Lessons from a Dog

I have a dog.

I love dogs, mainly because I love animals, but I didn't go out of my way to find this dog (just the same with the cats I've been blessed to have here), but we happened into each other's lives all the same.

Pets are treated a bit differently here. One of my best friends from the US is originally from Taiwan and she was a bit worried that I would have trouble seeing animals treated as, well, as animals and less like family.

The thing is, though, that animals aren't really treated any differently than people.

Let me explain. I began talking about this in this blog. Everything and everybody has a function. The usefulness of a person has to do with what that person can offer society, specifically related to accommodating the expectations held for their position, status or even gender. The usefulness of an animal is based on how it can serve a human being; we can eat them, look at them, play with them, or collect them. Rivers are a good thing to both fish in and throw your trash in, but not to just look at and say "wow - how pretty!". Everything and everyone has a "practical" purpose - the benefits of everything and everyone are based on how useful they are and how well it or they fulfill expected roles; in a more negative sense, on what can get be gotten from them- whether it's a reinforcement of a popularly held belief, an elevated status, or even just superficial entertainment. With few exceptions, I haven't noticed that many people or things are just appreciated for what they are - they have to fulfill some "practical" usefulness.

If that sounds a bit like objectification, it's completely intentional.

Now, back to my dog.

Even though he's been in a family since he was about 4 months old, he's still a bit feral/wild. I think I've talked about how all the animals I've had or known just love to bite and nibble...I think they can't help themselves. Unless they're a fancy breed, they're all still a bit wild.

I've been accused of spoiling him. I just pet him and love him...that's all. No fancy food - no expensive kennel and I don't run to him every time he cries. I just take him to pee or poop, pet and hug him, feed him, and talk to him. I just treat him with kindness.

I'm American. We love dogs. I can't treat one like a dog. I treat one like...well, I don't know. I just treat him like I treat all animals. If I were to be contextually appropriate, maybe I would treat him differently. And there's the rub.

How does one know how to treat other sentient beings when what is culturally appropriate is totally different? I don't like or dislike, respect or disrespect, value or devalue someone based on what they do for me, but on how they treat me. Are they kind? Are they considerate? Even if they're not, I don't hate them, I just steer clear.

There are many things that aren't too great about America. We can be racist and think our national/cultural way is the most enlightened in the world. Our foreign policy causes all kinds of trouble. Corporations have entered our collective bloodstream and they can suck us dry. We mindlessly kill each other and have an incredible crime rate for a developed country, but we do have some kind of foundation to appreciate people (or not, but at least it's an option). When we say thank you to someone, we not only thank them because we've benefited from whatever they've done, but we appreciate their effort (holding the door), their skills (preparing a delicious meal), or taking the time to be there for us when we need them. It's not expected, it's appreciated. And that's a big difference.

Back to my wild little dog. It would be easier to give him away or to treat him like a dog and leave him in a cage, feed him regularly and make sure he gets to poop and pee...but that's not appreciating what he is and how how he makes my life better, how he makes the children in the neighborhood happy, and how he can "represent" for his kind in his sweetness, his good temperament, and his loyalty. He can show that having a dog around is like having a friend. And that's a good thing.

Just like his mommy, he loves his greens.

                                                *******

I was reviewing my yet to be published posts and came across this one...I thought I'd finish it and share it, but I have to add a post script.

Something amazing has happened. My little wild dog has turned into an awesome champ. All of a sudden, he has stopped nibbling on me, he listens, and he doesn't want to destroy everything in his play space. He's matured. Wow. It's amazing what a little love can do. Now he really is a part of the family - and not a wild spirit, but a loyal, thoughtful, friendly dog. And a good one who still has spirit.

So the lesson from my dog is this:

Give love. Be kind, patient and appreciative. It doesn't cost a thing and it can only make life - all life - better for everybody.

Morning Walk...or "Once a Planner, Always a Planner"

This posting is more like a photo essay than a blog post, really. It's a short visual experience of my walk this morning and from it, I have two main reflections. The first is that for me to be outside in a natural place is the best place for me to be. I want to walk on dirt paths, cross creeks and climb hills. Secondly, I know why I became a planner. When I was growing up, I saw beautiful natural places exploited and uglied; for new buildings, for roads, with little regard for cultural heritage. Developing land in and of itself is not inherently a bad thing, but like most things, it should be done thoughtfully with an awareness that once it's done, we all live with the results. Perhaps beginning with the industrial era, people began to move beyond the city centers into suburbs...I don't HATE suburbs, but truly, when farmland is sold and developed, that's it. In Charlotte, NC, places that were once farms are now subdivisions. I like local farms, local farms and local produce. That's one nice thing here - they still have that...and I hope that the value of such things can be acknowledged before it's too late.

Coban Pelangi and Jalan-Jalan

I cannot get into the woods enough. It is my very favorite place to be and today I not only got to get into the beautiful, lush forest, but I also got to travel along a road that changed from asphalt to stone, stone to dirt, and dirt into mounds of earth suitable for an off-road adventure. Gas? Check. Spare tire? Very likely. Soulmate and spirit of adventure? Most certainly. Ayo berpetualang! (Let's go adventuring!)

There are really some serious trees around here...

I believe a tree like this inspired the one in Avatar....

Very interesting trunk action happening here...

Lucked into another prime spot for enjoying Coban Pelangi (Rainbow Temptation...or Rainbow Waterfall) There is a fine mist of water so you can imagine if the sun were out, there would most certainly be incredible rainbows.

Traveling along with trash cans at regular intervals.  I just love this area!

One nice thing is that it seems there are always places to have a drink...and in this case, make your prayer time, as well.

the rocky cliffs were so beautiful, it was hard to choose a vantage for a picture!

A little weird to see a poinsettia this big...but I always LIKE to see them.

These cute children were so direct and said hello right away - they were sweet and cute. I'm honored that they would take a picture with me!

I wish I had taken pictures of the "road" we were on...I was distracted by the pretty scenery!

I just love you...

I’m just your mother, after all…

Her voice rather trailed off after she said that. She was never one to drop a guilt trip on me and she never, ever played the victim, so I think that’s why for the first time in my life, I realized something rather horrendous; I had been consistently disrespectful to the person who showed me the most love, the most kindness and who had always been my biggest supporter.

At the time, I was a college student, working at least one job and raising a daughter myself, by myself. My mother had come to visit. Blaming a busy schedule and knowing deep down that “my mother understood”, I didn’t clean my condo very much before she arrived. I didn’t even change the litter box; even though I had a big ol’ boy who dropped aromatic bombs in it.

Had that been my father who came to visit that day, I would have killed myself to make sure everything was as perfect as possible – of course, no matter what I did, it probably wouldn’t be, but I still had to try. Why? Because I was terrified. Not because I didn’t want to dishonor him, but I didn’t want to provide any fuel for him to explode into a cruel diatribe about how lazy and terrible I was, how I was living like “pure white trash”, as well as how in the world did I turn out that way, among any other hateful things he could think to say. Lord help me if I showed that anything hurt my feelings, because then that would provide the direction for the upcoming assaults. It had always been that way and now that I’m older, I understand some things and I especially understand that anything gained through fear is not worth having. Or giving.

So this evening, for some reason I remembered my mother saying “I’m just your mother after all” and it made me reflect on why we often treat people we’re scared of better than the people we love.

It should be the other way around, but I don’t believe it often is. It takes an enlightened awareness to be kind, to love unconditionally and to give warranted, selfless respect.  Even this can be turned around into an egotistical mechanism for hopefully receiving the same in return, but that’s not enlightened – that’s bartering and it’s hardly better.  The true mark of character is how well we treat those who we know can do absolutely nothing for us in return. Who said that? Ghandi? I’m not sure, but I believe it.

But back to my story.  I covered “do unto others” in another blog post.

I’m talking about giving honor and respect where it’s due. 

One day about almost two years ago I was in a classroom of (mostly) teen age boys. Catholic school boys. The Red Hot Chili Peppers sang about Catholic school girls, but the boys, I think, are equally rambunctious.

They knew I was American and they were directed to ask me some “cultural” questions. For that age group, it’s very common that they’ll ask about “free sex”, parties like they’ve seen in Hollywood movies when the parents leave home for a weekend, and other such related “cultural” questions. One brave kid threw his trump card. He thought he’d throw me off my respectable and unshaken perch. He asked me what I did as a teenager that I felt the most guilt and regret over.

As honest as I had already been, I’m sure he thought the class was in for a big story, but I shocked them with another equally honest and straight forward story.

Of all of the things I did as a teenager that I had no business doing, the one that makes me the most regretful and that still hurts my heart is this: I lied to my mother. I lied to her regularly. My ego was so pumped. I just knew I was the best liar in the world and I imagined a bright future as a business leader, politician or lawyer.  What I didn’t realize until I was older is that it wasn’t that I was such a wonderful liar, it was that my mother trusted me. She loved me. She believed me and believed in me. And I took that for granted.

So why do we do that? Why do we often treat the ones we love with an apathetic dose of “Eh. Whatever.”?

Often on Facebook there are those (cheesy) shared photos that remind to tell our loved ones we love them because we never know how long we’ll have them around. Well, I guess the intentions are good, but it’s still all about us. Tell the people we love we love them so that we won’t hurt so much if they go before we do. Hmm.

How about we just show the people we love that we love them? Period. Let’s appreciate them, thank them, be honest with them and love them. What do we lose?

Maybe it’s the way I grew up, or maybe it was the realization that happened to me the day my mother reminded me of who she was, but I decided then and there I wasn’t going to give into fear any more. I’m not wasting my energy on people who are trying to scare me into doing their bidding. I will not be bullied.

I’m going to focus all of my efforts on the people who are good to me, who love me and who deserve my very best. I’m not going out of my way to hate the haters, but I’ll certainly try my best to never let those I love and who love me feel taken for granted and unappreciated. Not because I want them to do the same for me, but because they deserve my best. And I’m going to do my best to give it.

No strings attached.

Masih Menjalani Panggilan (Still Following the Call)

Just over a year ago, I wrote a post called Menjalani Panggilan. It was one of the first reflections that I composed specifically related to following a call; what it means, as well as what it means to and for me.

My employment with PC(USA) ended almost a year ago, as did my "teaching" assignments...but I'm still here. Why? There are many reasons, but the main two are actually just one. 1) I am in love and am completely committed to this relationship, and 2) I am continuing to follow my call. (These are related because if it weren't for #1, there would be no #2 - I would have gone elsewhere LONG ago.) In short, 1 + 2 = Continued Service to Christ. And that is my call. To prayerfully follow Christ, as best I can, through continued service.

Part of traveling abroad, and all of living abroad, involves understanding the culture. It's easy to appreciate and honor what is beautiful, different and inspiring. This link from the Indonesian Embassy details many of them. It's also really easy to "pass judgement" on things that seem wrong, so we have to take a minute (or much, much longer) to reflect.

In Indonesia, there are surely the infamous sweat shops (don't think I've seen any yet), as well as unplanned, sporadic growth accompanied by untamed and swift flowing traffic.  There are age and gender restrictions for employment opportunities. The majority of middle class families rely on a multitude of paid "helpers"; nannies, maids, gardeners, drivers, etc. There are violent flare ups based on some kind of inter-group conflict, religious, ethnic or otherwise (these have happened a bit closer, but thankfully I've yet to witness violence, just the POTENTIAL for violence).  There are many situations here that could be "poster children" for a newly developing democracy, but the ones with which I've had the most experience are a bit different.

Approximately halfway between the capital city of Jakarta and the island of Bali is the city where I currently live. The experiences that I relate are based on my experiences here in this city unless otherwise stated. Yogyakarta is promoted as the center of Javanese culture and is a special region with unique political recognition.

There are status and power issues the revolve around ethnicity (real or perceived), education, gender based entitlement, and even Christianity. These issues swim about in a sea full of the salty water called "tradition" and "culture". These are handy terms to excuse a culture of violence.

What gives me any legitimacy to speak of a "culture of violence"? I'm a white American Southerner from a long line of Protestant Christians. The South dominates the region referred to as the Bible Belt and is also home to some of the most heinous atrocities against humanity that have occurred in the United States; namely slavery, but also the participatory violence against Native populations. That background allows me a more intimate awareness of how some people like to use "tradition" and "culture" to justify certain things, especially those which oppress and harm others.

That being said, I'm proud to be Southern. I'm proud of the way that many of us fight the evils of the past and continually seek out ways to embrace what is beautiful and good about our culture; strong family ties, faith traditions, hospitality and a sense of community. I'm proud of our authors such as William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, Flannery O'Connor, Zora Neale Hurston, Thomas Wolfe, O. Henry, and more who wrote about the South in ways that shared our culture, good and bad, with "outsiders". I am also very proud of the people involved in the Civil Rights movement, black and white, who risked life and limb to fight social and legal mechanisms of oppression and hatred. I'm proud that Martin Luther King, Jr., an African American, Southern and Christian pastor is known the world over for his commitment to justice and peace. Helen Keller, also a tireless advocate for justice and social empowerment, was also Southern. Many of the strongest voices of the Christian Left, those who promote the Christian values of love, grace and redemption are Southern; how about Bishop Shelby Spong? Their efforts and those of others go hand in hand with an acknowledgment and concerted effort to discredit attempts to perpetuate cultural attributes that hurt others, namely racism, elitism, white privilege and exclusionary practices.

Many people here are quite proud of their culture and rightly so. There are many wonderful things. There is beauty, art, culture and history. There are stories of bravery, of love, of courage, and of justice. The work of Proemedia Ananta Toer, as well as the music of both Iwan Falls and Gombloh fill my heart with respect and admiration. Knowing a bit of history and seeing the temples that reflect a diverse and integrated past. Photos of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, always make me smile and even make me feel proud.

Even so, if there's one thing about being Southern that permeates my being, it is this. I realize the importance of treading lightly; this is not my place. This is not my territory. And the road that brought me here can also take me home. I am not here to pass judgment, but I am also not here to passively accept what I know serves as a tool of oppression, especially when it hurts the people I love.

In that spirit of respect and trepidation, the cultural realities I witness, as well as knee-jerk assumptions, judgments and conceptions of  what's "right" often make it hard to determine what's worth paying attention to and what is necessary to ignore. Early on I developed a rule of thumb that I rather like; if something hurts someone's soul, it's "wrong" so I can pay attention and even try to do something about it if possible. I haven't met anyone yet who is confined to a sweatshop. I've yet to meet anyone who complains about the age or gender restrictions on employment opportunities. I've also not yet involved myself in groups that either oppose others or are attacked by others based on religion or ethnicity. But I know many people who are hurting. And these hurts are all, in one way or another, related to issues of status and power.

Over the coming weeks and months, I'll continue to describe some of these issues. I'm still working through them and feel quite overwhelmed, honestly.  The social mechanisms specifically used to "keep people in their places" can marginalize and exclude people in order to maintain an order based on privilege, power and selective freedoms; this contradicts the quick, but false and misleading, retort that these things are used to promote "social harmony". Harmony based on fear is not harmony.

The hurt with which I'm most familiar and has already been touched on in various blog posts, results from any of the following:

• Childhood or teenage experiences that set the tone for the rest of one's life (molestation, pregnancy, marriage/divorce, alcohol/drug experimentation, death of a parent)
• Difference, in any way, real or perceived, from the majority of peers; fatter, lighter or much darker skin color, taller. Different kind of intelligence, different ethnicity or sexual orientation.
• Educational traditions, administrations and methods that stifle and discourage independent thought, creativity and innovation.
• Patriarchal oppression and objectification of both women AND men 
• Domestic abuse, emotional and physical
• Majority/minority relations
• What it means to be a Christian

I don't know yet the most effective ways of sharing these experiences and reflections. I'm not in a hurry and I will not disrespect, objectify or vilify any to the best of my abilities. It'll be a slow going process and I ask your prayers for me as I continue my service. My call that took me from a safe and comfortable life in a beautiful city, surrounded by wonderful and loving family and friends, into a mysterious land of beauty and contradictions. And love. 

My call to love without ceasing.

Poetry

Sometimes I'm so overtaken by emotion that I don't want to write about it, but I have to get it out. I have some short poems I've written...but I'll share this one now, because it reflects how I've felt the second I got off the airplane...I just didn't know why. I know now. As a Southerner, I know well the whole "If you don't like it, leave" mentality.

Believe me, I'm working on it.

Hate treads silently

Creeping along the ground and wafting through the air

Admiring strands of passerby quietly offer nourishment to ensure safe passage

It seeps in and covers the surface, eventually

Soiling your feet with its filth and stench

You wash your feet with water, but it comes from the angry, soaked ground

Your hands are dripping with the residue of its sickness

You try soap, but the towels and the air are infused with conformity, shame and malice

Eventually you understand

In this place, hate is the Way, the Truth and the Darkness

Vengeance is the answer

And revenge is the only thing that’s truly sweet.

I want to live in the Light.

Vengeance is NOT Mine...thank goodness...

When I share a certain and personal concern of mine with my mother, she often laughs and jokes about her aunt, a preacher’s wife, who reportedly pleaded in her daily prayers “Lord, and please don’t let me be mean today”.

That used to rub me the wrong way because I believed that once you’re aware of a behavioral issue, you can (and should!) change it. If you know you’re mean, just stop being mean for goodness sakes! What I know now that I didn’t know then is that she WAS changing it…and she knew that she couldn’t do it alone. I regularly beg God for the same…and one night when I realized it, I thought of my great-aunt and my Mother’s laughter.

Dear God, please help me be nice and kind and PLEASE don’t let me be mean to anybody!

My prayerful request is a little more expressive, a little more of a soulful cry for help, and it is never relegated only to my nightly prayers, but whispered with sincere reverence throughout the day.

Here I must confess that I have a terrible temper. I believe it’s genetic and I have it pure and true from both sides of my family. It is, for me, a huge accomplishment that I can keep my temper in check…even when I lose it, it’s still of a much lesser intensity than I actually feel…and I believe that’s progress. I don’t scream, throw things or destroy everything I can get my hands on…and I now believe that I don’t even believe in the death penalty anymore…oh, I’m one conflicted human being!

There are two main reasons I want to control my temper. Number 1, I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of unabated rage. I never want to hurt anybody – especially someone I love and care for. Secondly, I believe that not being in control of yourself represents the lowest and most base form of humanity…so I fear that my second reason stems more from a sense of classicism and ego than purity of heart; we don’t behave like that. We don’t do that. Educated people don’t act like that. Christian people don’t do that. Only rednecks act that way.(sounds pretty judgmental as I proofread and make final edits...) Take the high road… the voice in my head is clear. I am not permitted to behave in ways that may be consistent with the way I feel, especially as related to anger or anything of a “base” nature, regardless of my sense of self-righteous indignation, justifiable anger or witness of systematic abuses. I have to control myself. And most of the time, I do.

It’s a constant struggle and I always fight with myself (not fighting with others, just against myself with the same amount of vitriol…is that OK? Anyway – I digress) and what always happens is that I get even madder.

Why is it that some people can act in any way they please; spew hate, judgment, vengeance, etc., and they seem to not only be permitted that freedom, but they are often supported and encouraged? Why do I have to be better? Am I not human? May I not unleash the fury of my own anger and indignation without suffering the consequences as so many other people are allowed? (...you're not everybody else...)

All I can do is use my voice in the most controlled manner possible to share the way I feel. I can write. I can share. I can try to empower, love and uplift others. All I can do is to control what I can control…and the only thing that fits that criterion is me.

The most important thing? The thing that gives me hope, strength and peace?

“Dear Lord, please help me be good and nice and dear Lord PLEASE don’t let me be mean. I really want to be good. Please help me. I want to follow you. I ask this in Jesus name, Amen.”