience, but allow those actions to conceive thoughts & allow those thoughts to become pillars upon which i am able to build a more complete understanding of the God that we serve & grow in my understanding of the depth & complexity of how we are to be a people of Love, Mercy, Peace & Truth in a world that defies & questions every thing that i believe in.
last week, kelly & i were privileged to have seth & brittn visit us on their vacation from teaching english in my homeland - s. korea. not only were we able to see many of the sights that i had not taken the time to experience before, i was amazed & incredibly thankful for the return of community to our lives here. our conversations were challenging, inspiring, encouraging, & yes, even epic. they asked many questions regarding the nature of our work here, questions i typically avoid for fear of having nothing of worth to say, & i was incredibly thankful that somewhere along the line God had allowed some level of processing to begin. this experience, these women, this world, has affected me far deeper than i had realized & i was so thankful to be in the midst of a community of support & encouragement. as thomas merton says, the work of the peacemaker in a state of conflict & lack of reason is to "seek the way of unity and peace, without succumbing to the illusion or withdrawal into a realm of abstraction from which all unpleasant realities are simply excluded by the force of will." far too often i find that i take the easier road of producing action, without the substance or depth of genuine reflection and contemplation.
i've begun to realize that one of the biggest contributions to this state of internal conflict, is the inability of my mind to continually grapple with my understanding of what is True, in the current environment which i find myself. sometimes it would be much easier to live in a world that had fully abandoned any semblance of reality. but instead, i find myself living in something like what plato must have been feeling when he wrote the allegory of the cave (short philosophy lesson: the allegory of the cave represents the masses tendency to live in a dark cave where shapes & shadows are reflected onto the wall & perceived as reality… it is not until a person is able to remove themselves from the cave that they are able to see that the shadows are just a distortion of reality). the situation here is one of darkness, shapes, & shades of reality. instead of the full understanding of Love, one is overwhelmed by a massive movement of perversions of what was once Love. instead of Hope, one sees a facade of smiles which really belies more of a sense of surrender. instead of Mercy & Compassion one sees acquiescence. instead of the sacrifice of selfishness one sees the total elevation of individuality & isolation. it is this facade of truth that is most troubling to me because it is that much harder to distinguish where the lies end & Truth begins - both in the women & in my own reflection. however, it is because of this environment that i have found it increasingly important to remove myself from the perversions & seek strength, understanding, & growth in the Truth. i no longer can convince myself that my own submission to the lie is unimportant, that my actions have no worth, that they are not part of the greater problem where together humanity has come together to bind each other to our own sense of selfishness, individuality, our own dedication to being satisfied with the facade of truth. although this process is still in it's infancy, i have found liberation & hope. one cannot hope to offer the women of chiang mai any sense of healing, dignity, & restoration without first fully understanding & receiving it themselves. it is through the perpetual testing of my understanding & commitment to Christ's Truth's of Love, Mercy, & Peace that He has revealed to me my own state of brokenness & my own lack of true dedication. yet it is in this weakness that Christ's strength is shown most because i know how little i am yet to fully concede myself to His service, so in the moments that i am provided the opportunity to act on His behalf, i am able to more clearly see His slow & patient dedication to revealing Himself to me that i may be used in His service of others.
i apologize for rambling on in this nature ... the above section has taken me over 6 hours to write & required a great deal of typing fervently, only to delete every thing i just wrote. it made for a very fruitless & frustrating saturday afternoon. but, i guess it is equally reflective of why i avoid writing things like this for others, & for my own internal processing. however, kelly has returned home to me, i am thinking coffee sounds good, & aaron strumpel is serenading me to think good thoughts.
i find that i have no point of reference to truly digest some of the things that i see let alone try to formulate any sort of succinct description or life lesson that i can take from the experience. how does one articulate what it feels like to walk away from a woman who is crying into your sweat shirt, who does not want you to go, & who you cannot understand? how does one begin to understand the life of a woman & desperation of a woman w. no education who works to support her father & who has seen only the ugliness of this world, & who has surrendered totally? what feelings should one get from watching truck-loads of akha children leave w/ only bag fulls of food to show for their time spent with us, yet still desiring to express thankfulness for the few hours of our time spent w/ them? we can offer them no easy solutions which is what my entire being wants to give them. the reality that there is no simple solutions is frustrating. i expressed to a team recently that was visiting us from the US, that in this type of work we must be committed to a spirit of patience & dedication to small acts of Love, Compassion, & Service. it is in this spirit that we attempt to live in this 'cave,' where men contribute to a destructive pattern of living both to others & to themselves. in this place 'the world is seen as a multiplicity of conflicting & limited beings, all enclosed in the prisons of their own individuality, all therefore complete in permanent & vulnerable incompleteness ... all seeking completeness by asserting themselves at the expense of others, by dominating & using others" (merton). i am comforted that the complexity of humanity - the collective monstrosity that we at times all contribute to, the depths to which we are able to hurt ourselves & hurt others - requires something more than succinct descriptions, more than 5 point life lessons, & more than simple solutions. a depravity of this nature, both within our own guilty contributions & within the confines of witnessing others participate, demands a greater dedication to the Truth of Love & to seeking it when our own actions have made it unrecognizable & hidden amongst our own perversions. it is in this spirit that we hope to offer ami a sweatshirt to cry into, milk for her baby, & to offer her every opportunity to find solace in our solidarity. it is in this spirit that i am reminded that we are called not only to universal grand service, but service when no one is watching - to serve in the example & the footsteps of Christ. i know only too well that my actions & spirit are such an incomplete portrayal of the greater Truth of Christ's Love for His children, for his highest desire to see them comprehend what His sacrifice has given them, & for His offering of Grace, Justice, & Mercy. however, it has been a joy to see His face reflected amidst the shadows, shapes, & mirages of this cave. it was a joy to see pii faa personally greet every father, mother, & child that came to our party (over a hundred people) & to know that she has already spent hours getting to know each of them, shared conversations & meals, & developed a program for the children's drop in center that will be uniquely tailored to the needs of the disenfranchised & oppressed akha people. ami is in a state of hopelessness, driven to beg to feed herself & her baby, & missing her children still staying in her village. but my hope is that for people like ami & for her baby, that a spirit of this Love, of genuine compassion, & an earnest desire to not enable her to remain in her current state, but to be empower her to seek out the totality of this Love, of this Compassion, & of Mercy and Grace for herself. we look forward to walking w/ her on this long & difficult path, but we are encouraged to better understand the unique characteristics of her story, of the challenges she faces, & the heart of desperation that has driven her to this point of surrender.
it is in this spirit that we went to pookie's lisu village this past weekend to celebrate the chinese new year & utilize this incredibly offering of hospitality to better understand the life & situation that has allowed pookie to continue to work in the commercial sex industry for the past 7 years. we were able to see the emotional disconnection that has not only infiltrated her own spirit, but also the spirit of her community. we were able to witness the consequences of disenfranchising the entire lisu people group, prohibiting their movements, & limiting their opportunities for education. in a community with far more children than adults, many of the parentless children are raised by an aging generation of grandparents & great-aunts & uncles. a generation that has witnessed the sale of their traditions for an impostor -- where traditional dress, dance, song, cuisine, handicrafts all have become a terrible caricature of brightly colored velour genie pants, dances are only done when foreigners can admire them, where food is no longer prepared communally & eaten together even though the communal horng khrua still exists ... instead, they favor the faster lays potato chips that have made it to their village, & the girls, while still dressed in their traditional attire, talk on cell phones, wear far too much makeup, begin drinking their mix of strong whiskey around the age of 12-13, & often times end up in chiang mai or bangkok like my friend pookie because of family pressure & a lack of education. the men that have remained (& many have left, or have died entirely too young because of their poor living habits) sit & stare back at the foreigners because the corn fields & fruit orchards are under the control of larger conglomerates rather than manned by the lisu & akha people who once held communal ownership. celebrations are marked by an increase in consumption of liquor rather than the traditional rites of celebration. it was a place busy w/ nothingness where things move at the painfully slow pace of not really being all that excited for the future & a general forgetfulness of what was so special about the past. both kelly & i were incredibly overwhelmed by our time spent there ... again, i found myself frustrated that my understanding of truth & beauty could not understand what i was seeing. how can a place filled w/ such beauty seem so hopeless? but again i faced the reality that it was not the Truth of Love, the Truth of Beauty that was incorrect, it was my simplistic interpretations of these complex ideals. Beauty does not lend itself easily to simplistic solutions. the plight of this community cannot be solved by the opening of a church or even by the return of pookie to her home. but it does start w/ the women we were able to meet & it does begin w/ pookie. it is that place that has contributed to her current perception of reality & her general surrender to the familiarity of oppression, violence, destruction, & the selling of her soul & body. she has been beaten down by an understanding of human existence that has begun to drive her mad with it's "irresistible demands, exploitations, & alienations from reality." but within her plight there is also the opportunity to continue to pour in tastes of this Love that we profess, the Hope that we profess, & cling to the knowledge that He who promised is faithful. it is within our community to offer her a true reflection of her beauty, of her innate worth, & of a Love that is offered freely. i continually remind myself that as much as i seek instantaneous fulfillment for pookie, instantaneous restoration to the beauty she was created in - that the bonds of the lies are strong. but we can continue to reflect the Truth in our actions, both simple & complex. it is with pookie in mind that i work on the programs for our drop in center - structuring our educational programs at a time when she will be awake yet before she needs to be at work, hiring a counselor that will not only be able to address the alcohol addiction she struggles w/ but also someone equipped with the ability to walk w/ pookie as she acknowledges the consequences that still afflict her as she deals with facing the trauma of multiple rapes - yet still continue to meet w/ her, take her to KFC, & let her tell me each day that my hair really needs to be done again because i have split ends. i was foolish to ever think that i could offer these women any thing more than myself, my own desperation to live in the freedom of the Truth. to come with a spirit of patience & dedication & perseverance & Love that Christ has continued to show to me. to hope that together we are able to better reflect the Truths of Christ to a humanity slowly consuming ourselves w/ our own desperation, our own selfishness, & our own inability to remove ourselves from the 'caves' & prisons that confine us.
again, i find that i have more that i want to say, but also the lack of words to be able to convey with any sense of clarity the things that perplex me here. in addition, i don't wish to depress you or to lead you to believe that we lead a depressed life here. quite the opposite really. i guess it would be important for you to know that for a great deal of time i have been a person fearful & unbelieving in God. an arrogant closet atheist you might say. i thought this way because i was disillusioned by the example of Christ i had been shown - or at least the example of Christ i had understood. a very small god who when life really started to kick my arse, really didn't offer me much guidance or comfort. even now i find that my understanding of these great Truths that i profess to believe in, is oftentimes far too small. however, i am have never been at such peace w/ the knowledge that i do not know every thing & that my selfish mind will continually struggle w/ the complexity, depth, & required selfless obedience that comes w/ the pursuit of of the Truth of Christ. if you can't tell by all of the merton i have already "borrowed" i will summarize w/ this:
"this way of wisdom is no dream, no temptation, & no evasion, for it is on the contrary a return to reality in its very root. it is not an escape from contradiction or confusion for it finds unity & clarity only by plunging into the very midst of contradiction, by the acceptance of emptiness & suffering, by the renunciation of the passions & obsessions w/ which the world world is 'on fire.' it does not withdraw from the fire - it is in the very heart of the fire, yet remains cool, because it has the gentleness & humility that come from self-abandonment, & hence does not seek to assert the illusion of the exterior self."
no place has ever challenged me like my time in thailand has. i have never faced a more brutal testing of my belief & my understanding of my own role in what i dislike so strongly about human tendencies. but within this fire that slowly consumes this city, i find that i am being purified. the things that are consequences of my own selfish nature stand out so strongly here. it is in the times when i allow myself to fully engage w/in this conundrum that i am most at peace w/ the knowledge that only by engaging what is worst within myself, am i able to experience Grace. & it is w/in this continual process that i have learned more about the radical example of Christ & the demands but also the fruits & joys, of receiving Love & extending Love, & of attempting to emulate, radiate, & reflect the God of Peace & Hope that we are privileged to find freedom in & to serve w/ obedience His great Truths.
thank you friends for staying w/ me on this. it is now 8 hours after i originally started ... oh dear. i hope that it is not a terribly depressing or painfully difficult experience to read this complicated snap shot of my brain, heart, & soul. please know that each day is dotted w/ beautiful experiences of traversing thai traffic w/ kelly on the back of the motor-bike (helmets always moms!), exploring new parts of the city on our morning walks, beginning each day w/ the best pineapple you can ever imagine, engaging in various (successful & sometimes unsuccessful) thai conversations, exploring the thai markets as we attempt to find food i can eat, & ending each day to the sound of prayer bells at the wat below my bedroom window, & the sounds of CSPAN playing through my iPod, diligently updating me on the campaign in the states. it is here that has given me the opportunity to truly & freely give Love to the Other, to see myself in their eyes, & simultaneously to see the eyes of Christ & experience the patience He exudes as we all strive to serve His Truths in whatever sphere of responsibility we find ourselves in.
in Peace, britt
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