Finding Momentum

The most dif­fi­cult (and yet I sus­pect one of the most reward­ing) part of this year’s intern­ship has been to sim­ply sit with some­body and lis­ten. Yes, it’s been mad­den­ingly dif­fi­cult with Betty, the lady pic­tured above.

Ask any­body; I’m a busy, hyper-scheduled guy. But to lis­ten to some­one is to really allow your­self to be incon­ve­nienced. To let them stop you in the mid­dle of a busy hall and hear them out, to let some­one know that their ram­blings about the most inane things really mat­ter to you can really com­mu­ni­cate care.

But how many peo­ple in our Amer­i­can cul­ture really care to lis­ten to one another? Or are we always run­ning place to place, never stop­ping long enough to talk and hear each other out? Per­haps we’re too busy shout­ing over each other.

More often than not, I’m half-listening to Betty and half-plotting my escape from the con­ver­sa­tion (she is mas­ter­ful at grab­bing for your ear and not let­ting go). But what if, as Carol John­ston once told us, we decided to lis­ten, really lis­ten with undi­vided atten­tion, until the other per­son has noth­ing left to say?

Betty and I have this love-hate rela­tion­ship. I think she fights with me more than any other per­son. “I feel like you just want to dump me off at my place, like a piece of trash” she snarled at me one week. I was so pissed. But it’s true; when I talk to her I dream of not talk­ing to her. I don’t value her opin­ions like I would a friend’s. (And she smells).

But I’ve been chal­lenged to lis­ten to her and see past her tox­i­c­ity and defenses. Love can cover a mul­ti­tude of (my obnox­ious) sins. I sat down with her one after­noon and did my best to hear her out for an hour. She was so pleas­ant that it scared me. People are say­ing that she’s chang­ing. Maybe it’s because some peo­ple in my com­mu­nity are really mak­ing an effort to sit down with her, share a meal, give a ride, and lend an ear.

I remem­ber,

Feel­ing the weight of heart­break­ing silence slip through my fin­gers, pool­ing at our feet. It is thicker than water. Discovering that love must be coaxed & wooed, and bear­ing the frus­tra­tion of not know­ing how. The pain of the real self left undis­cov­ered; the throb­bing, sting­ing dis­ap­point­ment you feel as a boy. The ter­ror of shame that turns to bewil­der­ing anger. The lone­li­ness you can know only when trapped in cor­ners. The embar­rass­ment of chop­ping an onion while every­body knows some­thing you don’t. A sad­ness that only a city knows.

and,

The light­ness of a yellow-tinted mem­ory. A B-flat tune, laugh­ter, kind of blue. Bicy­cles, blitz­ing by. A father’s famil­iar voice and recall­ing brush­ing my dad’s rough 5 o’clock chin with my cheek as a boy, feel­ing its strength. The dewy damp­ness of her hair, like red­woods after a rain. The way you can still chuckle from a far­away mem­ory, fad­ing at the edges. Free­dom is around the cor­ner. The rough-hewn edges of the rugged cross. Yah­weh is my father, he heard it once said then again, over and over. The gasps of chil­dren when they visit the zoo. The blueish melody of redemp­tion songs. The solemn assem­bly of friends gath­ered in fire­light. The noo­dles need more basil. Our tears are thicker than water, but they soon turn to a sort of flab­ber­gasted joy.

you have come to us in royal fash­ion, your slip­pers tri­umphantly slap­ping against gravel, your ele­gant fin­gers drum­ming against our win­dow­panes. you keep up a good pace, sir. you glide along­side our car and smile your patented, ring­mas­ter smile. we watch you through one-way tinted glass and air-conditioned cab­ins. you are a curi­ous spec­i­men, a caged ani­mal proudly lop­ing the length of your alley.

at this point you would expect us to roll down our win­dows and expose our for­eign skin, sali­vat­ing mouths and lust­ing faces. you have girls for us, young ones whose vir­gini­ties and sex­ual prowess you tout loudly, in bro­ken phrases and sentences.

you know us; men who come through for inno­cent inter­ludes and escapades. we want to feel flesh against ours and imag­ine the whis­pers of past loves. oth­ers will inhale deeply of the chok­ing, snarling scent of lust, leav­ing inkdrops sus­pended in an ever-darkening pool of water.

you know how des­per­ately we pre­fer to believe that these girls want us. we oper­ate in fan­tasies. you pro­vide them for us; you are the sul­tan of sex and the pur­veyor of plea­sure. you feel pow­er­ful: the kick you get in offer­ing the ser­vices of your women is unmatched by the wide-eyed grins of your cus­tomers. men now boys, they are press­ing their faces against glass, drool­ing over shiny toys in store­front windows.

doggedly you chase after cars. or they run after you. your fin­ger­nails clack against the win­dow­panes and offer what you know your cus­tomers want, even if they don’t will­ingly real­ize it yet. you need us. you love us. you resent us.

you resent us because we come from out­side and we take your women. you’ve seen how we use them like cheap change. but you too have participated.

you are not your­self. you grew up in a rust­ing city, its long, ram­bling cor­ri­dors lock­ing you in to your quarter-peso life. your life has never been easy. this is the only way you know how to sur­vive in this rot­ting place. you know it too, but to see your girls as human is exquis­itely painful. they hold a mir­ror to you and at the cor­ners you can make out the crum­bling images of your sis­ter and your mother.

you pre­tend not to notice how the girls thicken after each ses­sion. quickly they become armored fortresses, silk but­tresses over bronzed skin. it is too humid here; you can­not keep the patina from run­ning down their shoulders.

Eric and Dr. Reuben, a photo by andrewhao on Flickr.

Eric shakes hands with Dr. Reuben, the tribal chief of the Mamanwa vil­lage we vis­ited on the island of Min­d­i­nao. We donated some funds to help the con­struc­tion of a san­i­ta­tion system.

It star­tled me because I actu­ally felt it last night, the groan­ing of a city. Car­los’ voice expressed it best, a wail that shook the walls: Oh / how he loves us oh / how he loves us and I felt like crying.

Tonight it was there again as we ran with the street kids. Rugby boys, they call them, the dirt-caked home­less kids of the city who sniff Rugby-brand glue to for­get the pangs of hunger in their bel­lies. One of the boys has taken a lik­ing to me and has a habit of fly­ing at me and land­ing square on my back. He perches on the shoul­ders of another boy and launches up, up, and away…

I want to wail, but I can’t be heard over the singing of men and women proph­esy­ing over the boys in Cebuano: Your Father loves you; your Father has pre­pared a house for you where there will be no more pain. Hear the voice of your Father… The boys are lying on the ground, rest­ing, wrestling, fes­ter­ing, swel­ter­ing. They sing, too, pok­ing each other in between refrains.

I’ve seen this some­where before. A dream? A crowded traf­fic cir­cle, bright casino lights, the yel­low cast of a sodium street­lamp, the swel­ter­ing heat. Twenty street kids, home­less men and women, an even-larger fam­ily sur­round­ing them, and the songs. A song, their hearts, the traf­fic cir­cle, the heart of the city, the chil­dren, the heart of the Father, their songs for the Father. They sing, I weep. I’ve had this dream once before. Do the kids dream?

The con­gre­ga­tion that we are with is also pray­ing and lis­ten­ing. They are bent over next to each child as they whis­per into their ears. A man not much younger than I trans­lates for me: he said thank you God for heal­ing my brother, or that guy said thank you God for being with me another day. I look over and Eric is cradling a girl who has fallen asleep in his arms. Zach is engrossed in a con­ver­sa­tion with an old man. Ken car­ries a boy on his shoul­ders. We serve rice and pork stew slowly. I wield my ladle with slow, mea­sured strokes in the broth. As it dis­ap­pears I panic and pray harder.

What is this, Jesus? Some­thing snaps and I want to cry; it’s been so long since I’ve felt this close to the Father. A dream buried from years ago resur­faces and wrecks me tonight. The city groans where the chil­dren sleep. I strain to lis­ten; lis­ten, can you hear? They are being birthed. Nobody wants to hold these chil­dren. Who will name them–the boy lands on my back and knocks the wind out of me–when we leave? Hurry, the chil­dren are arriv­ing. Come and lis­ten to their groans. The Father is close, and he has pre­pared them a home in his city.

Yes­ter­day we walked the slum vil­lage on the out­skirts of town: Pasil. It was over­whelm­ing: the crowded alleys burst­ing at the seams with noise, garbage, teem­ing life. The men are giv­ing us resent­ful looks, send­ing us hos­tile mes­sages with their eyes. The women are call­ing out to us–one grabs Zach’s hand and walks with him hand-in-hand for a few steps. He recoils and she laughs, walk­ing away with glim­mer­ing eyes.

Dave tells us to keep our eyes peeled down the alleys. I try to with side­long glances, but it’s hard to do so with­out appear­ing con­spic­u­ous. But I do and note that the dark side alleys run deep, giv­ing tes­ta­ment to the sheer den­sity and scope of this city within a city.

I’m intensely self-conscious. It’s over­whelm­ing; street kids hang­ing onto our pock­ets (we’ve filled them with candy, and I find that my pocket has been sliced open already). They’re every­where, smoth­er­ing me with their hands, fight­ing each other for the sweets. They’re loud, intense, joy­ful, clam­orous, direct (“hey! give me money!”). God, do I have a cat­e­gory for this?

I find myself walk­ing through the alleys with a steely gaze, a half-smile plas­tered on my face. I’ve expe­ri­enced parts of this before, some­where, but never all at once. I won­der how I’m per­ceived. A West­ern male doesn’t just traipse into this part of town with­out want­ing some­thing from it. Dave tells us that if we walked here at night, our recep­tion would have been far more chilly.

Instead we get a blis­ter­ing, smoth­er­ing wel­come, a tidal wave of heat, smog, clam­or­ing hands, babies’ cries, game show theme music, march­ing bands, bas­ket­ball uni­forms, fish rot­ting in the heat that you can almost feel them dis­in­te­grate as you walk by the markets. A drunken man I can­not see is singing in a karaoke shack, and a woman is gig­gling out­side as she is play­fully dragged back in; Ken presses more candy into my hands to give away. We barely squeeze by a cou­ple of garbage trucks rum­bling through a side street; a kid loses a san­dal. A hand grabs mine, and I shake it off.

Here’s a few fun pictures:

I’m sit­ting in the ter­mi­nal at SFO and about to board and it’s finally hit­ting me–here we go. A few of you may have got­ten this, but here’s a quick recap of what I’m going to spend the next few weeks doing:

It’s like the evenings I spent in Cen­tral Asia years ago, sprawled on a stiff hotel bed and jour­nal­ing until dark­ness fell. In my head­phones the refrain would play: in your pres­ence, all fear is gone, in your pres­ence… And it’s all I could cling to, because that month-or-so in that land was one of the loneli­est I’ve had.

That first week, as I was climb­ing onto the bus, a trio of teenage boys rushed off and shoved me to the side as they exited, so close you could feel the heat radi­at­ing off their brows. I thought them rude, but then caught myself and reminded myself that they’re just boys. The thought lasted about two sec­onds; that was the first time I had my wal­let stolen.

I still think about the feel­ing of Sosho and I crammed in the back of the bus, clutch­ing our bags tight (myself, in par­tic­u­lar), watch­ing the spires of mosques pass by and watch­ing Mus­lims pray on the side­walks dur­ing after­noon prayers, their fore­heads pressed into the con­crete and lips mov­ing in fer­vent prayer. I remem­ber see­ing a dis­eased boy, his arms both ampu­tated and his face marked with sweat and soot, plead­ing with his eyes for his throat was parched. Our Mus­lim friends were gen­er­ous: they gave alms to the poor, they believed Allah would reward them for their generosity.

The city is one of the most pol­luted cities in the world; it lies in a dry val­ley and is reputed as the most land­locked city in the world. Soot and ash from sur­round­ing fac­to­ries linger over us in a haze. Day by day, thou­sands of new immi­grants arrive by train. The city is explod­ing; every­body is cov­ered in soot; it is hot; tem­pers flare, a bus tire explodes and the peo­ple begrudg­ingly walk off the bus and wait for another to come along.

I also remem­ber wan­der­ing the parks of that city, and watch­ing the peo­ple mill about, their faces blank (as strangers gen­er­ally are to other strangers), and try­ing to think about God but con­stantly being inter­rupted by the heat and smog, thoughts flit­ting back and forth from prayer to a red bean pop­si­cle (glory!).

We would hear sto­ries of bus­loads of South Korean tourists who would come into the city. One of the mis­sion­ar­ies told us that they were actu­ally fol­low­ers of the Way, who would cir­cle the great square in the cen­ter of the city and blan­ket it with prayers. She knew because she would see them walk about, their mouths mov­ing inaudi­bly and their eyes locked onto the heart of the city and its peo­ple. She would see them and her heart would explode and she told us that she would want to shout we’re here! we fol­low the Way too!

The weather here is impetu­ous; one day it’ll be 80 degrees and in the evening it’ll be below freez­ing and snow­ing. It’s much like the food, burst­ing with spices and sea­son­ings and cooled with a dol­lop of frosty yogurt. The food, oh, I still do dream about it, the lag­man and lamb kebabs, the feel­ing of grow­ing dizzier with the sights and smells of the food stalls at the bazaars.

I wasn’t very spiritually-minded on that trip, and I felt that God knew it was okay. I couldn’t shake my home­sick­ness on days when I’d want to run from the oppres­sive heat, when the blath­er­ing of denizens would take its toll on my patience, and my stom­ach would rebel at the stream of for­eign food I kept try­ing to feed it with. But still, there was that feeling—

It’s like the morn­ings I’d take a jog out onto the deserted streets, watch­ing the sun rise and hear­ing the burst of an oven ignit­ing, the flap­ping of pigeon wings, the dis­tant car horn and the slight hum of tow­er­ing cranes, unof­fi­cial city guardians. And though I couldn’t shake the home­sick­ness, I knew I was in God’s pres­ence. Even today, I look back and know I was with the one they call Allah. I’d have these visions of his grace gath­er­ing in storm clouds and falling like rain, clear­ing the air, turn­ing streets into creeks and sprout­ing trees on their banks.

Soon the ash would fill my lungs and force me, cough­ing, to turn around and crawl back into bed.

The more I stay here the more I real­ize that I am tired, I am self­ish, I am resent­ful. I am being changed–yes–by enter­ing the lives of peo­ple in poverty and see­ing the grace of being invited into their lives. Yes, I am learn­ing from them a sim­ple faith and a sim­ple life. But it is dif­fi­cult, and it’s a place I do not know how to inhabit.

I don’t know how to give grace to the peo­ple who drink on our doorsteps. I get resent­ful of peo­ple who have enti­tle­ment atti­tudes, and sense a creep­ing sense of dread of answer­ing the door­bell to give food to folks who ask for it. I’m tired of clean­ing up human shit from our side­walks and park­ing lot. I’ve come to real­ize that my biggest fear is that I will anni­hi­late myself in ser­vice, deeds, good works and on top of that noth­ing will change.

Once Dave and I busted out onto the entrance­way where home­less folks sleep on our doorstep because they were mak­ing a drunken racket. We yelled at them, hard: pointed at their beer bot­tles–don’t you ever drink on our doorstep again!–ges­tic­u­lat­ing angrily, adren­a­line flar­ing–don’t you lie to me! You can’t sleep here any­more. Yes, it was a power trip. No, we couldn’t tol­er­ate the noise and racket they were putting up. Yes, they were annoy­ing the entire neigh­bor­hood. No, we weren’t doing it very lov­ingly. Who’s right? What was the right thing to do? Where was Jesus, and what would he have done?

They returned the next night.

I think we roman­ti­cize urban min­istry some­times, serv­ing the poor, but have for­got­ten to count the cost. I often feel like that rich young ruler who, hav­ing heard Jesus’ call to sell his pos­ses­sions and leave a com­fort­able life, leaves sad. Because hon­estly, I do not know if I want to be here.

Lord, help me. Jesus, show me where you are right here, right now. I don’t like dwelling in the ten­sion of the bro­ken­ness of my neigh­bor­hood and the peace that is far away, already promised but not yet here. I know the answer is some­where in hear­ing the inner voice of Love, in sim­ply being a son and being Loved. Right now, I just feel stuck.

Last night I went back home to the quiet streets of Saratoga and I knew I couldn’t go back. It didn’t feel real. But I don’t want to stay here either, swim­ming through the garbage in my soul and not know­ing how to be well. Do I want to be well?, the Healer asks. Yes, but help my unbelief.