The miracle of grace...

So I have been living in Asia for over six months and today I was able to put all the pieces of everything that I've learned how to do, or found, or retaught myself (the way a rehab patient reteaches themselves) and make for lunch a ham and cheese sandwich.

I wish I had taken a picture of it: it was real bread, handmade out of a mixture of wheat flours that were given to me and some yeast that was also donated. It was real ham that was revealed to me at a store amidst all the other "ham" products that usually adorn the shelves and peoples stomachs. It was a very mild cheese that I have to bike for half an hour to buy. It was real mayonnaise that I never dreamed would taste like America to me. It was fresh lettuce that had been washed so many times it was almost limp. It was cut on the diagonal.

It was a thing of real and unique beauty, and I'm not even exaggerating.

It was delicious.

Seriously people, when I bit into that thing my whole body just relaxed. It was a miracle of grace to me. I ate it in the sunshine and washed it down with a glass of sweet iced tea Bojangles style. I know my Father loves me.

If: (conjunction) in the event that...

Indian clothes are so bad, if Buddha had been born in Tibet we would wear chupas.
-Soba (Tibetan monk of twenty years)

If Buddha had been born in Tibet he wouldn't have been Buddhist.
If I had been born in Tibet I might have been.

If I were a tiny Tibetan boy I would definitely think that the scraps of paper and bits of metal treasures that I had stuffed in the pockets of my split pants were awesome things to offer to a friend.

If I were a Tibetan nun I would be ridiculously curious about the foreigner girl in my tea house asking me how to say "fly (as in insect)" in Tibetan and might even invite her to my tiny little cell foot achingly near the peak of some mountain.

If I were a Chinese teacher I would think that my foreign co-worker was the strangest person on earth for how slowly she counts money and how frequently she insists that Chinese food is so delicious or repeats "tai ke shi le!" (it's a pity) since that's the only phrase she really knows.

If I were a Chinese person I would not realize the outpouring of love that looks like a plate of deviled eggs and tastes like a home that I could not have imagined.

If I were native to this city I would not be sitting in the semi-dark because most of my light bulbs have burnt out and I don't know where to get new ones.

If I chose not to look I would miss the small children digging "treasures" out of their pockets or wearing absurdly bright colored hats with flowers or eating hot dogs on sticks, I would fail to notice the nuns who grin shyly at me in hopes that I speak more Tibetan than I actually do, I would not have the chance to laugh at the shock on my Chinese co-workers faces when I unwittingly do something uniquely not Chinese, I would bypass the grace that is a plate of deviled eggs and take for granted that I know how and where to buy light bulbs.

If I did not know that the One who took all my shame away and beckoned me into His family loves me still and is the very one who makes every leaf green and every cloud on a bright blue sky fluffy I would be miserable.

If I had been born in Tibet I would not know that anyone took my shame away and beckoned me into their family.

If Buddha had been born in Tibet, he probably wouldn't have been Buddhist, but nevertheless, all the monks would wear chupas.

The basic moves...

You are more clever than I supposed! -Tang Xin

In Chinese chess there are seven different pieces, each one has different moves, different places it is allowed to go, different responses, different values. There are five soldiers, two knights, two cannons, two chariots, two bishops, two guards, and one general.

So, my question is: which one am I?

The soldier moves slowly, only forward one place at a time until it crosses the border than it can move right or left also, still slowly, one place at a time. In my classes we move slowly, only forward one day at time, covering one painfully basic topic after another. In my language learning I move slowly, one word at a time, mastering one pitiful phrase after another. I am a soldier.

The knight is more powerful, it can move in eight different directions in an L shape... unless something is blocking it. Then it goes no where. My spare time can be spent in many directions: maybe I will have lunch with a co-teacher, maybe I will have lunch with the grocery store family across the street: today I had lunch with both. But all it takes is a bad cold to keep me from going out at all. I am a knight.

The cannons and chariots are largely the same, moving as far as they wish horizontally or vertically on the board, with one vital exception: the cannons must work together with another piece in order to capture something. There is little I am not capable of doing to function in this city: I can shop, I can find, I can explore, I can catch a bus... but when I need to do something that requires advanced communicative skills I need another piece's help. I am a chariot. I am a cannon.

The bishop is an interesting piece. It can only move diagonally across four squares and then only on its side of the board. At first glance it appears useless and the least valuable among the pieces, but those who are wise know its worth. My life often feels like this, so little impact, so little skill, so little movement, I need to be careful lest I forget my own worth. I am a bishop.

The guard only has five possible places to move and is rarely used unless the general is threatened. It is a focused piece, with only one purpose: guard the general. I too, have a very clear purpose here. I need constantly to remind myself to be patient and protect that which has been entrusted to me. I am a guard.

The general is the piece which the whole game revolves around. The object is to capture the other sides general while leaving yours protected. It also does not move much but tends to remain constant, allowing the other pieces to work for it. Once a general is captured: game over.

One thing is certain, I am not the general. But I know who is.

And, now, I also know how to play Chinese chess.

A week in meals...

You are what you eat is a frightening proposition.
Unless you're talking about communion, in which case it is divine.

Monday

Breakfast of steamed buns dipped into butter tea (what's easier than spreading butter onto bread? Dipping it) in the company of an excited team of students ready to go on a day long hike.

Lunch was a plastic bag of steamed buns into each of which was squeezed from an accompanying plastic package some spicy vegetable matter labeled, unconvincingly, PURE. Eaten on a flat ridge of a mountain in the afternoon sun with a group of students singing a song dedicated to their English teacher.

Dinner of chicken, cheese zucchini, and mashed potatoes with a teammate providing relief from the steamed bread repetitions of the day.

Tuesday

The breakfast of the week starting today was a semi-failed attempt at cinnamon raisin biscuits. Nothing spectacular of mention, though repetive.

Lunch was a ceramic bowl filled with homemade broth, tofu, and an assortment of vegetables pulled out of the fridge and placed on the gas burner, eaten in haste as company was expected shortly.

Some refried meat momo's and leftover bean soup for dinner took care of some random things colonizing in my freezer.

Wednesday

A long walk to a tea house with a handful of giggly, hyperactive girl students resulted in a lunch of semi-cooled street potatoes overdosed on la jiao, maddening amounts of butter tea, and a plate of meat momo's which were tasty but surprisingly medium-rare. Followed with a walk around the monastery and then washed down with sweet milk tea.

Dinner was a shared plate of dumplings with a monk friend after an utterly fascinating hour and half of watching his debating. Dumplings being excellent choice of food to ruminate on the mystery and futility of such events as well as declare next week a prime hiking opportunity.

Thursday

Another crack at the meat momo's and sweet milk tea for lunch was a really satisfying experience. You know they're good when fat drips out of them and congeals in your dish of pickled radishes. You know you're company's good when you do not tire after two hours and additional random friends drop in to join you.

Dinner was a much needed plate of vitamins and minerals in the form of spinach at the restaurant that has a miraculous way of consistently making everything delicious. Eaten while correcting some papers and passing time until the next sweet milk tea extraveganza.

Friday

A dash up the street into a makeshift alley to meet a nun friend where the first course of the best fried potatoes I have ever eaten and some strange clear noodle-esqu dish was eaten on a plastic stool facing a crumbly wall. Second course was the best getuk (flour noodles in meat broth with green onions, bits of pork, and peanuts mixed in) I have ever eaten along with sweet milk tea at the tea house next door where striking dilapidation of the building is easily forgotten in light of the deliciousness of the food.

Dinner with two tiny Chinese girl co-teachers was a giant bowl of what could have been elephant bones for the size of them boiled in a broth with turnips, sea weed, cabbage, and potatoes. Finished off with some sesame filled boiled rice balls. A belly ache ensued, not from the meal, but from the near continuous laughter.

The Walrus was right...

The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings.

Bellies full of mantao and lips slick with butter tea (breakfast of champions) five students and I began our day long hike in the cool clear of a typical eight-thirty in the Lhasa spring morning.

The day went something like Walrus' conversation: dodging herds of yak-cows and motorbikes we walked singing and chatting along the road until we came to our first stop: Songtsen Gampo's tomb. Eye's carved and painted on stones, dark, low-ceiling rooms of butter lamps, incence, and rotting tangkas, blossoming peach trees, stray animals and monks, whitewash, leering gods and stale offerings, hardened tsampa bricks, rickety ladders to musty rooms of mumbling monks and rustling pages of scripture, ever the breath-taking clear view of Lhasa city from high above.

Shoes and ships and sealing wax...

A few laughs, pictures, and wrong turns to sheer drops amidst the fluttering of prayer flags got us to a place where we could rest in the dust and thorns and eat some oranges, pears, and brownies (my contribution). We clamber up and on to a small hermitage of a nearby nunnery where we are greeted by the ferocious barking of dogs and a virtually empty temple. A lone, shaven head nun unlocks an upper room for us, offering us a view of some larger than life golden statues, other dank, dingy rooms, and a drink of some cool water, said to bring luck, from a spring higher in the mountain.

Stumbling and sliding on the gravely pebbles down the mountain to a flat peak where we scare away a family of vultures and have a completely unobstructed view of the whole city makes a good place for a lunch. Mantao and pickled vegetables being the special of the day. More chatter, pictures, a Chinese song dedicated to me, and a sigh at the long way down.

Cabbages and kings...

A painfully labourious and ridiculously silly route down the mountain provides much entertainment to a group of nuns from the nearby nunnery who line up to caution us away from the certain doom to which we are slipping and point us in the direction of the path. More oranges and pears by a barely existant stream before dragging ourselves back up the hill and pushing open an unlocked door leading into the nunnery compound. Greeted by a nun whom I've had tea with before we are offered a sagging bench in the shade. Sitting, piled together on the bench, giggling and sighing and rubbing our feet, the piercing view of Lhasa almost convinces one that everything is right with the world.

A brief glance to the left at the rows of squeaky prayer wheels and piles of shoes outside of the temple from which is birthed the low moans of scripture being read quickly wipes away such false convictions.

Dim rooms of dusty fabric and dozens of shaven headed women with glassy eyes whose voices are scratchy from chanting and fingers worn from turning pages, long forgotten chambers of repeated statues, solar water boilers, potted flowers, cranky yaks, and finally on the dusty road back home.

The time has come... to talk of many things...

When and how will they ever hear His voice in the midst of all that?

Macbethian witches got nothing on the Chinese pharmacist...

So this whole week I've had a minor cold (along with all the other mess that's happened). As my nose was slowly dribbling down my face and onto my clothes, despite my every attempt to quickly stuff the crunchy Chinese brand tissues up it, a Chinese teacher friend of mine commented: "oh you are ill."

Before I had a chance to respond with a snot bubble or cough she pulls out this box of Chinese brand medicine...

A brief vignette: Chinese medicine, accurately or not, makes me think of ground up tigers claws, sharks teeth, snakes venom, creepy looking old men standing over stinking pots of some dark colored gruel, something that the witches from Macbeth would have cooked up... moving on.

... on the box, in bold green font are the numbers 666. The medicine's name.

Now I was sure that this place is trying to kill me, and, after the week I've had...

"The name of that medicine is 666?" I sputter in disbelief, frantically wracking my brain to think up any polite way of avoiding this medicine like the plague or, more accurately, like its (apparent) name .

"No," she said turning the box around, "it's 999. Have you heard of it before? It's so famous, I think will help you."

So a nice hot cup of 999 and the best nights sleep I've had all week later and I can vouch that those witches from Macbeth could probably take a hint or two from the Chinese pharmacists.

666... my brain is messed up.

Regeneration... not repair...

Did you know that healing can take one of two forms?
Regeneration (in which cells replace themselves with the same kind as were originally there)
and Repair (in which injured tissue is replaced with scar tissue)

So people, the war rages on, but I am comforted by healing... the regeneration kind. I've got no time or place for scar tissue.

What I have needed is the security of knowing that I am safe and still in the quiet of His lap while the rest of the world in its tumult shudders on.

Here is a song that reminds me of just that, I'm sure you're familiar with it:

He is my shepherd, there is nothing I lack.
He lets me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He renews my life.
He leads me along the right paths for His name's sake.
Even when I go through the darkest valley I fear no danger for He is with me.
His rod and staff, they comfort me.
He prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies.
He anoints my head with oil and my cup overflows.
Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life.
And I will dwell in His house forever.

So I was knocked off my feet but am up again. Thanks for your thoughts.