500 Words a Day (4)

This is supposed to be a stream of consciousness writing exercise for me, but today I actually have something to say.

For about a week and a half, I had taken on the responsibility of caring for 4 abandoned, feral kittens. I knew that the likelihood of their survival without their cat mom was next to nothing. I knew, for the most part, that it would be a futile effort,  but what to do?

The caretaker of the property where I live knows I like cats. He knew that 4 had recently been abandoned by the mother. A little sweet black one was chosen for me.

That night, holding the kitten and searching Google for information, I decided that there was no way that kitten would survive alone. Maybe with its brothers and sisters it had a better chance of survival. Maybe the mother would return.

We took the cat back less than 2 hours later to rejoin its siblings. The kittens were rolling around in the carport of a temporarily unoccupied house. It was COLD. The 3 of them were separated and crying in the dark. One lay weakly in the track where the gate slides. Not a safe place at all.

After climbing around the bushes and the gate, I collected the kittens and sat with them while Tatok went to get a shoe box. When he returned with the shoe box, we put them inside and put them in a place away from the wind where hopefully their mom would hear their cries and return. To entice her, we brought some milk and soft cat food to put outside the box.

The next afternoon while walking our dog, we passed the house and heard the cries. The owners had returned and taken the box of kittens, as well as the dishes of untouched food, and put them in front of the trash bin.

We looked and all 4 were there; crying and pitiful. What could I do? I had to take them home and try my best.

The precious four in the beginning

Maybe I'm a bit unrealistic (NO LAUGHING!), but I tried as hard as I could to keep them alive. Three times we rubbed and loved the breath back for 3 of the 4. The two weakest ones lasted only a few days. My little black one died peacefully yesterday; even after a trip to the vet, special formula offered every 2 hours and a souped up sleeping area. Today the strongest of the four fell. He gasped for breath, he panted, even though he felt too hot, and the vet said his temperature had plummeted.  He died in my hands, held close to my chest on the way home from the vet.

Last night when he was beginning to slow down...

I'm notoriously hard on myself. Knowing that, I did everything I could to keep these babies going. I set the alarm clock to wake me nightly for feedings. We put a lamp over a cushy box for them to sleep. We took them to the vet. We kept them warm, fed them and loved them. 

Without the antibodies from the nutrient-rich mother's milk, however, little kittens barely have a chance. And even though I have had cats and kittens my entire life, I've never had any so young and fragile.

It's really hard knowing what to do in such situations. Should I have left those kittens there in front of the trash bin? Maybe, even after all that time, their mother would find them and take them elsewhere, or maybe someone else would collect them. Or maybe they would die in that box in the looming cold, dark night. 

When my sweet cat Kartini died (today at the vet we mentioned it and it sounds like it could have been a neuro-toxin used in rat poison) (Disclosure - this part is based on my experience where I lived at the time. It is not applicable to my current city) I really wondered why one should even bother to love an animal in such a hostile environment. I had heard the stories of dogs being poisoned, seriously toxic rat poison is readily available and regularly used - animals were just animals. It your pet died, you just get another. It's simple.

But it's not.

For American people, pets are like family. Some may argue even better - but animals are a part of our lives and we love them. We cry when they die and we mourn the loss.

So why did I collect those 4 babies?

I learned that when Raden Jinjibu Kartini died that we have at least two choices. We can close our hearts and not subject ourselves to the possible hurt of losing such a fragile gift or we can open our hearts and give them as much love as we can, fully knowing that our time together may be short.

So, those are the options. Protect yourself and your feelings. Keep your love to yourself...or open your heart. Let it hurt - be vulnerable, but enjoy the life and love of your pet. Take a risk. Maybe they'll make it. Maybe they'll live a long life. You'll never know unless you put yourself, and your heart, out there. When and if it's time for them to go, you know that you've done your best and given it your all. Rather than dying alone in a cold box on a curb somewhere, they can die with love in their hearts and hopefully, with a bit of peace and dignity.

500 Words a Day (3)

I was busy writing yesterday. Even wrote a real blog post, but only because I was inspired to do so. I'm still sticking to my 500 a day.

Yesterday after I wrote the one about sacrifice I was taught a bit about 3 kinds of sacrifice considered in theology circles. Atonement (seeking forgiveness through action), Scapegoating (blaming 1 entity for all the problems in society thereby relieving the society of any real responsibility to remedy the problems) and Swtiching (taking on the suffering of another as a kind of martyr)

I don't know if I got it right, but that's what I remember of that discussion. I'm not a doctoral student in Religious Studies, after all. I'm just a regular Christian struggling with how to be a good one. That's all.

Speaking of being a good Christian, the blog I wrote yesterday was in response to to 2 posts I saw on Facebook. One with 10 reasons not to become a missionary and the other was a short video expressing outrage over the mission work in Uganda promoting intolerance and even hate. My father used to say I was jaded. I guess I am. Not much surprises me anymore.

Well, I take that back. I am surprised when someone I thought was different completely fooled me. I always thought I was a good judge of character. One thing about trying to be less judgmental, though, is that judging someone's character is one of the "judge-y" things we have to lose. And that opens us up to surprises, both good and bad, so in the end, it's worth it.

I'm surprised at what's happening in my country, but I guess the good thing is that it yanks the stool of perceived moral high ground out from underneath me. I used to think America had it going on, if we were on the wrong path, I believed we'd be straightened out. I believed in our processes. Or at least our people. I guess we're like any other developing country now. Or maybe...let me think...what's that saying? Having money doesn't mean you have class. Yes. Like that. Sickening.

I think Oscar Wilde said that America is the only country that transitioned from barbarism to decadence with no civilizing in the middle. How astute!

I love my country. I always will. I don't love it for what it is or even what it was, but I love it for what it can be. The foundation is there, even though sledgehammers and dynamite have weakened it. Our multiracial society of immigrants and dreamers is there. The dream is there.

And so is the fight.

Michael Jackson said "I'm a lover not a fighter". I used to like a good fight, or argument rather, but nowadays, I guess it's because I'm old, I don't care about playing with people who lose their tempers with other people and scream. I've had enough of that. I'm happy to have serious discussions and dialogue with people who think differently from me, but not if it's acceptable to yell and scream and point fingers. (I watched a video clip of an interview on The Daily Show and the person kept pointing at the interviewer. It was very rude, unnecessary and showed a serious lack of self-control.) Life is too short for that nonsense.

Really, we never know how long or short life is going to be, but why take chances and waste our time?


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In Response...

I was on Facebook for no more than 10 minutes before these two items loaded into my newsfeed. One posted by a friend and the other by a page.

10 Reasons Not to Become a Missionary

Religious Missionaries Spread Homophobic Hate in Uganda

The topics in the first article should probably be discerned in the process to become a missionary. If those topics aren't discussed in detail and thoroughly worked through, I'd have to believe the pre-leave training is rather worthless. However, the post did make me think immediately of 10 Reasons to leave the paid profession of being a missionary. Here are my 10.

1. Do not stay in any situation in which the relationship is one sided. You go to serve, to help, and to build relationship. If the receiving body has different ideas on your purpose, if you can't be reassigned, maybe you should leave. The position is based on reciprocity and relationship. If it doesn't exist, how can you serve?

2. If the purpose of your being there is to provide a feather in the status cap of the receiving body rather than to fill the position in the job description, if you can't get a reassignment, maybe you should leave.

3. If the receiving body isn't honest with you and uses you as a playing piece in some game that does not serve God or even match the job description for your position and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

4. If the receiving body is more interested in you performing in stereotypical ways that have always been the way missionaries have behaved, i.e. Western privilege and attitude of cultural superiority, if you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

5. If the relationship between the sending body and receiving body is not based on mutual respect, transparency and accountability, and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

6. If the situation is beginning to be stressful and manipulative and you have no outlet for counsel or mediation, you should leave if you can't get reassigned.

7. If you find that your presence is to reinforce norms established during mission work of a past era, i.e. Colonial, and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

8. If the work/service that you are asked to do is in direct conflict with the ethics of your profession and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

9. If the attitude expected of you is based on a conservative view of Christianity and you are a progressive Christian, and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

10. If you find yourself in a position in which you have to be dishonest with the people supporting you because you're not permitted to do the work that they're paying for you to do, and you can't get reassigned, maybe you should leave.

Unfortunately, because of the hell fire and damnation battle cry of missionaries during the Colonial era, many Christian churches abroad are still locked in the ideology of that time. Western ways of old are the "right" ways. There is a "pure" religion. Pictures of the blonde-haired blue eyed Jesus abound. Contextualization is not Christian. Basically, anything that does not reinforce the punitive and sacrificial aspects of  this perception of "pure" Christianity is heretical. People who sided with the Colonialists usually had a higher status than other people. Therefore, the status associated with Christianity is very high in some places. Status = power. People with power don't want to give it up, you know.

Progressive Christianity is not only about gay marriage and similar, it is based on a more LOVE based interpretation of the Bible. Less punitive. Less literal and more contextual. Less rule-oriented. And more empowering towards marginalized and outcast people.

That perspective does not go over very well in places that use Christianity as a means to keep people in line by selectively enforcing traditional and social values or even as a way of elevating status.

So the second link above is about the hate pumped into Uganda by right-wing conservative missionaries. I don't know why people are shocked about this. It's much easier for right-wingers to get funding to go abroad than progressive Christians. Right-wingers love to impose their beliefs on others and "evangelizing the natives" by teaching right from wrong and good from bad is right up their simple minded alley. The mindset of the Colonial era is alive and well in the 21st century.

Sounds pretty dreary, doesn't it? I'm sure that not all mission workers are incorrectly matched with their assignments, but when it happens, it's really a nasty situation. There are progressive Christians all over the world, but very few of them have the resources to push for the changes they seek against the moneyed conservative Christians who still wield the power.

The ugly side of mission work that we rarely hear about involves those who leave for service and support those systems of injustice. It can be hard to eschew a status based on "White is right" and therefore hard for someone in that position to NOT live the life of privilege, riches and even leisure such an unearned status grants. An American salary in many former colonies, such as Uganda and even Indonesia, allows for a quality of life that is absolutely impossible in the US.

So. I could write a book about this and still am not sure where to begin, but the fact is, being a missionary is not just going abroad to share the love of God that we know through Christ. It is a constant transitioning between cultures, between different corporate climates, language, what's accepted and what's not, what Christianity means, what is the most loving way to serve, and especially how to keep everybody's egos, cultural and personal out of the mix.

It's very arrogant to assume that just because an entity professes Christianity that they practice in the same ways. Yes, we all should be the Body of Christ, but as those of us from the US know (and need to remember when we think of doing ANYTHING abroad), the rift between conservative Christians and progressive Christians is not just a US thing. It's everywhere.

And we need to really make sure that we're putting our eggs in the right baskets.

500 Words a Day (2)

This morning I awoke from a record breaking 6 hour night of sleep to feeding baby kittens, cleaning the kitchen from a late night cooking adventure (tofu balls, sauteed greens and rice - and yes, it was DELICIOUS), washing the kitty blankets and accessories, prepping the intimates for washing later, and accidentally breaking a glass saucer (whoops!) and sweeping it up with care.

Sometimes I wonder how in the world I ever got anything done when I worked a "regular" job. At least I know now why my house usually looked as if a tornado hit it and why on a normal day, I was ass and elbows. Unless I wasn't. Stop or go. No messing around in the middle for me.

Today is a day that I won't leave the house. It is a sacred day for Muslims that commemorates Abraham's journey to the mountaintop, son and knife in hand. The day is marked by mass religious offerings of goats and cows, mostly. The entire process is prayerful and the majority of the meat is given to the poor. When a young student explained it to me, he made it sound beautiful. Truly religious people want to help the poor.

When I was little and in the car on the way to my Grandmother's house, I saw a side of cow being hoisted up into a barn loft. I was traumatized and then teased about it. If at all possible, I will not eat meat. Fish and chicken if I have to; meaning I need the nutrients because I can't get it anywhere else. Through smirking grins from my co-workers where I was first assigned to "teach English" here, it was joked I must be Hindu because I will not eat cow. Oh well. Of course I would be Hindu because I didn't represent anything else that made sense to them.

Anyway.

So. Sacrifices and offerings. As I was washing dishes I was thinking about that. I guess if your God is mean and hostile, it would be necessary to soothe Him with gifts. The Old Testament is FULL of sacrifice stories.
In this day and age, meat is mass marketed, shot up with steroids, chickens are stacked on top of one another with clipped beaks...in short, rarely do any of us have the opportunity to connect with the manner in which our dinners are prepared for the table.

To pray, give thanks and share the nutrition we receive from animals is a nice change from an industrialized meat market. Yuck.

But back to sacrifices.

Maybe I can say that the Muslim community views sacrifice in that way, to pray, give thanks and share.

In the Christian community, however, there's often a different take on what it means to sacrifice. Too often it seems that it's necessary to endure suffering, as Jesus did. That means that we are to endure being mistreated. One can almost gain a pious and righteous happiness when subjected to more suffering than others. (Adeline Hulot, Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac, springs to mind) It makes one more devout. Suffering can mean foregoing your own will, wants, goals and dreams to accommodate the expectations of someone else. This can even mean enduring an abusive relationship, whether work or personal (friendships and marriages, specifically)

For me, Jesus suffered for us. He took our sins with Him to the cross. We are washed clean. I don't believe that God wants us to suffer and endure mistreatment. Just the opposite. We are to pray, give thanks and share. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks for every little thing. Share the love, grace and forgiveness that God gives to us. So sacrifice?

Even though God loves us and wants us to be happy (Benjamin Franklin supposedly quipped that beer is proof of that!), perhaps we should sacrifice something, but I don't believe that we are supposed to sacrifice as if we were the Son of man.

We should sacrifice our greed. Our arrogance. Our self-centered consumerism. Our love of material wealth The privilege of status, earned and unearned. The desire to dictate to others how they should be, how they should act and even dress.

For Protestants, the crosses that hang in our churches are empty. Our focus is on the resurrected Christ. We remember His sacrifice, but we should know that it was His, not ours. Ours is different. Ours is to pray without ceasing, give thanks to God for His goodness, and share His love, grace, and forgiveness with our neighbors.

743. :-)

500 Words a Day (1)

I read the other day that writers are a disciplined lot; or maybe that they should be. One writer said that he forces himself to write 500 words a day. The point, he said, was not to break ground on some earth shattering revelation, but just to get the words on the page and maintain a stimulated brain.

Usually when I write, I'm waiting be cause of some epiphany. Something important that I think really needs to be shared. As such, I have a long list of unfinished drafts. I get an idea, I begin to write about it and realize that I can't complete the thoughts...too much...too complicated....lost the inspiration.

Maybe if I write 500 words a day, I'll be able to complete those drafts and not be so inspiration dependent. Maybe.

There's a new Marlboro add here. Advertisements everywhere say something similar to

Maybe 

I'll climb that mountain

So maybe I won't write 500 hundred words a day. I will write 500 words a day.

It's so easy to fall back into a default mode of being. I'm always reading articles about how to improve any aspect of myself, how to act correctly, say the right things, try to cultivate compassion...somehow in all this scurrying around to be better, I'm wondering if any of those things fills another mantra I often scurry around worrying about which is how to be true to yourself. If I'm always trying to change myself to be better, am I still me? 

When I was younger, I was often guided me with words such as "yes, but fill in the blank (nice people, educated people, Southern people, WE, etc.) don't do that", so maybe it's such a part of who I am to contain what I would naturally do, because, well, nice people like I should be don't do things like that.

The hardest thing I've ever tried to rein in is my temper. I'd love to just unleash on somebody sometimes. Right now with all of the shutdown craziness in the US, I'd like to get on Facebook and start a war calling names, making ridiculous accusations, being an emotional reactionary - I know how they feel, but I also know that "educated people don't act like that". I guess I don't act like that. I'd like to though. I wonder why I always hold back. I guess because I know that I shouldn't be stupid or say stupid things. 

Most of all, it's because I know things are never simple enough to argue and yell about. Without dialogue and an attempt at mutual understanding, it's a waste of time. 

If I'm going to waste time, I'll just play Bejeweled.

I love to waste time. That seems like some kind of cardinal sin. I don't want to take my life or my days for granted, but I just like to zone out sometimes. 

I think too much. I always have. There's probably some medication for that, but I don't want it. I guess it's how I am supposed to be - hopefully some good will come out of it one day.

Right now I'm hoping 500 words a day will help bring some good out of it. 

And I don't mean maybe.

That was my first attempt and I'm at 478 words. 22 more. Hm. 

You know what I've been thinking today? Why made South America ripe for liberation theology to be born? I wonder if anyone has ever compared the administration of Gus Dur to that of Obama. And finally, I wonder if there's so much confusion in the world because we try to use a particular academic framework, i.e. Western with serious critical thinking, and never from the another perspective free of said influence. Hm. 

621. Day 1. Check.