Delights

Me and Yupa, hand in hand.

Delight yourself in the Lord 

and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalm 37:4

Some things you know will be delightful when you sign up for them.

It's only hours now until I board a plane and travel again between the two homes of my life.

I can say it in Thai now, and do often in these last days.

One stays, one goes home with me.

"I have a big problem.
Chan mee banha yai.
When I am here I miss my Beloveds in Canada.
Ma tee nee, kiteung tookon Canada.
When I am in Canada, I miss my Beloveds here.
Bai Canada, kiteung tookon tee nee.
It hurts a lot.
Jep jai mahk!"

Yes.  It does.  Sometimes I wonder if I've done a wretched reckless thing with my heart.  Other times I know I have.   Sitting here under the shade of Yupa's porch, I give myself a little chance to weep.

But never in a lifetime of lifetimes would I give away the delights I have so undeservedly received because of what the Lord has done in making this love happen.

Many who've been here from Highview would agree.  Something about this place grabs at our deepest longings to connect in ways that really mean something.  Something about these kids captures the places in our souls that would otherwise forget the joy of simplicity and life and family.

English learning.  They are so eager!

Something about these heroes of sacrificial love for the long haul, who open their arms and their home and their hearts, making themselves so vulnerable, at great personal cost, breathe new life into our hopes..

Nine years of these delights.  Who am I that I should be granted such lavish wealth?

Even in the brutal complexity that is life everywhere but somehow manifests itself more harshly here; even in the hardships and stresses and even agonies of lost loved ones; even in that, I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Even when it's almost impossible to live between the two.

And I did say it was delightful, right?

Porn and Kratae, two of the older girls now.

Capturing the delight is difficult to do, even if I were an eloquent writer or an accomplished photographer.  We have had such amazing photos taken by other team members in the past, that I hesitate to post my modest attempts at catching those moments of life here.  But since I'm on my own for this trip, I'll try anyways.  And maybe, just in the 10,000 words each is worth, some of the delight might peek through.

Eg by the nightly campfire.

Porn and Ahjahn Ruth

Da and Bell, best friends, sporting Christmas paper hats.

Deborah, also with a paper hat.

Ahjahn Jaroen and Pi Daow.  Jaroen tells me this is his first pizza in 15 years.

Rompo, one of the big boys now, on the guitar for Sunday worship.

Ahajahn Suradet leads worship for the first time in five months.

A little grainy, but this picture is sooooooo Praweet!

Eak catches a mouse and...well, perhaps I won't mention what happens next.

Jaroen's wife Dtu, a sweet soul with an lovely, generous laugh.

Oh there are many more I could include.  But the sad task of packing awaits me, as does a mandatory, pre-flight-afternoon nap.   So I leave it here.  These simple delights that nourish the deeper places of me.  And my only hope is that in all this I receive, I may been able to leave something good behind. Oh I hope so. 

Safe home now, oh my soul.  That other wonderful home you have on the other side of the planet.  How rich you are. 

The Press of Human Need

 Some things you know will be awful when you sign up for them.  Like volunteering to assist in a medical missions trip to Burmese refugees, some who live in a trash dump.  Like that.

I ponder this as I am once again bracing around ridiculous bends on a heavily traveled highway through the mountains.  This time we are on the way to Mae Sot, 7 hours south west of Chiang Mai and next to the Mayanmar (Burmese) border.

It's a Saturday, and a long weekend, which accounts for the volume of traffic.  Plus there's major construction going on, forcing us at times, around treacherous cement barriers and past crews I assume are also trained as trapeze artists, labouring precariously above us on the steep red clay slopes on either side. There are 'no passing' signs clearly posted, but apparently this is merely a suggestion.  Slow crawling trucks provide the motivation to take the risk, which we do often enough to prompt both admiration for the particular skill of mountain driving, and much prayer.

We arrive late Saturday afternoon which gives us enough time to settle into our accommodations, which are pleasant enough to make me think perhaps this won't be so awful after all, and leaves me feeling a tad guilty, actually.  Later I will understand the essential need to have a safe place to crawl back to.  For now, I unpack quickly and head over to the outdoor cafeteria to meet the rest of the team.

We are as an eclectic bunch as could be gathered together, I think.  Two English-speaking medical doctors (married couple) from Oshawa, both from Asian backgrounds.  Two highly skilled Thai interpreters who speak multiple languages and dialects.  Four equally skilled pharmacists, all Thai. Three very well-resourced farangs, also from Canada, one of whom is financing this trip, and one who acts as our coordinator.  Suradet, Yupa and Bell who are here to assist in any way possible.  And me, the farang in this group who will, by the time the weekend is over, realize she identifies more with the Thais.  I've been asked to lead the spiritual component of our team meetings, and engage with people at the camp while waiting to be seen by the doctor.

The dynamics between us are the stuff psychology and/or missiology doctorates are written about, the details of which I will leave to future ruminations and analysis.  Suffice it to say here that in spite of huge gaps in language, culture and presumed and real power structures, we were able to work together remarkably well.

By Sunday morning we are ready to head to our first stop, the bamboo church building of a Burmese refugee camp about 30 minutes out of Mae Sot.

They've heard we're coming and are waiting for us.  I can't tell if it's patience or resignation that makes them sit so quietly, all clustered together like that on the floor, about 100 men women and children.  Yes, many children.

While the medical station is being set up in the school room next door, I venture to the opening of the bamboo structure and poke in my head.  There's immediate interest, although silent, and that sensation that I am getting more and more used to, that all eyes are on this strange Canadian.  I risk a little wave.  Immediate smiles and a unanimous waving response, enthusiasm and life suddenly breaking over their faces.  Okay, I can work this crowd.

After checking in with the coordinator, I leave my flip flops in the sea of shoes outside, grab a chair, look over the crowd and begin with the universal language of a smile.  Then, knowing that they understand the sound of a bee, and using the mime of catching one in my hands, I launch into a highly animated version of "I'm Bringing Home My Baby Bumblebee".  They catch on quickly, and I am elated by my initial success in engaging an entire group of people when I don't know one word of their language.  This is great!  My self congratulations are interrupted mid thought, however, when I suddenly realize that we're about to come to the 'barfing' verse.  "I'm barfing up my baby bumble bee."  What was I thinking?!?!  I have no clue how barfing or talking about barfing is regarded in this culture!  Am I about to commit a terrible offense?  Even in Canada, it's a tad on the edge of polite.  There's no time to over think it, however, because here we go.  I clutch my stomach, make a face of pain, and with great gusto and considerable volume barf up that troublesome little bumble bee.

Hilarious laughter breaks out.  Every time I get to that part, they seem over-the-top delighted, laughing and barfing right along with this crazy farang.  I guess it only make sense.  Barfing is universal as a smile.

This is not the awful part.  While the rest of the team is doing the real work of why we came, taking blood pressures, weighing in patients, doing the check up, doling out the medicine, I am having fun. The morning is full of joy even in this wretched place.   A smug little worm slides its way into my 'I've been to Thailand so many times now, I've got this' brain.  Refugee camp?  Piece of cake.

That was before the oil.

Near to the end of the morning it's time to hand out the cans of tuna and bottles of cooking oil we've also brought.  The logistics of distribution are left to the least experienced farang among us, but, to be honest, I think the error was impossible to avoid, given the whole gringjai thing.  Even here, in the midst of such need, there is a reluctance to ask for too much.  The pastor of the group gives us a number of families, and based on that number we calculate one bottle of oil and four cans of meat per family.  I am asked to be one of two farangs that help hand it out.  The other is the team member who financed the trip.

I hate the optics of this.

b

 It should be members of this community that do this, the pastor perhaps, or at least one of our Thai members.  This looks so sickeningly western-resourced and power-imbalanced, that all that I've been unlearning in my culture immersion resists it.  Yet, there's no time for conversation, and likely no ear to hear my concerns, at least that's what I perceive (remember the dynamics I mentioned before).  So here I am, feeling oh so very white, handing out oil and meat to desperate, beautiful people.

At the beginning they are very orderly about receiving what's given.  They smile and press their palms together first, and then I place the items in their now open hands.  Some are mothers who look no older than 13 or 14, their babies tied against them.  Some are old, toothless and frail.  I speak a blessing over each one, quickly laying my hand on their shockingly thin shoulders before they leave with their gift.

But something happens near to the end of the distribution.  It becomes clear that we will run out of meat, and likely oil before the line is done.  The logistics guy asks why.  The reason:  They didn't want to appear too greedy so they gave us a smaller number.  We really should have been giving out two cans per family.

And it is this miscalculation of culture that will make things awful.

An announcement is made, an apology, that there are now limited resources and some families may not get oil and meat today.  This error will be corrected the following day and every family in attendance at the clinic will receive their portion.  But at the end of the line they don't know that now.

Quite suddenly I am swarmed.  The press of human bodies threatens my balance.  Countless open hands are thrust before me, coming from all sides, some reaching around from behind.  I struggle with the plastic wrapping, can't wrench the oil free fast enough.  I make slow, quiet, deep noises, meant to calm, but it makes no difference.  I feel them all, right against me, pushing, grasping.  I feel their desperation.  The press of human need.  I run out of meat.  I run out of oil.  It's all done.  And it's awful.

Because I felt them.  Right up against me.  I felt them.  I felt it.  Their need.  Their desperation.  I felt it.  It pressed right into my soul.

When you sign up for some things, you expect it to be awful.

Which is why we so desperately need redemption.

When writing to believers in Corinth in the first century, Paul talked about us being 'ambassadors for Christ' and having a 'ministry of reconciliation'  (2 Corinthians 6).  Because 'reconciliation' and 'conflict' are semantically related, it's easy to be too narrow in applying exactly what this ministry of reconciliation entails.  It's way more than just helping people get along.  It's reconciling all that was separated by sin back to God's original intentions, if not more.

Our biblical world view instructs that we live in a world 'under the curse' where humanity is separated from God, humanity is divided against itself, and the natural world groans with longing for healing and restoration.  Regardless of one's personal theology on the first point, the last two seem only too obvious.  For Christians, our work as ambassadors is to continue to press toward God's ultimate ethic, where humans enjoy intimacy with Him, loving connection with each other, and harmony with the created universe.  Where all is restored to a 'better than before' reality.   And even though this won't be fully realized until Christ's return, every time we make a choice towards love and compassion and grace, we move God's agenda forward.

Which is why we sign up for awful things.  To make it just a little less awful when we can.

Those families did get their meat and oil.  Every child there received medicine for the worms every one of them hosts in their little bodies.  Over 200 people were assessed and assisted towards better health.  More medical visits are planned for follow up.  There are plans underway for a water purification system, and small business training and investments to reverse the cycles, get those people out of the trash dump if they so choose.

The press is overwhelming.  I will be processing this for a while, I think.  But the push back is what makes us image bearers of a God who don't run away from the awful.  We engage it instead.

I'd sign up again.

"Let my heart be broken with 

the things that break the heart of God."

Bob Pierce

Pondering A Healing Obedience

Sunday we visit Bee's grave.

I expect it to be difficult.

Parked precariously on an uneven shoulder, there is a small hill to climb to get to the top where Bee's remains remain.  I steel myself, not wanting my own response to in any way add pain to the already anguished hearts of my Beloveds, his parents, who are but steps ahead of me.

It's a valiant but vain attempt.  Because standing there, I play that vicious phone call over again in my mind, hear Suradet's horrified, excruciated voice telling me that Bee is dead (see footnote).  I replay the details, still too fresh and sacred to recount here, of the week of grieving rituals in which I participated as a member of the family.  I remember that the last time I was standing here we were lowering the body of a beloved son into the ground.  Open weeping.  Military salute.  Defiant praise.

I remember, and cannot keep the sadness in.

We stand together, clutching one another, much like we did then.  We say nothing.  Ask no questions.  Make no bargains.  We just feel it.  Together.

I had wanted to come, to mark this moment, this place, Bee's life.  It's good.  And awful.  Because lament is both, and as such is at the core of what makes us human.



So is the choice to heal.  There is a marking of that this day too.  Earlier, before the graveside lament, there was a remarkable choice of obedience.  For the first time in just over four months, Suradet stood before his congregation and led them in worship.


It was a fair question when I returned last September.  How will the responsibilities of a Children's Home and a Church be taken care of while Suradet and Yupa grieve?  The answer lies in the truth that God has many wonderful ways to carry us.  These ways were manifest in part within the strong broader community of faith into which Suradet and Yupa have invested themselves over the years.   Suradet's extended network of pastor friends has helped on Sunday mornings to provide the pulpit teaching, and to continue to bring support and love and encouragement to them in their anguish.

And there was the timely arrival of Pastor Jaroen and his wife Dtu along with their three children, Deborah, David and Laywee.  This was not solely a response to the emergency.  We had chatted previously about when a new staff couple might be added here, given Pi Dao's slower pace these days, and the high demands of caring for such a large family.  Pi Dao is still here, of course.  Her 'nanny' duties are the same.  But Jaroen and Dtu have brought a fresh energy and gentle presence that has not only been enormously helpful in a general sense, but absolutely essential in these past four months.  Knowing them just this little bit these past few weeks, I can't help but believe God chose them especially.  Jaroen is a Bible College graduate and has pastoral experience combined with solid teaching and musical gifts, and an easy, open way with the children.  His wife Dtu's quick laughter and warm and welcoming countenance have been just what a shocked and disoriented family needed to help bring balance and consistency for such a time as this. 

These supports have allowed Suradet and Yupa to return to their normal duties at a pace that matched their healing....and their obedient choices toward that healing.  Hard choices.  Obedience in any form requires a ego-less fortitude, but when chosen in the midst of pain....almost impossible.  Almost.

The significance of this morning's choice is not lost on us even as it happens. The thought of leading worship has been particularly difficult for Suradet because of its close association with Bee who played both drums and guitar and was always part of the band on Sunday mornings.  So this next step of healing did not happen without courage.

And being led this day by this valiant warrior disguised as a broken man, a humble man, an honest man, I can't help but realize that this world is chalk full of unsung superstars who's obedient healing, while unseen, hold us all together.  This healing obedience is nothing short of heroic.

One of the stated purposes of this particular visit to Hot Springs at this particular time has been to provide what I can offer in terms of comfort and love and support to Suradet, Yupa, Bell and our whole Hot Springs family in this aftermath period since Bee's traumatic death.   And if my presence here, and my constant reassurances that I understand that this takes time, my spoken words as feeble they may be, my practical contribution in teaching Bible and ESL at the end of every day or preaching as invited, or anything else that my being here might assume to 'bring to' the equation...if any of it helps even just a little, then I am grateful.

But standing together with my brothers and sisters in worship this morning, and clutching together with my Thai family by Bee's graveside this afternoon, I am again reminded that over and over again, I receive tsunami-sized waves more than I ever attempt to bring.  To be in the presence of such as these, who am I to receive such a thing?

My own obedience of healing is made stronger.
2017 has yet to unfold her story, but this, here, this beginning of it here, like this?
I am lavished upon again.

Footnote:  On September 1, 2016 the beloved son of Suradet and Yupa was killed in a motorcycle accident on his way home from a birthday party with friends.  Bee was not at fault in the accident and an ongoing court case continues.  Prayers are appreciated as his mother and father, his sister Bell and the entire Hot Springs family grieve their loss and adjust to a new way of living.

Here For This

Sticky rice for the road

It's pitch black except for the bouncing circle of light that barely shows the way down a steep hill on a dusty red pathway.  I have no idea where I'm headed, only that I'm in the midst of a group of excited teenagers and one of them is playing a guitar and all of them are laughing, talking or singing as we descend and climb in repeated patterns bordering on treacherous.

It's New Year's Eve.

Somehow I have been invited to go along for the village tradition of having the youth go from hut to hut to sing a blessing over each family as the old year leaves and the new one arrives.  I am with Thim.  She's one of Hot Spring's university students who has also been Ken and my sponsored child since the beginning, and who volunteered (at least I hope so) to come on this mountain visit to help take care of Ahjahn Ruth.  She's taking care of me now, taking my elbow for the especially rutted parts, and laughing and confessing that she has absolutely no idea where we're going either.  She understands the tradition but she doesn't know this village.

We walk a long way.  I can't help but make a mental note that for every acutely angled descent there is an equally steep incline, and that, in order to get back to the church building where we originally set out from, we will have to do this again.  This vigorous walk is made all the more amusing by the fact that I am wearing a traditional Karen skirt, which means there are no elastics, zippers or buttons holding it up; just some string and a way of folding it over that I have not actually mastered yet, even though I've been shown several times.  Perhaps the fear of losing my dignity entirely overrides the crazy fact that I am randomly marching through a tropical forest in the dark.   I embrace the muscle-building, character-shaping opportunity, cling to Thim, hold onto my skirt for all I'm worth and soldier on.  And actually, truth be told, this is amazing fun!

Finally - and honestly, I think we walked steady for about 25 minutes - we arrive at the first home assigned to our happy group's blessing.  A new challenge presents itself in the steep ladder that provides the entrance to the home.  All these mountain youth scramble up like trained gymnasts.  Poor Thim is left helping the traditionally-skirted 'gola' make a less than graceful entrance.

But it's all okay and we find a place on the bamboo floor in a darkened room, and we sing our songs of blessing, and are offered a ridiculously huge basket full of treats around a fire that's actually inside the bamboo hut (how do they do this?).  And the owners of the home are oh so grateful that we've come, and they wish us happy new year as we leave.  And I discover to my mixed horror and amusement that going down is harder than going up, especially in this skirt!

Heating water for a bath L-R Thim, Ahjahn Jaroen, Tae

The next home isn't quite so far away, and we gather first at the bottom of the ladder, like last time.  I turn to see what's making that gruffling noise behind me and a small pig, rather cute I'd say, comes up close to my feet, to investigate, with more gruffling.  His gargantuan mother gives me the evil eye from under the hut a few yards away.  But before any maternal instincts give way, everyone tumbles up and in again, and we sing again, and this time they ask the 'gola' to pray the blessing over the home.   I pray a little in Thai, mostly in English and end with one of the three Karen phrases I know to say God bless you.  I pray hard.  I pray for health and prosperity and for joy; and it occurs to me as I speak these words out loud, that these are exactly what God is giving to me right this very minute.

To spend New Year's like this, right here, how is this even happening?

With surprise I remember, as I ungraciously make my way down an even steeper ladder to leave, that God first put this picture into my mind when I was 11 years old.  He brought a missionary from Southeast Asia to my little church back in the 70's, who described in detail the very things I am seeing and hearing and smelling and doing right now.

That picture in my imagination?  This is now.  Only more.  So much more.  Because what the missionary couldn't know and God probably wouldn't try to explain to an 11 year old girl, was that at the other end of the up and down return trek tonight, I will arrive at another wooden hut and be greeted by people who call this village home, and whom I love.

This is Suradet's home village.  We are staying with his family; his mother and father and sisters.  These are people who have embraced me so thoroughly I am no longer called 'gola', but 'korpkua' family.  Suradet says he has a mother in the mountains and a mother in Canada.  Only this Canadian mother is here right now, worlds colliding, joy crashing in on my soul in wonder that I could ever in my lifetime be this.

The stated purpose of this mountain visit, actually this whole trip, was that I had been invited to speak at the New Year's service held at the church in this remote mountain village.  I did speak.  I told a version of an ancient mountain story about twins, a brother and sister separated for a time, the girl to head to a far away land and become rich and educated, shunning her darker skinned brother.  In the story the girl twin becomes hollow inside from pursuing a too-busy, materialistic life and returns to be reconciled with her brother and her village, the mountain, God and her own soul.

They listened, from what I could see.  They listened while children played freely and little girls picked lice out of each others' hair, and old men loudly cleared their sinuses, all of them smiling and nodding and showing complete respect.  I encouraged that a spirit of reconciliation dominate our lives for 2017.  I promised to pray for them and asked them to pray for me.  We sang and prayed and praised God for the old year past and the new to come.

And I am honoured to have been invited to do that.  For sure.  And as every preacher is mandated to do, I offer it as loaves and fishes for Jesus to feed the multitudes (all 250 or so of them) as He sees fit.

But that's not really why I've come.  Not really.

Suradet's Mom booking it in the potato sack race!

I'm here to sing in the New Year with beautiful, joyful mountain youths.  To eat together in fellowship with a faith community that trusts simply and loves liberally.  To cling and be clung to by Suradet's mother who's bent body conceals great strength and ungrasping love.  To receive gifts and not be asked for anything in return, even when they are fully aware that the resources at my easy disposal could feed almost all of them for a lot longer than I care to calculate.

The singing and blessing goes on into the night, a lot longer than Thim and I choose to participate.  But it's what I hear as I fall asleep.

And it seems to me, as I receive this joy, that in all that came against my joy this year past, in the end

God wins.

From the Ridiculous to the Sublime

Ridiculous

To hear my name called just before boarding is a little disconcerting.  I am certain it will be about a problem with my luggage or something to do with my ticket.  Instead, I am told that there's been an overbooking in Economy class and I have been bumped up to Business class.  Not kidding!  This has never happened to me before.  Before this I have always tried not to pay too much attention to all those roomy, lie-flat luxury chairs as I make my way past them to the 3 square feet of space that will be my existence for the next 14 hours of just the first flight.

Now one of those luxury spots is mine!  I am almost giddy as I board, but try to look like this is all so normal for me as I settle in.  Try not to gasp at the leg room, the little cubbies for storage, the automatic chairs that - yes! - go ALL THE WAY FLAT for sleeping!  When they come by to take our lunch and dinner orders from the menu (yes, the menu!) I am polite and nonchalant, and hope I don't look too surprised by being asked how I want my steak done, and then the appetizer, full salad, main dish, palate cleanser (not kidding) and dessert.  Almost makes me wish I drank wine, the way the attendant comes by with a selection in this fancy basket over his arm.  Am I even on the same airplane as those poor folks back there peeling off the aluminum foil?

I sleep.  Four hours in one stint, I sleep!  And I read, and I watch a movie, and I have my feet up almost the whole time, because the chairs do that here.

And it's wonderful.  My exhaustion from, well let's be honest, from whole crazy spun out year that it was, gets a bit of a push back.  This is a gift.  I embrace the blessing.

But truth be told, and without me really knowing it yet, it only reinforces something that will be a launching theme for this particular visit to Thailand, here right at the beginning of 2017; the ridiculosity of status.

Yes, I know ridiculosity isn't a word.  There's a red squiggly line under it as I type it out.  But it's the word I use to describe how I squirm in this sense of having humans beings separated into classes.

Don't get me wrong.  I know how this works.  You pay for what you get, and being treated like a Business Class passenger comes with that price tag.  But something inside of me isn't completely okay with it all.  Because I AM on the same plane as those folks back there with the swollen ankles and numb bottoms.  That's actually where I SHOULD be since that's all I paid for.  But some random choice not of my own earning put me where I am, which I would not have paid for, because there are much better things to do with my money than make me comfortable.  And I am no different than any other person on that plane, not in terms of importance anyways.

I will remember the ridiculosity of the linen napkins and attention to fine details, and how clean and roomy and comfortable it all was a few days later, when I make my way treacherously down an uneven and dangerously steep set of stairs in the middle of the night to make my way to an outhouse that hardly qualifies as fit for human use.  That's where the sublime comes in.


Sublime

I didn't know I could feel this chilled in Thailand, but here I am getting up as close as I can to the fire to stay warm.  I have on all the clothes I brought, more or less, but my backside is facing away, so I contort myself a little on the low wooden stool I've been given, in order to more evenly roast myself.  Like a marshmallow, I try to explain, but some of the people around the fire with me don't know what a marshmallow is.  True thing.

I'm not sure who some of them are.  They have just strolled past and have been invited to join.  That's what you do here, this far up the mountain.  About 300 people live clustered in this village that somehow exists this far from what I have previously believed were necessities.  There's plumbing of sorts, and electricity strung on wires that an electrician relative of mine would suggest was installed by a company called "Nightmare Electric".   But these are huts really.  Wooden or bamboo or a combination of both, with livestock underneath and open fires in a pit inside.  Only right now we are outside, with neighbours who have dropped by.

There's laughing, and talking.  The language is Karen, not Thai, although I discover that they know Thai and I can communicate just a little bit.  Not enough to translate 'marshmallow' but enough to explain that Canada is very cold right now with lots of snow.  And I show them pictures on my phone and they gasp.  And they ask about schools and hospitals and where do all the poor people live?  And we have something of a political conversation, such as it can be when not just the language but the way of life is oh so different that it's kind of hard to explain.

I realize that my description is perhaps giving an impression that everything is perfect where I come from.  So I make an observation.

Lots of people in Canada are alone and sad, I say.  Most of us are way too busy.  We don't just drop in on our neighbours like this.  We all have so much to do.  Or, for other reasons,  we just stay at home in our own houses, and sometimes we don't even know the people who live right beside us.

They are astonished.  And even to me, sitting here beside a communal fire, on a hillside oh so far away from home, it seems ridiculous.  In the midst of this sublime, slow, totally people-oriented, we'-re-all-in-this-together culture, suddenly, the way I live just seems weird.

My meal was prepared over that same fire earlier.  Ate with my fingers, dipping into a common bowl, not entirely sure what it was I was eating.  I was offered something that looked like it was stuffed into an intestine or might perhaps been cooked snake, I wasn't sure which.  And I tried some.  No one asked me how I wanted my steak done for that meal.

There will be other things that will provide the ridiculous/sublime contrast in the days to come.  But for right now, warming myself by this fire, this, this just seems to be more of the sublime part of the continuum.

And, honestly, you can't imagine how many stars you can see when you're this far up the mountain!