The Sacred and the Space in Between

Facts

A military official in the delta township of Labutta estimated 80,000 dead there alone, and many families there told an AFP reporter most of their relatives had been killed. “Houses collapsed, buildings collapsed, and people were swept away,” one man said. “I only survived by hanging on to a big tree.”

Around 5,000 square kilometres (1,930 square miles) remain underwater, and more than a million homeless need emergency relief, a UN spokesman said.

Shari Villarosa, US charge d’affaires in Myanmar’s main city Yangon, said there could be more than 100,000 dead in the Irrawaddy delta, where 95 percent of buildings were reported to have disappeared. Food prices in Myanmar, already one of the world’s most impoverished nations, have soared. A bag of rice now costs 40,000 kyats (35 dollars) in the commercial hub Yangon, up from 25,000 last week.http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hab-iTARKHbjNiLxhHLBSaK9dOLg

Prayer

Dear God, please help me find the words that my heart would like to express.

Receive the souls of those who have passed on.  

Help these people who have lost their homes from storms. 

Guide the survivors with your light to a better day.

Give them patience and hope to endure the lonely and difficult times.  

May peace become yours soon after this terrible disaster.  

Help us to trust that you provide.  Amen.

http://www.sunsetparkcc.org/wp/?p=10

Action

For those who wish to help, please go to www.adra.org

In my dream I was in a rather big house and I saw some wild angry dogs outside. I rushed to the door trying to keep it shut so that the dogs would not get in. I do not remember the house except it was a big house and a couple of my good friends were staying in this house. But none of them were aware of these angry dogs. Standing at the door I tried really hard to lash the door to keep them out. But as hard as I tried, I did not succeed. The dogs pushed their ways into the house bypassing me. I screamed at the top of my voice trying to warn my friends that danger was coming.  I woke up.

Interpretation: the dogs represent the primal instinct in my life that I try to shut out for fear that it may ruin my life or important relationships in my life. I see the house as my very own soul.  I like to think that it is not possible to shut off the basic primal from life. It will find the way in. The question is, how to deal with it appropriately?

Last Saturday (April 12), a number of Loma Linda University students (Christine, Kathy, Andrea, and Mat from the school of medicine) and I went to Central City Church in downtown Los Angeles and attended prayer meeting there.  We were warmly welcomed by the church members and Rev. Thomas who took us around the church and walked us through the community explaining issues that are important for our consideration.  There were many things that touched us, the level of spirituality among the attendance and the desire to make this a better community for the homeless people.  We also met Pastor Bowen who helps run a Korean church in skid row.  It becomes even more important to me, during this visit, to really take the time to understand and listen before starting any bright idea to help the homeless.  There is so much potential there and we need to take the time to learn from them how we can be of help and most of all what is it that we can learn from them.  Rev. Thomas made one very important statement, “I want to be able to give as much as I’ve received from these homeless people.”

I have been reflecting on the issue of human trafficking, particularly the stories of children involved in the sex industry in Thailand, for more than a decade.  When I hear their stories, I feel that pain.  The more I explore this issue the more I come to realize that while we need all the policies and projects and funding to really help these young women, there is an area we often over look.  We often fight poverty by looking at monetary increment which is very important and explore job opportunities.  Sometime we fail to realize that poverty is also a concept, an idea, a very powerful idea carefully constructed for the purpose of control and profits.  While I certainly hope that we can plan more programs, provide more funds, write better policies to help ease the pain I certainly hope that we will also address the core value that fuels the ideas behind prosperity and poverty.  I hope that at some level we can also realize that importance of simplicity as key to reframing how we understand the meaning of being poor.  In some way we need to disengage ourselves from paternalistic masculinity that defines  success through capitalistic economy.

Last Saturday after my Sabbath School class I thought to myself that I should try to go to Cross Walk Church a couple of blocks away. While driving toward the church I felt the compulsion to go to the park and meditate instead. And so I thought I should swing by In-N-Out for a burger and fries…good for meditation. I did even though the line was long. As I was heading toward the park I thought of how my wife and I used to help street kids in Thailand. One thought led to the other. I was wondering what would it be like to get a chance to help a homeless person on Sabbath. And as I was thinking there he was, a very old man pushing an old bicycle. I thought to myself, but not today God. I waited too long at In-N-Out. Next time. I drove pass. And God spoke to me. I turned my car around, pulled in front of the old man and passed him my set lunch. His hand was shaking, his face wrinkled, his clothes unwashed. He could hardly say a word when I gave him the burger. But in his eyes I knew he was very thankful. As I drove away, I felt that to be a very special God moment for me. To be overwhelmed with the feeling of being in the presence of something Sacred was worth everything.

Every month I received a small amount of money for my supervision work. I used this money sometime to entertain myself…buying small electronic toys etc. and at other time I use it for charity. One of my students has been struggling financially trying to support his family but he never complained, never asked always presenting a very positive attitude. I thought Christmas must be hard for him. And so I slipped some money in an envelop and told the secretary to call but never to reveal my name. He came to the office wanted to know from whom but the secretary refused to tell. He left the office. Opened the envelop and came back to the office with tears in his eyes. He had a couple of dollars left in his saving and told his children that this Christmas was going to be difficult. When I heard this story, the first thought was that God do really knows us and what we are going through. God knows. This is such a soulful moment for me. I met God twice in a week and I could not have asked for more.

This is Mine in the center.  To the left is Ar, ADRA project coordinator, who has been very supportive of Mine and my sister, Surapee Silapachan, to her right.  We are all very proud of Mine who left the village since she was 14/15. Came to Chiang Rai to study and had to work really hard to obtain an education.  We have been sponsoring her since 2004 and now she finally graduated with a Bachelor degree in home economics from Rachamongkol University.  The first person in her village (Hmong village) to graduate with a bachelor degree.  About 10 family members rented a pick up truck and came to Bangkok to attend her graduation (you could read more of her story in my earlier post).  When I met her in Bangkok last September she made one very meaningful statement, “If not because of your support, there will not be today for me.”  Mine send half her pay check to her family in Chiang Rai and she told me that she would do anything to make sure that all her younger siblings obtain bachelor degrees.

Most of us can probably recall sitting in heavy traffic with a bladder extended to its maximum capacity.  Every bump and every dip on the road cause excruciating pain, the pain that accompanies the art of muscle contraction, of elevating the butt just a little to avoid liquid disequilibrium within the bladder.  And we press the legs firmly together as if to convince ourselves that if we squeeze right enough it will not spill.  Our eyes scan for the nearest exit hoping for a gas station around the corner. “To pee or not to pee.”

We need to pee.  We all have to pee.  We can’t live without peeing.  We do not pee because we like to pee.  We do not pee for recreation.  We have to pee because we are made to pee.  So we pull into the exit and sigh with relief upon seeing a gas station.  Walking carefully in search for relief, we are told that the toilet is broken.  What then?

Have you ever wondered how many times you actually pee in a day?  Probably not.  Neither have I.  When I was very young my grandmother who came from China used to tell me that peeing into the toilet was a waste of my pee.  why waste it, she would ask? HOw  not to waste my pee, I wondered?  We had many fruit trees planted in our yard.  We had two coconut trees. Seven mango trees and a guava tree (there were other trees I can not recall).  I was carefully instructed to pee at all the fruit trees.  The nutrient from my pee was, in my grandma’s opinion, much more than just water from the tap.  Although at that time I did not have much reason to feel good about myself, my pee was the one source of self-esteem especially when I saw that look on my grandma’s face that said, “Pee at the trees…pee at the trees…they really need your pee.”

The truth was I actually did complied for a quite a while.  And every mango season, the trees would bear much fruit.  My friend and I were asked to climb those trees and gather fruits for the family.  Every bite into those juicy fruits brought back a memory, a vivid, visual memory.

To pee or not to pee?  This modified Shakespearian philosophical question is rather intriguing.   Have you ever wondered if you’ve asked yourself this question?  I have a hunch the answer to this question, in some way, reflect your view of life?

Having lived with depression most of my life I think I’ve come to learn a thing or two about depression.  It amazes me how the realization takes place in the presence of others.  It was through conversing with people suffering severe depression that I’ve come to see a thing or two about one of the most significant experiences in my life.  I’ve been living a very disconnected life.  Perhaps feeling disconnected is a better representation.  When you are depressed you just feel wrong.  Your being is a collection of negativity and hence all experiences are experienced as negative, as not supposed to be, as insufficient even when it may not be at all.  It pushes you to the boundary, to live on the edge.  It is a constant reminder that you are not what you suppose to be.  You are just wrong.  This sense of oneself raises a very high level of consciousness.  And self-consciousness leads to a sense of disconnection.  Connection, to my understanding, is about spontaneity.  And spontaneity emerges from a sense of safety, a core feeling that one is ok.  Disconnection is when you are conscious of the fact that you are not where you ought to be.  As one proceeds in life being conscious of where one ought to be, things become artificial in an attempt to align oneself with the logic of life, with all the oughts.  The harder one tries, the more disconnected one feels because connection is based on the assumption that where one is is good enough.  There’s nothing to prove.  This is a good place to be.  The challenge of a depressed person such as myself is to learn to maintain the tension by becoming aware of the redemption for the person that I am while keeping in mind the  distinction from the chemically generated emotion that emerges continually.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 600,000 to 800,000 are victims of global human trafficking.  And between 14,500 to 17, 500 are being trafficked into the United States yearly.  There are numerous horror stories we hear regarding human trafficking.  While most people believe in the evil of human trafficking, not all see the issue in a similar manner.  While most believe that trafficking is dehumanizing, some believe that this issue as seen through mass media has been over dramatized and misrepresent its reality.  During the past decade of reading and research on the issue of human trafficking in Thailand in particular I have come to realize that stories of human trafficking is a lot less dramatic.  But less drama does not mean less pain and less dehumanizing factors.  When I first went to Thailand after the peak period of prostitution (around mid 80s to mid 90s) I was hoping to find many horror stories about children in prostitution and children as victims of trafficking.  While there were such stories, they were not the majority.  Over the years I have been keeping up with recent development.  There were just sad non-dramatic stories of girls who loved their families, worked as prostitutes, supported their families and were diagnosed HIV positive.  In September of 2007 I met a friend who has been working in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai.  Both him and his wife left the States to deal with the issue of human trafficking.  Seven years later they did not see as many victims as they wished and many of the prostitutes they wish to rescue from brothels remained prostitutes.  They both made one of the most profound statement.  Now we have decided to let the prostitutes that we are serving come up with their own agenda and we will try to help them they best we could.

One of the books that I find very informative is edited by Kamala Kempadoo.  The title of the book is Trafficking and Prostitution Reconsidered: New Perspectives on Migration, Sex Work, and Human Rights.   Most of the contributors to this volume has been working in this field for over a decade.  Many were attached to the Global Alliance Against Trafficking of Women.  There are many interesting perspectives that I learned from this book.  Trafficking is not as dramatic.  The statistics is, often, not very accurate.  Rescuing prostitutes from brothels often ends up with other girls being lured into the same brothels.  Most victims of human trafficking are not prostitutes.  The are people who do domestic work, sweat shop, and other forms of labors.  Let me quote one line from the book stating one misconception. “Based on the assumption that most women in prostitution are coerced and trafficked, it is then assumed that they would be only too happy to be rescued and reintegrated with their families, or rehabilitated.”

What they proposed instead is to look at human rights as the basis of how we deal with these victims.  Most people who cross borders are those who struggle with poverty and the lack of economic structure in their locations.  Crossing the border is their way of surviving.  Preventing them from crossing will not end the issue of trafficking.  Making provision in terms of policy for protecting their rights when they work as domestic workers, in sweat shops, etc. are better options.  Hence they promote the concept of safe migration.  Some of these perspectives are valuable as we contemplate how we can deal more effectively with the issue of human trafficking.

For some reasons I have been feeling as if I’ve used up all emotional resources. Exhausted and yet the continual sense of responsibility makes me inch forward very slowly. More work, my papers, my publication, more of lots of things. My mind and my body are begging for rest and some how I do not seem to be able to. But strangely enough some of the most comforting things that brought me a kind of relief is that little voice I keep hearing occasionally “You can trust God…it is going to be ok.” In the midst of stress, the word trust is almost magical. It is a short glimpse into the divine presence. Only if I could be taken into this divine perspective as I engage life, I wonder what that will look like for me?