Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Chapter 42 James, Who Speaks Many Languages

This country of mine is fortunate, as am I to live in it. I say this for the obvious reason, which is freedom, but really, it’s an old freedom. It was bought long ago with a price that I’m able to recite, but with a sown sacrifice that I’m not sure I’m worthy to reap. I don’t respect it enough. My ancestors gave something of themselves – maybe even their lives – for an idea, and I enjoy it with my soft hands and nonchalance.

For me, freedom just is. I wake up free, I breathe free and I live free, just like I always have.

When it’s the expected moment, sure, I pledge to our flag and sing our national anthem. On the Fourth of July, I light fireworks and celebrate our independence. On Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I strive to honor the men and women who sacrificed their lives long ago for our freedom, as well as those who have done so in recent decades for freedom in other countries.

But really, if I’m being honest, I just pay it lip service.

Freedom has always been here, in between America’s shores, for centuries now. Those of an older, fading generation have a better appreciation of what it might have felt like to lose that. They can recall the air raids and the uncertain fear of a creeping global power and ideology; one that could have invaded and brought destruction and imprisonment. For them, freedom was redeemed with lost sons and revered with a patriotic fervor which hit very close to home. But, unfortunately, those people are aging and dying – and with them, real memories. Memories now captured in textbooks and in documentaries on cable.

And so, to spend some time with a friend like James, freedom finds new life. It is fresh, reborn even. It has a voice. It breathes. It is all at once relevant and touchable.

James is a Burmese refugee (legally recognized by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, or UNHCR), who now lives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In his apartment hangs a small American flag; it means something to him, I suspect, for he recalls little of a life of true freedom. In fact, he’s a living breathing acronym to freedom, for he’s lived most of his life in one refugee camp and then another. He’s borne witness to attacks on villages and the stripping of dignity at the hands of brutal, ruthless men; the senseless extinguishing of once vibrant, free lives.

Men, women and children.

Horrifically, for James and his country, a power and ideology did in fact invade. A military junta from within Burma’s own borders brought destruction and imprisonment, and James remembers it and speaks of it with stunning detail and emotion. He fills his childhood recollection with such images, right where I would find memories of a birthday party or a summer vacation, or some other significant, much happier event.

James was six when his village was attacked. It was a Sunday night when the enemy struck, after James and his community had enjoyed a full day of celebration and feasting. It was perhaps the last celebration he would enjoy in freedom for twenty years. James is understandably emotional as he speaks of it, but I sense he’s not afraid anymore. Quite possibly, having lived through what he has, what’s left to fear?

From that moment on, his family lost more and more of their earthly possessions, but they never lost each other. In fact, during one sweeping raid by the enemy, while in a makeshift camp (not formerly recognized as a UNHCR refugee camp), James and his entire family of eight, including his mother and father were made to lie flat on the ground as their hut burned next to them. The soldier, carrying an AK47, told them repeatedly not to move. And so they didn’t. Others who ran or tried to hide were struck down by bullets, but James and his family were spared.

The soldier slipped away, perhaps unknowingly an answer to the prayers of those lying prostrate on the ground. What was once their home and belongings was now just a pile of ash.

Ultimately, James and his family made it to an “official” refugee camp, where they found safety. Life was better on many fronts, as the camp was protected in a mountainous region within Thailand’s border. There were schools and churches. Supplies were abundant due to the generosity of others. James learned to speak five languages fluently just by being in the midst of so many cultures, perhaps a silver lining to a very dark cloud.

This may all sound like great news, but a fence still kept others from coming in, and them from going out. He was ostracized and treated differently by those living in freedom on the other side of the fence. He recalls knowing that he had no future.

And before he knew it, James was 26.

Fast forward to life in America, and James is the pillar of his family. In fact, it was James who navigated the application process for refugee status; James, who led his family here two years ago through check points and borders and customs and the whole ordeal of international travel. James, who speaks many languages.

Fort Wayne is now home to the largest population of Burmese outside of Thailand, which neighbors Burma (and contains its numerous refugee camps). So, not content to be merely a pillar for his own family, James has provided aid and comfort to many others who are here – to those who have arrived legally in America with similar nightmares to share. He is an interpreter, a friend, a liaison to a strange new world.

There is much to debate about refugees in our midst. What about competition for our jobs? What about the strain on our schools and our healthcare systems which are already overburdened? What about those strange cultural differences? What about this and what about that?

This is understandable. But what about James and his family? What really is ours in the first place? Are any of us truly worthy to reap someone else’s sacrifice from years gone by, while at the same time ignore that there are others in the world still, to this day, entangled in the chains of captivity? Our freedom has always been here, but for most of us, someone else paid the price for it. Maybe none of us can ever respect that enough, unless we give something of ourselves for others to enjoy it as well.

As I sit with James in his apartment, he’s finishing up a job application online. He’s been trying for a while to find work. I ask, after all that he’s been through by the tender age of 28, if he’s frustrated in his job search.

He smiles and says, “at least here, I have a future.”

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Chapter 41 With a Bent Toward Something

The rain is coming down and there’s a crazy bird out there, alone, singing with some sick joy in the night. It’s Monday for God’s sake.

It’s freezing and wet, and not at all late summer to me. I open up the windows anyway because I’m hot. I’m always hot.

I hear that train again, way off, warning at its crossings. It’s heading toward a place, with a plan, with a bent toward something. If you want to hear it, you can, if you listen through the din, or above it; or maybe feel the ground shake. You’d have to get close enough, but it’s enough to just believe it.

Cars are driving by and their wheels slap and splash against the slick black road, and I sit and wonder about the adventure I’ve missed, while I’ve tossed and turned; while I’ve made excuses and invited someone else to take my burden.

But rest assured, I still point others back to where I last saw Him.

This is not some pity party where I invite friends to an intervention, to enter into some crisis of faith. I know what I believe. I know what I’m missing.

It could be that I need to write again, if only as a way to worship, to smoke out these vices masquerading as security blankets.

I’m not good as a drifter. I float between bad and worse; I succumb to some form of an unmotivated lifestyle that is fueled by bouts of addiction and colored with tinges of gray. It has its own trajectory, careening toward a fraction that has regrettably reduced itself, again, and again; maybe even lower than its lowest common denominator.

And so it begins again. This is me crawling back out of a mess of my own making.

It is not a proud moment to have accepted something of a Holy assignment, to recognize it, to achieve it, to acknowledge it is bigger and beyond me, but then, to step aside.

Some may say that’s wonderful, a special something to point back toward, to know and to cherish and to appreciate; a legacy perhaps, but it doesn't last. It is there that I've wallowed in a wretched place, one of nonsense and folly; of temporary blitzes of euphoria bridging a gap to nothingness.

Yes, nothingness is a place to visit; it is a destination on a spiritual map. I’ve been there.

In fact, it is from there that I write this letter to you, whoever you are; whoever may still be reading. And my prayer is that you would somehow discern the clarity amidst the fog. That these ramblings would find a place of comfort in your living room, on your train, at your job.

You see, it's never been uncomfortable enough. This cross I carried for him then was still light and convenient and, mostly splinter free. And then I put it down when it became too heavy. I pick it up from time to time, and I give a little here and there to this day, and that day; to challenge the guilt I endure for the week or the month I do nothing.

I did not stop believing in the One I chose to follow. He is ever real and breathing and doing. But I am not doing. I am merely a spectator, or worse yet, a player at half time who has feigned some injury, pulled some coach aside to plead my case, my useless case for why I'm not fit for the second half.

Surely he'll listen, he can see I'm beat up, muddy, a deplorable mess.

I know I need to get back at it. There is much work to be done. I need to be heading toward some place, with a plan, with a bent toward something; anything but this. The ground is shaking if I put my ear to it, if I stand still. If I move closer.

It’s not enough for me to just believe it.