Yesterday, I stood outside our third floor apartment here in Kathmandu, watching two Nepali boys flying a kite on a rooftop next door. I could hear their laughter as they struggled to get the kite in the air. Over and over again, the taller of the two threw the kite as high as he could, while the other boy controlled the reel a few feet away. Each time, the kite languished in the air with the smaller boy frantically urging it to take off. During the few minutes that I watched these boys, they weren’t able to keep the kite air-born longer than a few seconds. Despite their unsuccessful attempts, they were clearly enjoying themselves. Their laughter came easily. Although they spoke in a language that remains foreign to me, I could tell that they were good naturedly teasing each other. As I looked across the rooftops of our neighborhood on this cloudless afternoon, I could see this scenario repeated on numerous houses.
Kites are everywhere here in Nepal. On breezy days, I venture up to our rooftop to watch the kites dancing in the wind. I find comfort in them. The kites here are simple, not like the elaborate ones you see at the beach at home. And boys of all ages are clearly enamored by them. They spend hours on their rooftops, usually with a friend or two, making their kites flip, bounce and twist in the wind. It’s a beautiful site with the “hills” surrounding the Kathmandu Valley serving as an exotic backdrop. The kites remind me of the book, Kite Runner by Khalid Hosseini, the story of an Afghani boy and the important role that a kite has in his life. In a village we visited a few weeks ago, I watched two young boys trying to “cut down” each other’s kites, a scene straight out of the book.
As Heidi and I have been thrust into a new home with a new culture and a new language, I’ve been looking for commonalities. What are the things we have in common as human beings? Seeing the kites flying high in the air above this vast city takes me back to my childhood. I remember flying my kite in our backyard with my sisters. Watching something connected to me soar high overhead was exhilarating. I remember running through the fields when the kite dropped, trying to be the first to find it. Despite all of the differences between me and the boys flying kites next door, I know the joy they feel when the wind catches their kite, and it flies higher than they have ever been. I have felt that same joy. I know the bonds that children make with their friends while playing. Most of my best childhood memories involve friends- playing football in the snow, acting out our cops and robbers fantasies, racing bikes down our lane.
Whether our childhood memories are good or not so good, there is something about children that enhances our capacity to love, that opens our hearts in ways that we do not always experience with adults. Perhaps it is their innocence…we do not blame them for being poor, or black, or lazy in the same ways we seem to blame adults. We don’t tell children to get off welfare or to get a job. Most of us think children should have free healthcare even if we don’t think their parents deserve it. We don’t hold children responsible for their religious preferences (something about the age of accountability). We haven’t been taught to fear children. We don’t worry about them blowing up buildings or stealing our jobs. We tend to see the good in children. We can relate to them. They play the same games we played. They tease their friends the way we did. They have the same dreams we used to dream.
In the isolated communities (including churches) that I have been a member of for far too long, there is an implicit, and sometimes not so implicit, fear of the “other”. The other is a nameless, faceless force that we create in our minds and then label as “terrorist”, “illegal alien”, “liberal”, “conservative”, etc. These labels allow us to remain detached, to view people not as people but as ideological terms that we easily classify. As most people who engage in relationships with the “other” know, in the few short weeks that I have been here, I’ve realized that these labels simply do not work. I’m watching young boys, who are clearly of a different race than I am, most likely of a different religion, flying kites, an activity that I loved to do as a child. I’m experiencing the hospitality, love and friendship of people who look and believe much differently than I do. I’m no longer able to think of the “other” in abstract terms. The other is my neighbor, my teacher and my friend.
Call it naiveté, idealism or whatever label you choose, but I’m wondering what would happen if we pictured all those in our human family as children- not in a belittling way but in a way that breaks down our walls, in a way that allows us to treat others as they deserve to be treated, as daughters and sons of God. Would this help us to see the good in people, instead of constantly assuming the worst? Would it allow us to build relationships with the “other” without the fear that now traps us in homogenous communities? I’ve been thinking about this idea particularly during the U.S. presidential race (which, admittedly, I’m thankful to be a bit removed from). Due to my particular worldview and the values I have formed through the years, I have a difficult time relating to John McCain. I have a tendency to think the worst of him- to imagine him as an evil warmonger who cares more about cutting taxes for the rich and drilling for oil than about caring for the poor and God’s good Creation. Of course, even if I am able to picture John McCain as a small boy- running in the fields behind his house, looking up at a kite flying high in the sky, laughing with his friends- I would still disagree vehemently with his political views. But perhaps this picture would allow me to separate John McCain the person from John McCain the politician. Perhaps it would allow me to step away from my stereotypes and engage in transforming relationships with the John McCains of this world. Perhaps it would allow me to enter into honest dialogue with those who think differently than I do without the need to convince them of their ignorance.
I think it’s worth a try…so during this election season, when I’m tempted to resort to the labels and stereotypes that are so readily available to classify the “other”, I will try to remember the boys next door. I will try to hear their laughter, see their kite flying high in the air and remember that we are all children.
