Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of desire.
This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
-Ecclesiastes 6:9
One of the gifts I have been receiving for the last 2 years is something that could only have come from a group of struggling refugees from the distant jungles of Burma. I've been able to see my own life, my american life, up against the backdrop of another culture. A community of people that have lived without all the complexities of our consumer culture.
The way the Karen refugees from Burma celebrate holidays is communal, not private. They share their lives together. They celebrate not by giving gifts but by sharing a moment together. They have a wonderful way of keeping the focus on each other instead of what people do or do not bring. Sure giving is an integral part of their shared lives...you wont be in their home 5 minutes and not be given a drink and snack...but it's never about stuff. They celebrate relationships beautifully...not in a Hallmarkish way, not full of cheap sentimentality but in a simple, gentle way.
An example: A few days ago, I helped a couple of the families with various household and business stuff. Phone calls, car repairs, instruction, computer set up and training, appointment setting, showing them how to use a dishwasher, a thermostat, a gas pump, a Oil Lube center, a fuse-box...general living stuff. Many things, that in all honesty, they have no way of really repaying in kind. At least they might think that. So yesterday it snowed and I happened to look out my window and there is one of the Karen I assisted...shoveling the snow off my walkway and sidewalk. Then later, I saw another one shoveling the snow off the sidewalk around the church.
A simple gesture of thanks, in return.
I was moved.
Helen Keller was once asked, "Is there anything worse than losing your sight?" "Yes," she replied, "Losing your vision!"
It amazes me how we can lose "our vision" in the day to day chaos of this American life. I saw it, when I asked them if they would like to go and get family Christmas trees again this year. Instead of each family buying their own, they came together, discussed, and decided to forgo that and instead they are going to buy one tree and come together on Christmas Eve as a group and decorate and celebrate...together.
I received this photo of a Christian relief worker who serves the people of Burma. I wept when I read of how they choose to celebrate Christmas...the sacrifice and the simplicity. I see a family that is being influenced by their Karen friends just as I am. I was challenged by the "way" they are living. I pray to be someone who embodies these values that I am seeing before me in this refugee community. I hope to learn how to live more communally and less individualistically.
That's one gift I have received from my Karen friends...one they don't even know they have given me.
1 comment:
I began to well up when you wrote that one of the Karen was clearing your sidewalk. That just got me, like you said, a simple way of saying thankyou. Would to God that I weren't so Americanized. Simple things I read always get to me, but much of my life is a blurr.
Love Dad
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