దేశీ |
8/17/2017 On Our Streets
Cake Syrup tingles and I feel like Cake soaking in molasses When I hear them sing Of loving their black bodies I can hear them from the big house Over screaming suburban silence Roars of roasting coffee beans Cries of college acceptances he promised When the man first moved in He traded us machines for humanity and said Stay in my house don’t listen to the darkies They always misbehave, the darkies But I am a deep dark chocolate cake slathered in fudge And she is too, and he is too And they love their sweet bodies Although they bake in the burning sun But I hate mines Amma, Nanna, can we please leave the house I wish we all just left the house Because knowing ourselves is better than hot water ... Termite Problems One day, our pink apartment in Brodipet, Guntur underwent surgery. It proved a longer ordeal than we expected. Two men—armed with hammer, pressure pump and store-bought termite medicine—dissected the apartment. Cracking, soaking and pounding, they ripped off its pink flesh like fresh scabs until the entire apartment lay exposed, naked, creaking in anguish. Thatha and Ammamma waited in wheelchair and reclining straw chair alike, outside. We cut the fans to sweep the ever-growing debris, but our pink apartment grew hot and muggy, breeding irritability and short-temperedness among us. And though we cleaned and swept feverishly, dust gathered by the second. Indian dust is a formidable organism with seemingly infinite healing capabilities. It mocks my allergies. Soaked in cake-like dust and syrupy sweat, my tan shirt hung limply on my body. I’m tired. I am so thankful for Immanuel, our complex’s poor, skinny watchman. Though the servant girls avoided our calls, he painstakingly helped us clean everything. We moved furniture, sprinkled ammonia and argued with neighbors until night fell. At once, the sky shattered open and rain fell in thick blankets. We had forgotten to remove our drying clothes from the roof! My feet pounded up dirty pink steps as we ran to pull them away—strewn about on rooftop gravel and soaked. The apple-sized raindrops pelted my dark body in jest, drowning me on the pink roof. Our electric current customarily disappeared; we skipped down a few flights of steps—dripping quietly in pitch darkness. I walked my weathered, wet body into the kitchen, and Jess Amma poured me a steaming cup of Chai. As she pulled the milky, cardamom-stained liquid between two steel cups, I smelled it: the love of God, an Indian woman. At times, her perpetual bickering about my limited diet is annoying. But in this allergy-plagued, tired, hungry and sad moment, her offering of Chai gifted the perfect antidote for my sore soul. Such familiar love will heal the world. On our streets, there is little noticeable structure or rule. Everything is performed carelessly, everyone haggles and yells, everywhere is loosely managed—terribly different from the Western world. Many transactions are performed as favors. But we are awfully hard workers; we do dirty work. We are durable, thriving in extreme conditions—under blazing suns and raging storms, amid perpetual humidity and consuming pollution, alongside wild creatures and safety hazards, between chaotic traffic and eminent poverty. India is our world, and we manage to proudly make something of it—all billion of us. ... Flies Flies. Dark, gleaming, hungry. Buzzing, teeming, whispering. Jumping, swarming, crawling. My eyes attempt to follow individual ones amidst the thousands on a Sattenapalle street corner. By virtue of what I believe, there is some divine creativity and intentionality built into in each one—all of which was difficult to consider as they sloppily gorged themselves on debris and scraps strewn by the streetlight. I watched as the street vendor prepared our sweet paan. Typically packed with tobacco, the betel leaf was wrapped with sweets, spices and powders. Clenching fists behind my back, I made a wish that the flies would leave the paan untouched. An older man halted his motorcycle in front of the vendor’s stall and roared for a packet of cigarettes. His dirt-filled fingertips ripped it open like ravenous tiger does to long-awaited prey. He carelessly dropped the plastic wrapper and packaging to the ground—on this same corner. And for a moment, I no longer thought of flies or paan—I thought of him. His belly bulged under a cotton shirt and his slacks pulled up to reveal twisted, ashy feet wrapped in leather sandals. His white mustache quivered under low eyes as he lit the cigarette. How terrible of him, I thought to myself. This man is contributing his litter to the detestable, sub-human, garbage-soaked streets of Sattenapalle. Doesn’t he notice? Don’t any of them notice? And in the next moment, revelation landed on my head like an eager fly. This man—nor any other resident of Sattenapalle-like cities—cares. Not because Indians aren’t hygienic beings or are ignorant to living in their own filth—they keep their apartments tidier than penthouse hotel suites in Soho. They simply don’t have time to care about our streets. Environmentalism, recycling, sustainability policy and “earth care” are all luxuries of the privileged. They are good things—just not accessible. Every few years, I go back to our streets—sewer-like and dusty. And when I return, I am often ashamed to paint the full picture of their wasteful state. I am similarly ashamed when my own people cut me in line, haggle over the cheapest products or voice their concerns raucously. Until that moment on the street corner, surrounded by insistent flies, I hadn’t previously understood why. The third world is not a kind place. Hearts floating about in an ocean of poverty, minds permanently teetering on the anxiety-wrought realities of life, bodies crushed in grinding systems of injustice—in such places, caring for streets that the government ought to care about isn’t a priority for individuals. We aren’t a polite people. We are respectful, sensitive and considerate by our own principles—but we don’t entertain things like microaggressions and body esteem. We haggle and hustle, we trick—because we are forced to. We are bred to; it is in the fabric of our character. We are in the business of survival. We simply want to eat and have our children eat. We don’t have time or the ownership required to concern ourselves with public cleanliness. It’s a similar story in hoods across the world—even in Los Angeles. Spending a summer understanding the American ghetto helped me understand the one of my birth. ... Frightening Words Ammamma Bhagyamma is my grandmother. Her arms are a beautiful, glossy chocolate brown, textured with a billion shiny wrinkles like milk that rises in a hot cup of Chai. Her eyes are sunken, gray canvases of confusion—but tell a lifetime of stories all the same. Every night, she coats her body in coconut oil. Though weak in her old age, her weathered limbs and tautly pulled, metallic hair are strong. She is a creature of discipline, strictly attentive to the slightest disruption even in her old age. Habitually eating, walking, resting and taking insulin injections, her life has grown monotonous. She has become futile in thinking and is often depressed, grumbling to herself over past wrongs and injustice committed against her. She seems to remember everything as if it was yesterday. Growing up, I didn’t talk much with her—she didn’t speak English. When she visited America in my early years, I’d run from her arms and even spit on her once. Now, I love to play with her. I dance with her, make fun of her and we hit each other. She loves me. “Ammamma—tomorrow, I’ll leave.” “Will you have your wedding in your country or ours?” “I’m not sure. Maybe in my country?” “Thatha, me—we’ve all become like pulse to you. We are all useless to you.” Quiet. I gulped and glared at the dusty granite floor, my jaw clenched. I wished to say that I didn’t choose to be American, to be bred and molded in a world so foreign to hers. I wished to spill a lifetime of identity crises into her lap—but I lacked the Telugu. I left. These are the words I am afraid of. Each time my family sees me, I am a few inches, facial hairs and skin tones older. They only have mere glimpses of my life, and know little of what occurs in between. But on our streets, family is everything. And marriage—the invitation of another family into ours—is everything. But for me, the glimpses are the same—they are two months long, faint blurs of dodging deathly traffic in dusty streets, watching Jess Amma fry food atop a hot gas stove, feeling the crack of insects at night amidst sticky humidity. They are memorable, but also forgetful. How important, after all, are people I have only seen a few times in my life? We’ve all become like pulse to you. We are all useless to you. Doubt creeps down the small of my back: have they become useless to me? Is it appropriate to step into their lives for a brief moment and continue my life in an entirely different fashion when I return? It is so complicated; I am so complicated. I have been learning a great deal of my poverty and pain here, but I have been thinking more of my privilege and family. The pitfalls of an identity search in America continue in my homeland. A journal excerpt: One difficult part of the past year was my tremendous inability to reconcile the pain, failure and sin I was experiencing. I couldn't bear to live with it. I subconsciously, with primal instinct, ran from it. From hearing of Egypt's bombings to seeing my friends in prison uniforms, I felt that if I let myself feel what there was to feel in this world, I would be crushed. And asking God for a few moments of peace, a simple hour of relief through tired, reddened eyes was a weekly reality. Since coming to India, I am now realizing that I am repeating the same "primal instinct" mannerisms here. All I have heard of the caste system, all the identity dissonance, all the loneliness, all my sin laid bare—all of it is simply too much to lean into or live with. Therefore, I shut down. I choose to ignore it, I choose my phone, and most often, I choose to dream of a future without blemish—a clean slate. I think that’s my most prized dream: a clean slate. And in some ways, I believe going back to America represents that for me. I think to myself: “India is fucked... so I’ll see you later!” As if it is disposable. As if family needs, my own irritability and sin, the pain of this nation, the brokenness of the culture—is disposable. That is my privilege. That is my privilege. But I’m partly American—perhaps more-so—and I am complicated. My body suits India, but my identity doesn’t. After walking away from Ammamma, I breathed open air on the roof. I listened to God. And in continuing throes of prophecy I have tasted throughout the year, I heard this: Ammamma, you don’t yet know this—but your boy will bring your people freedom. He will kill the snake that has long-gripped your people; he will do honor and justice to your people, to your family, to you. As I left the next day, I said goodbye to Jess Amma on the ground floor of the pink apartment complex. She squeezed my cheeks and smiled at me with her heavenly hazel eyes. “Don’t forget; we are kings. The Bible says we are kings in Jesus. So be like a king.” I won’t forget, Pedda Amma. ... Evil The historic Golconda fort sits atop a hill in one of Hyderabad’s many Muslim quarters. Spared of any tourist attractions this trip, we decided to visit one before leaving. After driving to the border of the Muslim quarter, traffic forced us to walk the remaining distance. We stepped over colonies of flies, street-side landfills and a newborn baby goat. Like many Muslim enclaves in India, the streets felt suffocating. Tight, windowless buildings were blocked with garbage. Large families sat in tight, dark quarters without sunlight for privacy. Young men loudly stormed the streets and older ones chose cuts from the many meat markets littered throughout. Meat hung from market ceilings and scraps were heaped on filthy ground—teeming with flies. Before my discomfort settled in my rib cage, we were awoken by the screaming of drums. Sharp incense and loud instruments led a crowd toward us. To commemorate the beginning of the rainy season, a Hindu procession was taking place on the road. The size of a moving concert crowd, the parade stopped and continued repeatedly down the narrowing roads. Tall transgender women balanced flowers and gods on their heads and danced. A man smothered in turmeric and made to look like a monkey leapt in front—Hanuman. We kept walking, but were inevitably enveloped the moving mass of people. Soon stuck in the tight streets with a thousand others—mainly Muslim men and impassioned Hindu worshippers—we fought for breath. The thick, muggy atmosphere of carbon monoxide from stuck, frustrated motorcycles gripped the air alongside human sweat and clamor. We pushed and snuck around crowds to make it to the fort’s entrance—but in futile attempt. The festering crowd had fully taken over the path. They stopped at some points to be worked into a meditative, spiritual fervor before screaming, dancing and running down the path to the temple atop the hill—located in the fort. They would perform sacrifices there. One man in the procession began shoving others and stumbling about in a stupor. A few Hindu men pulled him to the side and began praying for him. He was clearly possessed by a demonic spirit. And what had previously seemed mildly fascinating to me now turned evil. I began to feel the evil. I stood in its presence—unhinged, unfiltered, openly practiced. And the thousands of women and men who eagerly crowded around this procession were worshipping evil—an evil that cared nothing for them but their destruction. I remembered why my cousins and I used to spit on idols as we ran through the pink apartment building, why we’d be terrified to go to sleep at night. Behind colorful paintings and fragrant incense are spirits of evil. And so long as India credits evil with the souls of its people, its bodies will surely remain trapped in a corrupt, oppressive, destructive system without escape. The crippling poverty, the rampant sickness, the demonic possession—it rules the land because false gods are given authority to rule. We need Jesus, terribly. We need the Kingdom of God, terribly. ... Pain The following is a true story. I was the only one from my village to get an education. I used to walk six miles to the nearest English-medium school, even during the hot season. Some days the heat was unbearable; I’d grow so thirsty. One day, I had walked a third of the way and was already very thirsty. I came across a woman pulling water from a well. She comes from a very poor, dirty people. They kill and eat rats. Her skin was black and dirty; she had no upper garments. “Madame, will you please give me some water?” I asked. She glanced up at me and hesitated. She asked: “What is your caste?” “I am a Christian,” I said. She refused, saying “I cannot give you water.” As Thatha recounted several tales from his past, the room grew fuzzy. Insects still mulled around the fluorescent lights, but the room somehow grew darker. I was parched. They stripped us of new clothes and refused to cut our hair. I noticed that I twirled my growing hair carelessly. He disagreed with its length and always urged me to cut it, insisting I’d look more “American,” and therefore “civilized.” They did not allow us umbrellas to guard us from the heat—even during our weddings. I know why he wants me to marry a white woman—to escape. For my children—to save a future generation from a bloody existence of oppression. They would beat us in the streets. How could our own people buy the Aryan myth and perpetuate it through religion? What sort of hate compels the senseless war on those of our own dark blood? It boils in my veins. They massacred us. I had many revealing conversations with my grandfather as the weeks passed. Some nearly brought me to tears. Most left me speechless. And all brought me face to face with a soul I sometimes caught glimpses of—but never fully sat with and watched. A tortured soul with blackened, bark-covered limbs and warped features. Its eyes were swollen to the point of blindness. Were it to open its mouth, carnage would be released. Motionless—but breathing—it sat with a staunch expression and emotionless essence. I saw the final stage of pain. It is quiet. It no longer stings—not like being beaten behind bleachers or repeatedly receiving racial epithets. It is a mere hum—humble, gentle and lifelong. As I looked in Thatha’s eyes, as I heard his cracked, stubborn voice, I felt it—beyond hurt, anger, grief, internalization, traumatization, conditioning and PTSD—the final dimension of pain: acceptance. It consumes, and it is final. No smooth words can curl stiffened limbs, widen sunken eyes or heal shriveled hearts. No “good news” or reconciliatory conversation shocks them from their shackles. My grandparents have collected ages of racial, caste and economic oppression in their wrinkled, glossy, beautiful skin—and my carefree, arrogant hope and anger are feeble responses. Pain so deep it is quiet. It doesn’t hurt; it simply is. ... For the past year, I have been invited into engaging with racial pain from my past, my family’s past and my people’s past. Often, this pain is buried deep within the underpinning of my identity. Therefore, the year has wrought a burning trail of self-discovery. I have ripped off bandages and dug through dusty crates of pain. I have tiredly searched for any hint of resolve. I have wept with my whole body for God to take it away. I have been hopeless, bitter and angry all the time. But when I came back to our streets, to India, I wasn’t met with a comforting embrace or more self-discovery. I was confronted with a pain far beyond that which I have ever known. I found the Dalit’s hidden, untold secret, locked in a faraway nebula. And I ran away. I ran, returning without the resolve I wept for. I only have more questions. ... And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering. At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” ## Author's Note: While an addition to my previous series showcasing six stories of summer, this one is uniquely sticky and shambolic to write. It is only one painful discovery of a grinding excavation—one worthy of years of exploration. ... We arrived early to the early people's sacred place—although they, themselves, weren't early. No—punctual and late, their unblemished bodies slowly swept into the sanctuary as the service ensued. A sleek, modernized amphitheater with gargantuan screens, rows upon rows of uniform seats soaked in darkness, and a black stage with its white artists lit underneath with a dramatic blue. Their branding was impeccable. To identify such a church to a collective culture may sound terrifying to its independent, individual inhabitants—but I am too foreign to help it: Seeking the renewal of Los Angeles, white church, Reality LA. For many white people, awareness of their own culture—which is sadly drowned in the reverberating clamor of dominance—can be the first step towards understanding the depth of their own identity and of society at large. As an Indian American, I received a piece of this experience at Reality LA: a white church. After spending much of my childhood life attending a white church, I never quite thought of it as such. Similarly, I never equated my classmates' fascination with camping and outdoor sports, their parents' commitment to politeness and seemingly endless chatter—as "white." It simply was. Evidently, my journey of understanding my ethnic identity crossed paths with the white man's as well, even if for a little. I borrowed Dandy's shiny black shoes for the day, tucked under burgundy pants—tucked into a blue button-down shirt. I'd certainly fit in. Housed in a glamorous high school, Reality LA was neatly situated with an arsenal of uniform signs and black pop-up tents. We lined up for coffee and tea—I for hot cocoa—and surveyed the landscape. Young white people, some singles, some married, some with tiny, perfect children. Every noticeable surface possessed the same font and color, perfectly branded. These walking American Eagle catalogues paraded about with Starbucks cups, laughing in every conceivable conversation. Dirty blonde hair tumbled onto carefree summer dresses and button-downs. A plentiful, peppy party of polka dots everywhere. And I became especially aware of myself, the one brown polka dot among a wonderland of white ones. I know this feeling. This one's familiar. Yesterday, we studied the book of Amos. Like shards of sacred spectacles settling into place, I became exposed to a piece of God's heart I had never known nor felt before. After wrestling with the prophet's words, I finally received them as a note of God's compassion for the poor. These words— "For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed... On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground... Go to Bethel and sin; go to Gilgal and sin yet more. Bring your sacrifices every morning, your tithes every three years. Burn leavened bread as a thank offering and brag about your freewill offerings—boast about them, you Israelites, for this is what you love to do" (Amos). —they resounded like clanging symbols in my ear, they pulsed with such frequency that my veins throbbed as the pastor preached. As the announcer announced. As we worshiped—at what felt like Gilgal. Bethel. Amos' words pounded about my skull with a palpable rage. Had I discovered that false worship was the reality of LA—and perhaps the Western evangelical church at large? Were these countless commuters congregating in this megachurch to offer a worship that did not acknowledge the homeless man lying on the steps of their expansive parking garage? Did they even see the hungry, dirty children staring through the crooked windows of one-bedroom apartments packed with three other large families—only blocks away? My thoughts are so loud; someone has to have heard them. They must hear them. They need to heed Amos' words, don't they, God? Like twin surgeons, my eyes poked and pulled with every imaginable judgment on each person who took the stage. A pastor's denim joggers had never before seemed so unappealing, nor did his Buzzfeed-like Gospel of "Which Apps You Should Have On Your Home Screen." I began writing Amos' words, which burned like hot branding on my forehead, on my cup of now-cold cocoa. I was consumed with the words. Most of the service folded beneath my anger. But it wasn't simply Amos' words that caused anger—not this deep sort of anger which welled up from a place far before yesterday. I begun seeing glimpses of my family and myself in what I begun to understand as white church. I felt all that I had forgotten as an outsider in church growing up. I finally felt my parents' pain. Perhaps I wasn't simply scripture's righteous defender—this suddenly became a personal issue. This was white church. And my skin, in this dark auditorium, was darker than the cocoa I sipped on. And it has always been this way, and I have always been in this church. And it has always been terrible. I got up and walked out, come communion. And so one sunny Sunday, one surprising service at Reality LA awoke a deeper bitterness I had—have—am figuring out—towards white church. ... Of course, my white brothers and sisters are not dissimilar to me in brokenness, in need for grace and salvation. And surely any pocket, niche or space where they gather in worship is one that is holy and necessary. And certainly God is in the business of loving and redeeming their ethnicity and culture. But though not societally marginalized, I marginalize them myself. Can I see them as family, as God's people? I do not write this story with shame, but with hope. Just as he has redeemed multigenerational sin and a legacy of racism in my ethnic identity, this too he shall redeem. I do not want to settle for low-grade anger. I am learning the discipline of forgiveness by submitting it to him every time. In due time, my writing will hopefully tell a more complete tale—of things brought to rest. ## Entering into the summer, I was prescribed a perpetual posture of awe and wonder. It quickly proved especially beneficial, because it ultimately gave me access to a world I knew nothing about: the partnership and movement of Jesus in the inner city. It allowed me guileless curiosity and an unrelenting pursuit of conviction, repentance and adventure. I wanted more each day. I remember these six stories as a few which beg a deep, rumbling awe and wonder in my soul when I remember them. … The neighborhood on Santa Monica and Heliotrope is holy ground. Beyond the immediate and obvious disparity strewn between homes and streets beside each other, beyond the gang’s name littering every conceivable public surface, beyond the cheap liquor store which funds the addiction of the men and women who gleefully fight and befriend each other on the corner—you find Jesus. If you walk on those streets today, you’ll see his blood spattered over the sidewalk; its black droplets cover broken pieces of concrete on which the inhabitants of this block walk, play and sleep. In a frightening and daring act, Jesus poured out his blood on East Hollywood, effectually purchasing the individuals, families, homes and brokenness that exists there. Where fatherlessness and addiction reigns, in an obviously neglected space—a sacred work is being done. An unsuspecting holy ground lay under our nose, breathing. Pay more attention, and you’ll see the sacred blood hanging heavily from the trees; it’s thick and breaks through dark gates and poorly-placed sidewalks. And perhaps you’ll see a glimpse of the blood-giver himself standing on the corner. Weeping, he cradles the man who rocks himself back and forth on the sidewalk, a needle in his arm and far too many familiar chemicals dancing in his veins. Laughing, he jokes with old Latino men playing checkers together as the smell of morning coffee and cheap, greasy donuts hangs in the air. His body, his bride, lies in the heart of the neighborhood, slowly breathing and waiting, living and planting itself with the bright, beaming hope of redemptive and restorative justice meeting these families. And they hope for heaven, a kingdom which dismantles and makes rubbish all such sickly systems of oppression that hold these streets and people captive. Heaven is coming; it’s coming quickly to kiss earth. But if you look closely, you’ll see it already arriving. … Skid Row is awful. If there was ever a place in this country to remind me of the downtrodden streets of India, it was Skid Row. It felt, looked and smelled completely like the third world. The revolting stench of human excrement and garbage is sown into the air, concentrated at every corner. Some men sit on plastic chairs and stare under a cripplingly hot sun, others bury themselves under tarps to escape the heat. Shivering with his bare back against a hot brick wall, one man smokes crack. Others swap in and out of portable bathrooms to shoot up heroin. Some blare music out of rickety speakers and dance. Every shop sells drug paraphernalia. Every person is thirsty. Every set of eyes are on us. I walk by a man slowly rolling about on the ground, deathly thin and covered with sores. The literal, biblical picture of Lazarus is unfolding before me. The rich man’s gates tower high above skid row, bearing the names of our foremost banks and financial centers. And right outside lay Lazarus, on Skid Row, seeing in fullness the skyline which screams with its many titles: important. Alternatively, the sick, thirsty souls craning their necks upward while pushing their shopping carts of garbage and blankets are told how little they matter, how little they value. So I went in the rich man’s house. It’s only a few blocks away; there’s really only one intersection where drastic change becomes apparent. The buildings suddenly shoot in height, telephone wires disappear, the sidewalks are dusted and as the road continues, you wouldn’t ever suspect that skid row lay, writhing in pain, only moments away. White people, young and old, their ears plugged with headphones, clothed in tailored suits and rolling suitcases, surrounded by thin, modernized architecture with big windows and luxurious insides, all immovably set on their mission for the day, line up inside an air-conditioned Starbucks to place their daily, expensive orders of coffee. I gulped as I entered, jarred to my bones by the contrast. One moment, we were in a land plagued with thirst—real thirst. Another, we were in a culture that thought it agreeable to regularly spend copious amounts of money on luxurious drinks. This is what Jesus told me outside of Starbucks that day: “Even the tears of those on Skid Row are more precious to me than any, and in fact all, the drinks you could purchase at Starbucks.” Truthfully, he sees the nobility and significance of those drug addicts. Truthfully, he looks in their sunken, bloodshot eyes and sees capable fathers, mothers, wives, husbands and friends. Truthfully, he longs to see them dignified, employed and healed. This is the truth: their very tears are more precious to our Creator than the empty luxuries we waste our money on. Skid row is an awful place, filled with precious people. … I grit my teeth and stared upwards while the rest of the room said prayers of lament. Gent had just finished his talk on the first two chapters of Amos, which we studied earlier that week. The thoughts which pulsed through my mind were quick and vast in number, all bouncing atop a burning anger in my gut. How I hated his words on our justice system, how I remembered the indoctrination of my classrooms back home, how I doubted and slunk around all his bold claims with my own list of details, information and research clutched tightly to my chest. I murmured a few angry words for prayer that night, but there was no resolve as I exited Lincoln Heights. We went home and I opened the letter I had received from my parents. And I wept. I read the simple, grammatically incorrect words and my heart broke. In the immigrant tongue, in the simple pleas of the parent to their child, in the curious, honest questions, I saw unconditional love. My tears covered that page as I scanned it over and over. My parents wouldn’t have judged me if they saw how I reacted to Amos. Mom would’ve likely said I looked too skinny and cooked a magnificent meal, right then and there. Love without condition. I quickly realized that I was staring into a glimpse of God’s love—the same God who “roars like a lion,” as Amos says. The same God who delivered his harsh words to me also wished to walk me into them with love. I thought all these things in the shower that night. That weekend, we wrapped up Amos—and I gave it one last fight. In a large scripture study, we looked at God’s judgment upon Israelite women for their demand of indulgent lifestyles at the expense of indirect oppression and exploitation of workers. Resultantly, we were encouraged to boycott unethical businesses. I fought the entire passage until the final few minutes, when Gent presented the words of Henri Nouwen: care, not cure. Care, not cure. In simple writing, in a single eloquent meditation, Henri Nouwen answered all my questions with a gentle, quiet rebuke and supernatural insight. “What we see, and like to see, is cure and change. But what we do not see and do not want to see, is care: the participation in the pain, the solidarity in suffering, the sharing in the experience of the brokenness. And still, cure without care is as dehumanizing as a gift given with a cold heart” (Nouwen). God showed me this picture: the black family of God, clasping hands and throwing arms around each other. They laughed and wept together, they knew of each other’s joys and pains. And then there was me: standing alone, outside of the circle, with a clipboard and a calculator. I murmured incessantly to myself as I attempted to figure out this family’s nuanced, complex condition and develop possible solutions to their issues. And deep down, while I honestly searched for answers, I was ultimately positioned on the outside because I cared about being right more than I cared about the family, because I cared about answers and details more than I cared about their pain. Breakthrough. Compassion—how do I have compassion? For one, I ought to esteem this family above myself, my own desire to be right and my political identity. I found it awfully difficult to lament over police brutality against black folks when I didn’t know all the details. But I tried it. And I don’t regret it. In the words of Gregory Boyle: “The strategy of Jesus is not centered in taking the right stand on issues, but rather in standing in the right place—with the outcast and those regulated to the margins” (72). Redemption. This was a matter of my identity. Jesus is in the business of redeeming the strong political identity I formed as a result of hurt and rebellion—not to a political end, but to a more holistic one. If my family was harmed, I would spend far more time angry and in pain than restlessly looking for a perfect victim scenario to justify my pain. Family, not strangers; compassion, not details; people, not politics; care, not cure. I didn’t leave LAUP as a bleeding-hearted liberal, but I did leave with a bleeding heart. … It was a sacred night when the lion roared. Two men, black and white, calmly offered some thought provoking questions about prejudice and presented the topic of repentance. “Repentance is a good word,” they echoed. The gentle voices of these fathers, although seemingly quiet and uneventful, did the marvelous work of God that night. Repentance is a good word. Then the lion took the stage. I had read her blog posts and heard her lead worship—and could say with certainty: I do not like this woman. Erna was known for her outspoken, raw, unapologetic voice on issues of race and social justice. I cringed entering the building that night. She approached the podium quietly as dust settled around her. Power-stance, ripped black shirt with the names of black men murdered by police covering it, and her signature blue hair. And she began: “’I’m not racist’ is not the bar in the Kingdom of God, the bar is Jesus’ love for people.” And she unfurled what sounded like Kendrick Lamar’s magnum opus played to completion. It was a masterpiece, a cinema-like composition of Jesus’ story. He brought the bleeding woman from the margins to the center, heard her story and declared her family. Erna went on and on, cussing a bit here and there, saying awfully controversial things here and there—but something stuck: repentance. I thank God for Paul and Doug, who framed the idea of repentance earlier: repentance was a good word. Repentance took place when I spilled milk, but Dad simply said “let’s clean it up” rather than “you’re a klutz.” If it wasn’t for that definition, I could’ve very well walked out during Erna’s talk. But she hit and convicted me of my need to hear the voices on the margins, to stand on the side of family, to reframe my ideas of generic theology and to ultimately repent. So I repented. The lion roared at the end. She screamed a magnificent, powerful howl to the heavens. And as jarring as it was, it was radically beautiful, like a trumpet. An unnatural, heavenly chord was struck—a chord only accessed by way of the heart. In her roar I heard it: repentance was a good word. It’s needed, often at painful realization that the milk has indeed been spilled—but it is deeply good. It is a fresh breath of life, a single groaning shift in heaven’s proximity towards earth, a chance to ‘clean it up’ with Dad. … Unlikely partnership is the King’s battle strategy against his enemy, because the enemy and everyone involved thinks it is unlikely to work—except the King, he knows it will. One sunny day, our Kids Camp revealed itself to be a spiritual battleground. Children shared with us about their fascination with horror films, encounters with ghosts and spirits and demonstrated an overall glorification of evil. One volunteer, Cesar, spoke at length with Elaine about his regular interactions with spirits and ghosts, making arrangements to bring a particular voodoo doll which haunted him the next day. So we made our own arrangements to deal with this issue. Coincidentally, or certainly not coincidentally, our battle would unfold on the day that we studied Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness—a clear picture of spiritual warfare. After praying fervently, developing attack strategy, being anointed, laughing about the whole thing and then getting awfully serious about it, we were ready. Elaine and I would talk to Cesar together. The next day, after teaching the kids and distributing popsicles, Elaine and I sat down with Cesar to talk. Elaine and I are very different people, from very different backgrounds, with very different approaches to ministry. She comes from a familiar background to Cesar and all things spiritual, as it is very much a part of her story. I don’t. I was very direct and forward with him, pointing out the Bible passage for the day and asking him what he thought. She was very reserved, letting him guide the entirety of the conversation. When he shared how he values openness, I popped the token ministry question: “Great! Would you be open to prayer?” As soon as the words escaped my mouth, Elaine interrupted my dialogue with Cesar and spoke plainly: “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now.” She continued, driving the conversation elsewhere and I was left completely befuddled and taken aback. I left to go teach. Later that night, our team debriefed the conversation and all doubts were let loose. “You were being far too harsh with Cesar!” “Do you think you were projecting your own feelings upon him?” “But he said yes to prayer—let’s not discredit that.” “You both have the right heart, just different approaches.” And a particularly insightful one: “He knows how to dribble. It’s like playing a basketball game. When you pass the ball to another player, trust that they know how to dribble. And the Holy Spirit is the third player. As soon as you pass it off, you count on him to do his work.” It’s like a basketball game. In the messy debrief that unfolded, I begun to see the beauty of our partnership in a way I never had before. Elaine filled in the gaps where I couldn’t shoot long-distance, and I filled in hers where she couldn’t get in the paint. And although it was an ultimately messy effort, the Holy Spirit still scored all his needed points. We didn’t have to be pretty to be successful in our battle strategy. We just had to be faithful. Good, faithful partnership—it was cross-gender, cross-cultural, cross-denominational, cross-personality, and it was absolutely gorgeous when it unfolded. We both possessed the authority of God to complete the task before us. This is a picture of ministry done well, of partnership done well. Elaine ended up following up with Cesar, the entire team prayed with him and he enjoyed spending a lot of time with us before we left. Good partnership—yet unlikely in nature. The enemy didn’t stand a chance. … “I never knew a luh, a luh-luh, a love like this.” “… But the greatest of these is love.” “I… I lo- I-I love you.” Though the words beam brightly in churches and books, on billboards and bumper stickers alike, they find themselves lost on both the unholy hedonist and the missional minister: God loves you. This summer, these words found themselves lost on Dana—the homeless drunk on our corner, on several of our team members—excited urban missionaries, and on me—a screwed up church boy without a clue. I shut down at the end of my fourth week in East Hollywood. My voice disappeared, along with my smile. For four weeks, I had been reading Jesus’ harsh words, tirelessly chasing conviction and seeking the beauty and brokenness of the inner city—yet I somehow entirely failed to operate out of a place of his love. 400 miles from home, $1900 raised in funds, four weeks in the inner city on mission—and I’ve completely missed Jesus’ love. So four weeks in, I chose to be loved. Jesus told me that he loved all the little things about me. On some deep, deep level, his love for me was intricately connected to the greater convictions and concepts he was introducing to me in the inner city. On some level, his love directly informed the conversation surrounding my ethnic identity, and why I have a role in the conversation of American justice as an Indian. On some level, his love is the reason I chose and will continue to choose to respond to his voice and movement. Before I realized any of this, I reluctantly agreed to share my testimony at the last InterVarsity gathering event at Los Angeles City College. It would be our last day on site and the theme of my testimony would be love. How ironic—I soon realized: this is quite literally the story of my life. I was the perfect fit. It’s written: “A man knocking on the door of a brothel is looking for God.” And I’ve spent my whole life as this man, knocking on an array of doors, all the while craving a love that nothing in those doors could satisfy. Not friends, drugs, women or even ministry. Nothing—until I found Jesus’ love. And found it again. And again. God wanted me to share about how his love satisfied my craving during the very week I realized, on a deeper level, that it did. I had a unique encounter with some students on campus earlier in the week. Two missional Christians, Patty and Shony, and an agnostic, Kevin, approached me and I engaged them in spiritual conversation surrounding racial injustice and the gospel. This will become important in a moment. Come Thursday, our last day on site. I practiced my testimony until my throat ran dry and eventually said it in front of the LACC students at our event. Afterwards, I spoke with Kevin at length about love—particularly familial love. I shared that the “poverty mentality” I formed regarding God’s love was a result of cultural struggle and an inability to experience my parents’ love for me. He resonated deeply, as his own craving for love was left unmet and prolonged by the voice of his own parents. We left early to go to our last day of Kids Camp, but I later found out that Rae gave a call to faith, and Kevin gave his life to Jesus that day. And defeating the expectations of our team and staff worker, Jesus met and saved one soul who longed for love on the hot, dry campus of LACC that day. Kevin encountered Jesus and chose to be loved. He chose to be loved. I chose to be loved. This was the only perfect way my story connected with the story of a boy from the inner city: we both craved love. And Jesus longed to give it to us. … I’m leaving this summer with an arsenal of convictions, commitments and values that I didn’t previously have. I walked into East Hollywood with a posture of awe and wonder, and all the inner city’s ravishing stories and compelling concepts fell in my lap. But I am departing with one chief realization, four precious words that he wouldn’t let me leave without hearing: “I love you, Daniel.” And the rest falls in place. This is my story, this is the calling on my life—to be ultimately loved by Jesus and to see Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth come to know his love. “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Paul). ##
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