Prayer for 2009

We have found our way through the Advent season, a time when as Christians we wait for the hope that we know is coming. And as 2008 ends and a new year begins, we are still very much waiting for this hope to be realized. As I write these words, bombs are killing people in Gaza, war is being threatened between India and Pakistan, and in my own neighborhood here in Kathmandu, people are hungry. With these images threatening to overshadow the promise that Christmas has brought, I offer this simple prayer for the New Year.

Creator God,

We live in a world that often forgets it was created by you,

We pollute the air you give us to breathe,

We abuse the soil from which you give us food,

With hands that you shaped, we injure and even kill our sisters and brothers,

Through eyes that you formed, we see differences and inequalities,

We use our minds, that you designed, to create unjust systems,

We raise our voices to secure our own rights and freedoms,

You created our hearts for compassion, instead we fill them with greed.

 

With the coming of a new year, help us to imagine new possibilities,

Let us plant trees so the world can breathe,

Let us honor the land as a gift from you,

With our hands, let us embrace our enemies,

Through our eyes, let us see the beauty in each other,

Let us use our minds to create new ways of living,

Let us raise our voices out of concern for the poor,

Fill our hearts with a love that will sustain us throughout this year.

 

 

 

 

Christmasing in Kathmandu

I guess I never pictured Christmas away from home, and I certainly never pictured it in Kathmandu. But here we are, post-Christmas, and I am reflecting upon our first ever away-from-home celebration of this wonderful holiday...

Amos and I are both pretty nostalgic and sentimental, and we definitely felt the absence of familiar traditions, sights, and sounds--things that seem to give Christmas a feeling, a spirit, a comfort that we cherish. We also felt the absence of the sometimes overwhelming hustle and bustle, the blatant consumerism, the awful tunes that somehow pass for Christmas songs but that we always end up humming to.

So. We found ourselves with mixed feelings, as is often the case. It was lovely to just be together, to have no obligations, no 12 days of Christmas parties, no wintry mix, no throngs of shoppers. In some ways, it seemed that Christmas was stripped down, its layers peeled away. It took some creativity to recognize it this way. More than ever, we were forced to contemplate, to remember, to reflect upon the meaning of the season on our own, and we found that to be a beautiful experience.

Of course, on the other hand, our hearts very much ached for family and friends. We also really missed attending our church's Christmas Eve service, something we could not quite replace here.

A group of Christmas carolers (from the Nepali church we have been attending) came to our home and surprised us with the most festive, enthusiastic, rhythmic caroling we have ever experienced...tambourines and dancing included. Nepalis sure know how to sing and dance, and they won't just let you sit in your chair and watch!

We had fun doing some decorating around our apartment, stringing garlands of chili peppers (which are quite plentiful here) and popcorn, buying a poinsettia (also very plentiful) and setting our gifts beneath it. We baked cookies and sang some carols, read the ancient Christmas story with new perspectives, and we even got to open gifts with my family...over Skype! We took some time to enjoy the brilliant day, and on Christmas evening we wandered through the Garden of Dreams, which is exactly what it sounds like. It is a beautiful oasis of calm in the middle of busy Kathmandu. We lingered there, and ate dinner out...the first time we've ever eaten out on Christmas day.

It felt strange, but lovely. We will remember Christmasing in Kathmandu forever, no doubt.

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday!


The Christmas Carolers


Amos breaking it down


me trying to dance


Showing off our ginger & spice cookies

Waiting

It’s Advent season so it feels appropriate to talk about waiting. I find myself waiting a lot these days… for the sun to break through the fog in the morning, for the electricity to bring light back to our apartment, for hot water. I wait in traffic jams and for public buses that aren’t already filled with people. I wait for my colleagues who are constantly late for meetings (or maybe I’m early?). I wait for my morning newspaper which never seems to arrive on time. In my weaker moments, I’m waiting for this service term to end so I can get back to my real life. I’ve never been particularly good at waiting. It’s not that I mind sitting around…I just prefer to do it on my own terms.

In the larger scheme of how the world works, I also find myself waiting… for us to figure out how to live without killing each other, for the Church to overcome its pettiness and start exhibiting alternative ways of being. I’m waiting for food prices to decrease so mothers don’t have to decide which child eats and which child dies. How long will we have to wait until we have an economic system that doesn’t depend on exploitation? Until we stop the AIDS epidemic and find a cure for cancer? I’m waiting for the financial crisis to end, along with the Bush presidency.

On a more personal level, I’m waiting for my own redemption, in ways that are too numerable to name here. When will I finally get past the fear and lack of vision that so often paralyzes me and start relying on the creativity of the Spirit? When will I stop using stereotypes and prejudices to define the people I encounter and start seeing them through the eyes of love and compassion? When will I be willing to put aside the individualism that tempts me and embrace a more communal way of living? Definitely not today and probably not tomorrow…so I wait.

Advent forces us to wait. And it’s not a waiting that means we can sit back and relax. It’s a disciplined waiting that requires reflection, examination, tension. As with so many things, the waiting I experience here in Nepal, the more indefinite waiting for the redemption of myself and the world…there’s a temptation to skip the gestation period and jump immediately to the birth. We don’t like the preparation that Advent requires, the long hours sitting in the dark waiting for the sun to rise. I don’t like the moments when I’m standing naked in the bathroom (don’t picture it), waiting for the water to reach a temperature that is bearable. I feel vulnerable and cold as I’m faced with my own inadequacy- there is nothing that I can do to make the hot water come faster. And there’s nothing to distract me from the waiting. Buddhism teaches us to live in the moment, to constantly be aware of the present. This sitting, reflecting, anticipating asks for a discipline that many of us would rather not nurture. We know our Savior is coming so why not go ahead and get on with it? We’re tired of the hard work of being here, being now.

I’m waiting with all of these thoughts this Advent. I’m reminded that although this Advent season will end overnight when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, my redemption, the redemption of our communities, systems and structures, the beating of swords into ploughshares, is a much longer process. It’s a process that requires all of the disciplines that come with waiting- patience, awareness, endurance, reflection. And so this year, perhaps more so than in the past, I’m trying to live in the present that is Advent, to breathe this air, to feel this darkness…knowing that one day the sun will shine.

Getting Away

Having lived here in Kathmandu for a little over three months now, Heidi and I are already aware that we will need to regularly escape the confines of this city, getting away from the noise, concrete and commotion. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to do so. A ten-minute walk from our apartment takes us to rice fields and quiet villages. A thirty-minute bus ride takes us to the hills that overlook the Kathmandu Valley, hills filled with trees, birds and beauty. These escapes reconnect us with God's good Creation, energizing our spirits and calming our minds.

Below, you can see a few pictures from our getaways, along with a short reflection I wrote after our latest visit to Pulchowki, a preserved forest that contains over 300 species of birds:

I need air that I can breathe, Earth that I can touch.
I need silence that I can hear, flowers that I can smell.
I need green and brown and red.
I need rustling and crunching.
I need open spaces, clear skies.
I need water that I can drink, stillness that I can join.
I need beauty that I can see.
I need to get away, be alone.
I need dirt and bark and stone.
I need the sun to warm me, birds to sing to me.
I need simple.
I need calm.
I need to be able to walk unaware.
I need to be able to stop.
I need butterflies and birds.
I need.


A traditional Newari village during harvest time



A not so traditional bearded birder

Kathmandu Taxi Ride

Walking, meeting, asking, cheating, bargaining, agreeing, leaving, joining a mass of cars, trucks, buses, mopeds, pedestrians, motorcycles, trash, smog…headlights, brake lights, faster, slower, lurching, gears shifting, hanging on, weaving, roaming cows, swerving, wide-eyed and white-knuckled, tight squeezes, dodging, dust flying, horns blaring, creeping, car stalling, exhaust fumes pouring, whistles shrieking, policemen pointing, bumping, close calls, heart pounding, sudden stops, inhaling fumes, sharp turns, potholes, short-cuts, forced merges, sleeping dogs, random jams, arriving, stopping, paying, thanking, leaving, sighing.

Pokhara

Last week, during the Tihar Festival (also known as the Festival of Lights), Amos and I and Ben headed to Pokhara for some quiet, fresh air. Pokhara is a very winding, scenic 7-hour bus ride from Kathmandu. It is located in a valley surrounded by hill after hill and by the Annapurna Mountain range. The elevation is a bit lower than Kathmandu's, and the weather was a bit warmer...just wonderful!

Our 5-day stay included hiking to the magnificent Peace Pagoda, viewing the Annapurnas at sunrise atop Sarangkot (a perfect high point for seeing the mountains in all their glory), boating across the serene Phewa Lake, eating at lovely little restaurants with beautiful gardens, watching the festive dancing in celebration of Tihar, visiting a Tibetan village, seeing Devi's Falls, browsing the many craft shops, and simply resting in the peace of this little town.

Here are some of our pictures...


The Peace Pagoda


the mountains' reflection in the Phewa Lake


row, row, row, your boat!





some traditional dancing...


sunrise from Sarangkot


atop Sarangkot


a section of the Annapurna Range


the hike down from Sarangkot


the hills are alive with the sound of "moooosic"

A Moment of Hope?

Yesterday morning, Heidi and I watched the results of the American election at Phora Durbar, the American club, here in Kathmandu. We have both been fairly staunch supporters of Obama throughout his campaign and were excited about the possibility of watching the results of this historic election with other Americans. As we sat crowded in the café of the American Club, eating our American breakfast (with a few people enjoying a beer at 9 in the morning) and watching projection after projection, it became obvious that basically everyone in the room was rooting for Obama (except for the U.S. Embassy staff who were required to remain neutral). I’m not sure if this says something about the types of people who live overseas…or if it says something about how well people resonated with Obama’s message or how well they didn’t resonate with McCain (and Bush by association)…maybe it merely says that people who voted for Obama had nothing better to do on a Wednesday morning in Kathmandu.

When the inevitable was finally announced, the room erupted. I’ve never witnessed the outcome of an election that brought so many emotions. A woman behind us broke into tears saying that Bush had sent her to Iraq for a year and she hoped now the war would finally end. Strangers were hugging each other. People were crying, laughing, shouting. I felt myself getting choked up as I looked around the room and saw so many of my fellow Americans being overcome by emotion. Perhaps it was a symbol of our naïveté, our unwarranted hope in one man or in one man’s rhetoric. I like to think the emotions that we felt in these moments were the result of a realization that we have been going in the wrong direction. For a moment at least, we were united by a faint glimmer of hope that this could be the start of an important shift in American politics, and perhaps even in the American lifestyle. In the midst of continued racial injustice in our country, the fact that a black man even had a shot at the presidency is in itself a glowing sign of hope. As significant as this accomplishment is, this election seems to represent even more than that. For me, it represents the possibility that my country will stop using war to solve all of its disputes. We may actually start talking to our enemies again. Perhaps now, we will recognize the need to change our lifestyles…to wean ourselves from the idol of materialism and the broken ideology of individualism. Perhaps now, our image in the world will begin to be restored. For a moment yesterday morning, I think I felt something that can only be described as patriotism, a feeling I hardly recognize these days…not a patriotism that thinks America is God’s gift to the world…but rather a pride in my fellow Americans for choosing a different path from the one we have been following for the past eight years, for ignoring the calls to fear and instead recognizing the power of hope…for electing a black man, a man with a strange name and an unusual family tree to lead us during an incredibly difficult time.

Let me step back from what could be read as an overly idealistic blog entry. Of course, I realize that Obama’s win will not usher in the Kingdom of God. There will not be peace on Earth anytime soon…the hungry are still hungry, the poor are still being oppressed. If I needed any more indication of this, I only had to look around…after all, I was celebrating this election victory in an American oasis on prime real estate in downtown Kathmandu, surrounded by people who sleep on the streets…people who will never experience the luxury that resides within the walls of the American Club. Our country will continue to use violence to “defend” its interest…politics will continue to be politics. I realize that many American policies, which I believe are oppressive and sinful, will continue under the Obama administration. As a Christian, I am called to consistently resist these policies, regardless of which party is making them.

But for at least a moment yesterday morning (and perhaps for only a moment), I was an American and that was okay.