Learning violence

I was laying down in my room a few hours ago when I heard a kid speaking in an intimidating manner.  Aggressive speech is not unusual, so I ignored it.  Seconds later, a neighbor kid called out for me twice.  I hurried over and found an older boy holding down my neighbor (who is around 7-8 years old) and trying to cover his mouth.  My neighbor looked quite distressed.  The older boy let go when he saw me and my neighbor ran off to his place.

The kids in our neighborhood can be really violent.  Boys fight a lot, often for play.  But just as often I'll see an older child hitting, pulling, or hurting a younger child, even a baby.  I try to say something whenever I can, which appears to have a little bit of shock value that stops them for now.  It's disturbing to realize how often it goes on.

They learn this at an early age.  Striking is a common punishment that parents inflict on children here, even very young ones.  And children are taught from an early age to strike something that hurts them.  For example, when a toddler runs into a chair and hurts himself, the parents will get him to hit the chair so he'll feel better.  Unsurprisingly, you will often see such young kids repeatedly striking their parents, other adults, and siblings - and they'll get away with it until they reach the age where the adults stop thinking it's cute and hit them back.  Once the kids get a little older, they use it as a tool to control younger kids who can't hit back.

The whole trend really bothers me.  It reminds me of studies in America which show that a huge number of child abusers were also abused as children.  If the only form of problem-solving you've ever been taught is physical violence, then physical violence is what you will express.  Especially if you've been taught that physical violence is what bigger, stronger authority figures use to get their way - then you'll be anxiously waiting until you're bigger and stronger enough to get your way as well.

Of course, it's not just parents that we learn this lesson from.  On an international level, bigger, stronger nations are just as keen to use violence and the threat of violence in order to get their way.  In fact, not only do they use violence as an important means of getting their way, they also keep reminding their citizens that they must keep the nation as militarily powerful as possible so that they can continue to get their way.  At the same time, they hope to keep other nations weaker.  Is it the slightest bit surprising that some of the weaker nations look at the biggest, strongest nations, those using violence to get their way, and yearn for the day when they can have the scariest weapons so that they can get their way too?

Commotion

There's a guy in our community who suffers from mental illness.  He sits near a storefront just a few feet from my friends' room.  When he's not doing well, he yells incoherently and makes motions with his head.  It looks like he's suffering.  At times my friend will sit next to him and try to talk.  He does not communicate back, but it does seem to calm him.  We had never seen anyone else try to communicate with him.  Someone cuts his hair on occasion though, and somehow he gets food.

A couple days ago there was a major festival in our community.  I decided to wander out and get some of the unique Eid food that was being sold.  While I was out among the crowds, I noticed a commotion, and then saw our mentally ill friend get up and run.  A gang of children chased him.  My heart sank.  From what I could tell, the children had crowded around him and were purposely taunting him.  I went after them to try to keep them away and give him a little peace, but he managed to outrun them and the children seemed to disperse.  I went back and got some food.

About the time I finished my food, I head a commotion again.  The man was standing on the top of the divider in the middle of the street, screaming in agony.  Children were once again following and taunting him.  I think some were throwing rocks.  I saw that some older youth were involved, and anger got the better of me.  I ran up to them and raised my voice in Hindi/Urdu.  "What are you doing?"  "Why?"

They stopped, looked confused, and tried to explain to me that the guy was crazy.  That didn't placate me.

"I know!"  "So?'  "Would God be happy with what you're doing right now?"  I continued expressing my upsetness at them, sometimes switching into English when my limited Hindi/Urdu vocabulary failed me.  The youth started to explain that they didn't speak English, to which I responded (in Hindi) that I knew they understood me anyway.  Still, they went off a little ways and brought back a guy I'd never seen before who spoke a little English.  He listened to them explain what they wanted to get across to me.

Then he turned to me, said, "They are illiterate fools," and walked away.

I don't know what to do for our mentally ill friend.  The resources to help him don't appear to exist here (heck, the resources to help people like him in America barely even exist).  The children who are taunting him truly don't know any better.  I should try to spend more time with him, but I'm not sure if that will do much, especially as limited as my language is.  I feel for him, a lot.  And I know that there are many others like him, with far more people around willing to taunt what they don't understand rather than there are people willing to stand by someone they love.

Changing the blog name

I haven't posted on this blog in a long time.  That's unfortunate, because I've had much to share and few people to talk to about it.  One step I'm going to take in a better direction is to change the name of the blog (something I've wanted to do for at least a year) and to redirect the purpose a little.

I'm changing the name of the blog to "Servant, Learner, Storyteller."  Too often people who are entering a new culture with the idea of "helping" the people try to come in as the leader, the teacher, and the judge.  That can lead to a negative reception among the people they're trying to help.  And even those who are receptive can then fall into a position of dependency, of continued reliance on the foreigner to lead them, teach them, and tell them what they're doing wrong.  We want our friends here to get the respect they deserve, we want to see something more sustainable happen among them, and so we want to try a different model.  Hence the name of the blog.

From now on the blog is going to focus on stories of our experiences (and eventually our service) here, with occasional lessons that I'm learning.  I am going to move most of my theological reflections and other thoughts to another blog.  I'll post the name and URL when I create it.

I should also note that I have no connection to the organization called "World Servants".  I found out that they use the same motto, but though I'm sure we got the idea from the same source, I hadn't even heard of them until I googled the motto just now.

And they passed by on the other side...

The three of us walked along the street on a hot afternoon.  We were avoiding the 70 rupees it would cost us to take two bicycle rickshaws over that stretch.  Temperatures were over 100 degrees with high humidity, but it wasn't all that far to walk and we were traveling between two well-fanned homes.  Still, a couple in a car pulled over next to us.  "Where are you going?  Would you like a lift?"  We considered it, but declined.

As the couple pulled away, I looked at the other two people who had been walking right next to us.  A man and woman approximately the same age as us, but clearly poorer by their clothes.  Each held a baby in their arms.  They were trying to use small pieces of cloth to shelter the babies from the sun.  They were not offered a lift.

I know that this is not the only place in the world where wealthy-looking people are offered favors at the same time that more needy but poor-looking people are ignored.  Who do we offer rides to when we are driving down the street?  Who do we not even notice is there?

Transportation in the City: Photo edition

About a month ago I did a post on the different types of transportation we see here. I decided to collect a little photo evidence, so here goes. Nearly all of these photos were taken on the same short stretch of the same road, during a low-traffic time. If you read the last post, you know I could have included even more.



Horse-drawn cart

Motorcycle

Tricycle Cart

Bicycle

Auto-rickshaw

Personal SUV

Gigantic three-wheeler

Mini-bus

Bicycle Rickshaw

Bus

Garmin Sewa (the type we fit 20 people in)

Pedestrian

Pony

Water-buffalo drawn cart

Push-cart

A nice picture with a little variety

Ox-drawn carts and SUVs get stuck in traffic just the same

Sabbath day

Once a week we are required to take a day off.  It is a good idea.  How we spend the day is up to us.  This was my latest Sabbath day:

8:30am: We sleep in and have a late breakfast.  My plan is to spend the day doing online Bible studies, emailing friends, and checking sports scores.  Before I start, wet laundry is hung over the computer, disabling it for the day.  Time for a new plan.

10:30am: I take off on a walk.  Several miles away is a park that I’m told is quiet.  On the way I see guys lying on the sidewalk, some of whom are not in a good state.  The thought comes to mind that these are the kind of guys the Missionaries of Charity look to care for.  They stay on my mind and I feel for them.  But I walk past and head towards the park.

I realize I have taken the wrong bridge across the river, and end up in a trashed area where a few Indians are bathing.  I make friends with a water buffalo and watch birds.

Noon: I decide that the park is to the south.  On the way I enter a concrete structure and notice middle-class Indians on a bench.  I almost walk past them before they call me over and point out that I am walking through a ghat (Hindu crematorium).  In front of us are bodies in various stages of burning, and I had walked past three who had been burned earlier in the day.  I am embarrassed, but they don’t seem to mind.  The men ask me to sit down with them.  First they ask me questions, then share about themselves and about the work colleague who had died.  O.P. gives me a reference to a friend of his who teaches Hindi to foreigners, and we exchange numbers.  I say goodbye and turn back the way I came.

12:30pm: As I walk back, I pass an older man picking through trash.  He pleads for me to give him something.  I tell him that I can’t and walk by.  Thoughts race through my mind, trying to figure out why I just did that.  I can’t come up with a justifiable reason, so I turn and walk back, handing him 50 rupees.  That’s not enough for an American or wealthy Indian to even buy a coffee – this guy will stretch it over 4-6 meals if he’s careful.  Internally, I pray for him.

I make my way around the ghat, but first must pass through an open area where guys are hanging out in the afternoon shade.   A monkey walks along the wall.  Several men on a mat call me over, and I sit down.  One speaks English.  They ask me about my time in Delhi.  They tell me that this is a government homeless camp.  Dhinender shows me their home – a temporary tin building.  Inside is a television, water, and sleeping mats for 40-50 guys.  The paid employee manning the door looks at me oddly, but doesn’t say anything.  Dhinender was eager to show me the setup, but finds little to say about it and we go back.  There are several of these temporary buildings in a row.

Back with the guys, they offer me water and cigarettes.  They tell me that they start playing games around 4pm – cricket, volleyball, chess.  I say I’ll play some other day, but today my wife expects me home.  They try to convince me, and then to schedule an exact day when I’ll come back.  My schedule is packed, and I can’t give them a time.  I say my goodbyes and continue wandering.

1:30pm: After a long walk past the ghat, a historical site, a small bustee, and a stretch of scrub, I reach the park.  It is almost empty on this hot day – perhaps 50 Indians spread over its narrow mile, and no farengii besides myself.  Some men and women are laboring in a canal.  A group of boys and young men are playing in the lake.  The park is quiet compared to my bustee, but so was the riverside, the ghat, the homeless camp, and the scrub.  Halfway down, a man on the other side of the lake calls out to me and insists that I come over.  I try to mime that the lake is in the way, but he insists and shows me across.  We sit down and talk about our lives in Hindi.  He delivers clothing with his small vehicle.  He does not have positive things to say about the bustee where I live.  We talk about planes and fishing.  After a time together sitting in the shade, I bid my farewell.

2:30pm: On the way back I take the correct bridge.  Unfortunately, large sections of the footpath lie on the bottom of the river.  It feels like a very long crossing as I pick my way past the bad parts and wonder whether I’m the largest guy who has ever walked on the “good” parts.  I snap a few photos.  

Late afternoon: I arrive home earlier than I expected, having experienced more than I expected.  I spend the next few hours taking a bucket bath, washing clothes, tending to the drying computer, tidying up, studying Hindi.  The day’s encounters play through my mind.  What have I learned today?  Why did I meet the guys that I did?  With all the pain that I saw, why did a day like today give me so much energy to keep on striving here?

I am weak

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

When I first visited India in 2004, I got sick three times in 2.5 weeks.  Everywhere we went I made a mental note of every toilet I saw, knowing I might soon have to use it.  During one bad episode I wasn't able to lock the door in time and was walked in on in a humiliating moment.  Late in the trip I just stopped eating for over two days, feeling that it was easier to cope that way.

And through all that, there was a distinct point two weeks in when I realized, "Even if it was like this all the time, it'd still be worth it to be here."

In six weeks in India last year I didn't get sick once, and in an entire year in Thailand I only had one short illness.  Fool's gold.

One week into life here in the slum, I started getting sick.  It lasted a week, followed by a week of semi-recovery, and then I was blasted again last night by another malady.  I am weak.

That's not the only way I feel my weakness here.  We are babies in the language, and I am significantly worse at it than the rest of my team.  We make cultural errors.  We don't know how to get around.  We clean wrong, bathe wrong, dress wrong.  We have to rely on others to teach us everything.  We have to learn to be okay with being humble, often.

And in our weakness, we are strong.

We didn't come as teachers, as leaders, as judges.  We come to learn and to serve, and to share a story.  Those of roles of humility.  The weaker I realize I am, the better I will fit into them.

The best seat at the feast

They gave us uncertain looks, but when I said we were Coptic Orthodox we received a warm welcome.  In fact, I was asked to come up to the front of church and give a short word to the congregation about our purposes in the country, along with a hymn from the Coptic Church.   The congregation was then told that we would be the guests of honor at the Feast of St. John that was held after church, and we were urged to sit down in two chairs while most of the congregation stood and ate and made due with the surfaces available.

During that feast, a small band of dark-skinned Indians in threadbare clothes approached the church.  Most were kids.  They got as far as the gate and looked like they really thought they might get food, but then they were shooed away empty-handed.  I watched this from my seat of honor, with more food than I could even get down.  I didn’t do anything.

My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?  For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and becomes judges with evil thoughts?  Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters.  Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?  But you have dishonored the poor.  Is it not the rich who oppress you?  Is it not they who drag you into court?  Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you?  You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love you neighbor as yourself.”  But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors.

“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friend or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid.  But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.  And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Before we get too judgmental, self-apply.  Is our church even located in a place where there are poor people across the street to invite inside?  Out of sight does not equal out of mind.

Transportation in the City

We categorize the visitors according to their noise…”quiet trains”, “helicopter trains”, “spaceship trains”.  They are felt as much as heard, shaking the walls, blasting on their horns at all hours day and night.  Strangely, they no longer disturb our sleep.  You can get used to almost anything.  Right at this moment, there is a “quiet train” going by.  Even the quiet ones shake the house a little, but they’re smooth, and this one isn’t even using its horn on this pass.  Five minutes later, here comes another train, blaring its horn twice.  And it’s a bloody spaceship train.  A long one.  Rosey is rustling a little bit, but I don’t think she’s woken up.  And right away here’s another one.  We need a name for this type…it’s not as loud as a spaceship train, and lacks the rhythmic pounding of the helicopter train.  It probably should be a “jet train” because of the way the sound changes as it flies past us.  She didn’t even stir at that one.

The 6 of us traveling to meet the in-laws made up less than a third of the people in the ACE Magic.  The most impressive part wasn’t that 20 people were traveling in a car smaller than most American SUVs, but that two of those twenty were sitting on the window of the open car door as it hung out into traffic.  Now that’s how you get a long ride down to 10 rupees a head.   Of course, that’s also how you get passed by a horse when traveling uphill….

Speaking of horses, this city may have more forms of transport than any other on Earth.  Just within the few hundred feet outside my window, I’m aware of:

Old fossil fuel-burning trains, electric trains on the same rails, and modern light-rail on their own tracks.

Buses of all types, small semi-buses called “Maxi-cabs”, and those Magics I mentioned above.

More unique varieties of cargo trucks than I’ve seen anywhere.

All types of passenger SUVs, vans, trucks, cars, etc.

Three-wheeled vehicles the size of passenger cars.

All types of motorcycles, tons of bicycles, and even a few hand-pedal powered carts.

Bicycle rickshaws and “auto-rickshaws” that are gas-powered.

Tractor-pulled carts, every kind of bicycle-pulled cart you can imagine, and even human-pulled carts.

Horse-pulled carts, ox-pulled carts (usually big Brahmans), and water buffalo-pulled carts.

Riders on horseback, and tiny ponies carrying loads (and even people!) on their backs.

Pedestrians.

There are probably more things that I forgot.  The best part is that all of these (other than the trains) are sharing the same road at the same time.  Today we watched in awe as a horse charged down the street at full speed while pulling a cart.  The man with the reigns stood upright in the cart, urging it to go faster, like an extra from “Ben Hur” escaped into the 21^st century.  Bicycles, pedestrians, motorcycles, autorickshaws, and passengers cars did their best to keep from being trampled.  

Camels and Needles

Two months ago, a good friend sent the following question over email:

I've been mulling something over lately, and wanted to hear your take on the subject.  In particular, I've been thinking on the passage from Matthew: "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”  I've heard plenty of people trying to interpret this verse in such a way as to weaken it, but I personally feel that it should be taken literally.   While I certainly am not wealthy by American standards, according to the Global Rich List I am one of the richest men on earth, and this worries me.  My question for you is: If the people of the United States are so fantastically rich, is America a nation of the damned?

I spent five days thinking about his question before I replied.  It's a significant question.  I disagreed with a few things about how the question was posed, but there was something incredibly important at its core.

When I did reply, I tried to detail out not just my own "answer" to his question (though I didn't feel it should be answered directly), but also why I thought things were this way.  Why does Christ tell this parable, and other things like it?  Why does a similar theme appear at several points in the Bible?  Why is the world the way it is, why is America the way it is, how would the Kingdom of God look different, and what should we be doing about it?  I put a lot of myself into that reply.

My friend had a positive reaction to what I had to say.  I asked him if I could reproduce his question on my blog, and he said he'd be flattered.  But....I couldn't do it for a long time.  I couldn't figure out the right time to post it.  And so I procrastinated.  Now I'm running out of time to procrastinate, so here it is.

I'm not going to post my reply.  If you're interested, I want to send it to you.  My reply isn't the most important thing anyway, unless you really trust my "wisdom" on such a subject.  I think the most important thing is the passage and the questions it leads to for you.  We can't get around the fact that this is something Jesus meant us to take seriously.