The Lion

Look! The Lion from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has been victorious...

I stretched my legs out in front of me and leaned back on my hands. A rooftop on the rooftop of the world being an ideal location to let a few days sweep over you like crinkled yellow leaves somersaulting over the sidewalk below. The sun dipped behind the darkened mountain and I remembered...

An empty tea house save for a handful of drowsy flies and a teacher and a student. Two bowls of noodles licked nearly clean bridging the minute expanse of the wobbly wooden table between us. A glum looking child squeezing the breath out of a matted kitten in the corner. She reached in her bag and hands me back a precious Book, that I had had no intention of getting back. Knowing she couldn't have completed it in only a few short weeks I asked what she thought, why she was giving it back.
I showed it to my uncle she said. It was the only response I needed knowing that her uncle was a long established monk who she honors as the wisest person in all the world. I fingered the paper cup of cooled soggy tea leaves and suddenly realized that this girl's journey was far longer and more crowded with family members than I had previously understood.

The clouds bright with the setting sun floated over the rim of the darkening mountain like a wave of light crashing on the shores of shadow. They spilled over the edge and dissolved into spray that left the soft blue sky clear and tranquil as a sigh.

I opened the overly organized email inbox only to be greeted by a lengthy email from a colleague I only worked with my first semester ever in Lhasa. Back before I could discern which shops were grocery stores and which ones were restaurants. Back before butter tea was a reality. Before I stopped being shocked at where I was when I woke up every morning. Surprised at the seemingly rapid updates in his life I was more shocked to read this: What you have done in Lhasa explains what love is. Love is sacrifice to other people. Like the lion in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia. The large black font swam before my eyes and I read the lines over and over again knowing that this man believed 'only in nature' and yet that he had access to greater truth than he could ever have known.

The mountains went from a burnt orange to a deep purple to a dusky gray black and one tiny neon pink cloud danced alone in the pale sky. A sliver of moon made a delicate appearance and a cool breeze rustled the nearby trees and brought the sound of a woman's voice to my ear.

I had hardly knocked at the door to my colleagues apartment on the floor below me before it opened and we sat down to chat and drink a translucent red tea. The talk began of his holiday trip and wound its way to his planned retirement, looped through a few questions of history, and meandered towards a Book he'd been given from a teacher ages ago, pulled down from a nearby shelf, obviously nearly untouched but left on the table for the time being. His halting speech filled the room as he claimed that the belief of this city was so selfish, only for one people group, at least mine was open for anyone, indeed everyone. Even for you I affirmed as his oddly contagious laughter sloshed the tea in his tiny glass.

Up there on the rooftop the breeze was getting cooler but the roof remained warm and I stayed a little longer not wanting to miss a moment or a stroke of the masterful though mute performance that spun and dissolved over the tips of the jagged mountains, now nearly completely black in shadow.

My computer had never been in more rustic conditions as I proped it up on a wooden board which also balanced cups of sweet milk tea and I listened and watched as a long time monk friend scrolled through pictures of his holiday travels. Pictures of rainbows, and snow, and lakes, and mountains, and monasteries, and flags, and broken statue remains draped in katas flashed on the screen. When the faucet of picture stories had run dry we remained at the shady table and chatted while we finished the last of the tea. In response to something I remain unable to pinpoint he stared across the rickety board at me and scolded me for not thinking of myself enough and began to use my name as an adjective. You are too Kelly, always your mind is on Him, should you think of your own self this is best. And I laughed and reminded him of all the times he had called me selfish because I refused to participate in the detachment theories of his belief. He shook his head: You are too Kelly.

That evening I had walked slowly back through the beautiful weather past children scream giggling on playground equipment, past students with covered faces sleeping in the grass, past men urinating on the nearby fence... and nearly right into a hobbled Tibetan woman walking the opposite direction. Her face was a shadow to me as mine was a flash of bright to her and as we passed I heard her call out in a voice that sounded like ancient waters and could have called stones from their slumber: Oh---kay. My hand instinctively covered my grinning mouth as I thought: she's right, it is okay.

Lhasa sunsets are like a symphony playing a lullaby. Rich but gentle. Fireworks in slow motion, a swirl of dark colored paint on the canvas of the sky, in my greed to look ever upwards taking it all in the filth terror below subsides to a nearly forgettable moan. And I remembered...

Look! The Lion from the tribe of Judah... Then I saw one like a slaughtered Lamb.