grace Archives - Laurie Klein, Scribe

My Christmas in Asia

Christmas is coming . . . amid epic humidity. Über-hot spices. Unusual plumbing.

Dreamer and I feel like aliens in this small Thai village. They call us farangs: big noses, ghosts, white people. It’s December 2000, and we’re here with a short-term mission team. There’s so much to unlearn!

Culture shock flattens me. Think fallen arches of the soul.

Plus . . . deadly fire ants. Spiders big as hands. And roadside cobras.

I spent my entire 50th birthday getting here, crossing the international date line where time hiccoughs, then replays itself.

“Good thing we’re headed east,” Dreamer said. “Or you’d be 100.”

Friends, GodSpaceLight published this true story of mine last year. Pour yourself a tea or coffee and join me?

Today, wandering the winding, red-dirt village lanes, my feet feel a century old. Everyone else wears flip flops or sandals. Am I the only one wearing socks? Chronic nerve pain afflicts one foot, so I wear tennis shoes for support and micro crews for cushioning warmth. No shoes are allowed indoors, and red dust stains my socks — despite nightly scrubs in the tiny sink.

We’re here to assist the resident missionary. I secretly call her the Advocate. She mediates questions, cultural quagmires, and occasional quarrels, so she’s often unavailable to translate for us.

We all hone our pantomime skills.

Party

An all-day Christmas celebration to honor Jesus — that’s what the Advocate envisions. We have three weeks to prepare. And no budget.

In addition to Western games and prizes and goodies, our event will include an evening performance. For Buddhists. Who don’t speak English.

Will I please oversee the whole shebang, she asks.

I’d rather clear rocks from her field for the games. Then I think of the Virgin Mary’s willingness to shoulder what seemed overwhelming.

“Yes,” I say. Reluctantly.

The Advocate also asks me to mentor an Earnest Young Convert (I’ll call him Eyc). He doesn’t speak much English, but she tells me he wants an open mic session, ceremonial dances, and a children’s sign language choir complete with white gloves and spotlight. He’ll also write a play.

Days go by. Eyc declines to discuss the script with me. Or anything else.

I should not take this personally. But I am (supposedly) in charge. Stateside, I have directed numerous performances. Here, amid impossible circumstances, I feel painfully responsible for the event’s outcome.

But Eyc, independent and buzzing with ideas, keeps dodging me. I probably seem 100 years old to him.

One day, he makes an effort to connect. Or is it a dare? He hands me a stick crowned with a steaming knob of meat. Mmm-Mmm, barbecued rat.

I tell myself it tastes like chicken. Might he trust me now?

I begin to understand the three Wise Men braving foreign cuisine, day after day. Did they endure heartburn? Anxiety? Nausea?

Lord, show me the way forward here. And help me tread gently.

Into the jungle

Mary endured the donkey’s lurching gait. Despite increasing discomfort, she sallied forth.

Today, map-less, I roam the jungle. I’ve been sent to ask a stranger to make traditional costumes for the mystery play. If only I had a translator. How dare I impose? It feels like white entitlement. I dread being misunderstood, resented, judged. The errand gnaws at my pride.

But I keep walking. I’m toting yards of colorful cloth. Once I find the seamstress, I’ll resort to charades. But how does one act out, “Please, you don’t know me but will you make traditional costumes, for free, so that children you don’t know can dramatize a Western story you probably don’t want to hear?”

The wind kicks up. All the palm trees look the same. If I get lost, who will point me back to the village?

I think of Joseph trudging mile after mile among strangers.

Breathe, I tell myself. Pray. And watch for snakes.

The clearing . . .

At last! I find the seamstress. I smile and act out my errand — several times.

She studies the fabric. Then me. A level, assessing gaze, which feels weightier every second. But she nods. I give her all the colors I’m holding. I wish I could pay her.

As if sensing my discomfort she smiles, and it’s dazzling as well as contagious. God has preceded me here, preparing each of us for this exchange. I tent my hands, in grateful respect. She returns the gesture.

Then she points out another red dirt path. I hope it’s a shortcut.

The show must go on

Daily, Eyc rehearses his program. Nightly, I wash his youth choir’s white gloves. Ah, the irony. Leader demoted to laundress: socks and gloves, socks and gloves.

My ego rankles. Chagrined, I ask Dreamer and my friends for prayer.

“We love you,” they say.

“All is grace,” the Advocate adds. “Nothing to earn. Nothing to prove.”

I try to absorb this. Jesus, the ultimate leader, served God by serving others, with love, no matter what. Born in obscurity, he not only survived, he flourished — despite the struggling economy, local politics, and limited resources. Much like this village.

I begin to understand Nazareth.

“Aha!”

I feel less forsaken, but still displaced until . . . an idea arrives. Eyc prefers working on his Christmas play with the Advocate. Fine. I’ll create a life-size creche.

I scavenge scrap lumber for a stable. A teammate builds walls and roof line, guy-wires them to the Advocate’s house.

I raid her Lost and Found. A pillowcase crammed with straw and mounted atop upended bricks makes a fine swine. “Marry a man who owns a pig,” the village grandmothers advise.

Orphaned tube socks become winsome doves, with stray-button eyes.

If I can find black gloves, I’ll stuff them with sand, whisker them with dental floss: voila, two worshipful rats.

My creche will be amazing. Culturally relevant. Or I’ll eat my socks.

I LOVE repurposing castoffs. Surrounded by palm fronds, stick-figures with coconut heads stand in for the holy family. They wear traditional Thai costumes, sewn by the woman I met in the clearing.

Finally, something I can control!

Curious, bedazzled, the village kids handle everything. In their delight, they topple my birds and beasts and figures. Best to zip-tie and guy-wire all of them to the stable. The props, not the children.

Christmas Showtime

Party food and games enliven the day. At dusk, our makeshift stage glows beneath a rented light tree. Open mic begins. The temperature drops. A shivering kid lights a nest of gathered twigs — too close to the crowd. Pals bring armloads of straw; the blaze ignites. What are they thinking? I corral two youngsters, steer them toward safety.

More little arsonists take their place.

Why don’t my teammates intervene? Smoke billows. Flames crackle and leap.

Meanwhile, the gloved sign language choir captivates the crowd. Rapt, they applaud, oblivious to encroaching fire . . .

Luckily, nobody’s hair or clothing goes up in flames. No one suffers burns. The brief inferno peters out when the rascally kids abandon it, to watch Eyc’s play.

And what an opening act! Child actors stagger, feigning drug highs and drunkenness. A sham fight ensues. Good Lord. Is that a hooker, crooking her finger, stage left?

I can’t watch. I escape to the Advocate’s kitchen, toe off my shoes, then stand at the sink in my wretched socks, washing dishes. A teammate enters, her face troubled.

“I think you should know the kids are dismantling —”

Oh no. The creche? My creche? I fling my dishtowel and hurry outside.

They’re tossing my cherished sock doves back and forth. Fighting over the holy family’s attire.

Turns out my teammate cut the guy wires for them.

I have no words. Choked by hurt and fury, I turn away.

An hour later, only a few guests remain. As our team debriefs, a Thai woman seeks out the Advocate. The villager wants the farangs to come to her house and explain Christmas to her husband.

We are amazed. The sole car in the village, the Advocate’s station wagon, can hold nine people.

“Who wants to come?” she asks.

I just want to go home. Instead, I’m stranded among jubilant friends, unable to shag a ride to the place I sleep. Call me the prodigal’s elder brother, but I want no part in the Christmas celebration.

Nor do I want to examine why.

Christmas Eve, an hour later

The team returns, all talking at once. When they’d arrived at the woman’s home, villagers crammed her front room, curious about Jesus. Eyc’s play must have presented the gospel, after all. The Advocate retold the Christmas story and led them in prayer.

Each person there had pledged to follow Jesus.

Luminous now, my teammates turn to me. Isn’t it awesome? How do I feel, they want to know.

Well, for starters, bewildered by news beyond my imagining. And something darker I can’t name. I nod and smile, but I’m saving face. I want out. Dreamer and I head for our nightly commute to the place we live. As if sensing my angst, he gives me space.

Creche, sounds like crush

Dreamer falls asleep smiling. I lie awake, confused. Offended. Which makes me feel guilty and even more left out. I should be ecstatic. But after weeks of feeling dismissed and mistrusted, now I’m ashamed about my fury over the ruined creche.

I groan, place the cool side of the pillow over my face. I begin to understand Herod. Jealous for my private kingdom — and wanting adulation for what I built — I have blinded myself to the reason behind it all: Christmas. God with us.

In my mind’s eye, I kneel, grasp the imagined hem of his robe, picturing traditional Thai cloth in vivid colors. And somewhere in the background, the Buddhist who’d sewn it. For free. Simply because I’d asked.

Lord, forgive me.

And something like relief flows in, leaving my soul “sore amazed.” I begin to understand the shepherds.

Then, I taste Mary’s hushed bliss.

I am 50. I could be 100. I feel newly reborn, broken open by grace. By Story. By Christmas in Asia. Tenderly. Thoroughly. What a strange and wondrous world, where we can briefly take steps in the shoes of others.

All is adventure.

All is grace.

Friends, which character in the Christmas story resonates with you this year?

Poet Mary Oliver asks:

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

You might also enjoy this Christmas post from the archives

Soul Mimosa — Photos, Music

Lilt: Stepping Gently toward Easter via Lent

by Laurie Klein 24 Chiming In

Lilt: Stepping Gently toward Easter via Lent

“Lilt” in Lent? Well yes, the word’s synonyms suggest faith on the upswing: spirited, buoyant, springy.

How on earth can I consider those words next to these concerns from the friend of my friend? She’s scared sleepless over her cousins in Ukraine, young mothers whose husbands must enlist. Do they need money? How can she send it? How will grandparents and nieces and nephews safely escape with banks closed, airports occupied, gas stations emptied?

How can I allow weightiness once again to enlarge my heart, carve room for deepening mercy? Those wiser than I claim prayers of lament will, in time, bring transfiguration: glint by glimmer, a luminous trail, the sparks flying upward.

But what in heaven’s name can “lilt” mean in relation to war? I am fed, sheltered, privileged. I am safe. For now.

When the heart is wracked, how do we navigate dissonance?

Faith, we know, watches for holy rescues. Keeps vigils. Fasts and prays. Celebrates God’s provisions, seen and unseen.

This Lent especially calls me to lament and repentance. Can this also invite me toward heart-lightening remembrance?

Here’s what I say to my soul:

Spend time on those knees—in between time spent listening, at His.
Offer up small surrenders in sober reverence and quiet joy.
Engage more deeply with the reality of the Passion so as to embody compassion.
Grab the children and tell them the truest stories—that we are made for God. That we are called toward binding up wounds as well as abounding in grace. Help them understand this:

Dear Lent, you are ashes and daffodils,
fasting and feasting,
foot washing and footloose, resurrection-bound praise cutting a rug.

Here is my Lenten List (I hope you’ll add to it):

Write yourself a note. Tuck it inside your fridge, silverware drawer, medicine cabinet—wherever you’ll come upon it: Hello there, you agent of whimsy. What will you and Perfect Love do next?

Peel a tangerine. Pray over a different country as you savor each segment. Lick your fingers to say Amen.

Talk things over with a local bird, or use this captivating video close-up of a mourning dove: And may the dove who descended upon Christ at the Jordan alight near you and those you love today.

Make a lap. Now remember the lap of someone who held you. Let your Bible fall open, right there on your knees. Read out a fitting word, phrase, or verse(s) in blessing. Then improvise, perhaps sensing you and your someone welcomed anew into God’s embrace.

Do you collect quotes? If not, you could start here: “During the night everything has been remade for you. Merely to breathe is a happy adventure.” —J. B. Priestly, Delight

When rampant darkness between people overwhelms you, browse Photo Ark Wonders, by the “Modern-day Noah,” Joel Sartore, for National Geographic.

I consider “lilt” a relative term. This morning I hobbled around waving a long scarf over my head, like one of those small but undaunted gymnasts armed with banners. In Christ, my soul is a secret Olympian.

Bet yours is too.

What would you add to the list?

P.S. Invite scent to trigger memory. Before making your bed, mist your pillowcase with a scent you enjoy (or tuck a dryer sheet inside it). Anticipate Spirit-led time travel when you tuck yourself in tonight. Then again, the fact of shelter, the bed, and a warm room is already grace, and more than enough.

You might also enjoy Kyrie Eleison: Seeking Mercy

Lilt is a song, a movement, a stance of the spirit — Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash

Strain

by Laurie Klein 24 Chiming In

One jillion tiny red currants,
already simmered, fill
Mama’s jelly bag, slung
on its tripod — summer
reduced, overnight . . . drip
by drip . . . until piquant,
translucent juice
brims in the metal bowl:
suspense, at its sweetest.

Time plus fruit, gently filtered through fabric open enough to permit the passage of light, creates a domestic trifecta. The upshot? Shimmering jelly, to later be spread like jewels across winter toast.

Just typing those words makes my mouth water. The image offsets weightier meanings of “strain” — as both noun and verb.

With the Delta variant on the rise, with wrenching losses and lockdowns barely behind us, escalating fatigue and fear plus diverse opinions can erode our peace.

“There is a physics of friction,” essayist Tim McCreight writes. “Things push against each other.”

Derived from the Latin stringere, “to stretch something to an extreme or damaging degree,” strain takes on different meanings in diverse areas, such as music, medicine, lineage, and biology.

Strain is a shape-shifter. Who knows where it will appear next?

My head lifts, as I catch a Celtic tune’s familiar strain,
or my neck bows over the sink, as I strain a batch of dubious gravy.

Perhaps appetite stages a binge, numbing a mind and nerves strained by too many housebound days spent avoiding excessive heat and smoky air.

Ears strain to decode an accented voice on the phone.

After a 4-mile run, strained muscles benefit from massage.

And memory offers the fraying thrum of rope straining through a pulley, my father winching our boat from lake to trailer. (Oh, the suspense: Would the rope hold?)

In My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes: “The strain of life is what builds our strength.”

When we face it—head-on and heart-foremost—we can overcome doubt, dare that next step forward. And as we do, grace closes the gap, supplies us with nourishing fortitude — sometimes, through other people.

Dare I view strain as an invitation?

“If you do this, and God so commands you, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will also go to their homes in peace” (Exodus 18:23, International Standard Version).

Thinking again of Mama’s jelly process, I make a plan . . .

Let faith, rather than dread, simmer.
Maintain the tools (prayer, worship, the Word).
Make friends with time.
Welcome prolonged suspense.
Savor the juice of simple goodness.

Then feast on a bagel smeared with jelly.

Friends, what is strain teaching you? I could use a few tips . . .

You might also enjoy “Catch Your Breath Here”

Photo of woman by Keenan Constance on Unsplash

Bagel photo by Douglas Bagg on Unsplash

Resilience

by Laurie Klein 29 Chiming In

Resilience: After eating together, Dreamer and I update the blank book we use as a gratitude journal. As we verbalize and record the day’s visitations of grace, our threadbare souls experience modest repair.

We are coping with holes in our lives. Sometimes we feel worn as ancient parchment: our moods uneven, our hopes brittle and thoughts torn.

Back in medieval times, a parchment maker’s knife often slipped while smoothing animal hides for the written word, leaving behind small gouges and tears.

Frugal scribes threaded needles, then zigzagged back and forth, bridging the gap. They redeemed a deficiency with color and texture (see image here).

Raw edges were sometimes sutured, like a heart patient after a bypass.

A gash might be darned, like a sock. Or latticed with parchment strips.

Mid-page in a gospel or treatise, repairs might resemble a doily or dreamcatcher (see image).

Rather than discard the parchment or try to disguise the flaw, patient hands beautified the damage.

Defect as Art.

No matter how riven or riddled we feel, the Living Word keeps tossing us lifelines . . . for every gap, every absence, each gaping wound.

Sturdy, vivid, resilient — grace (and gratitude) mend us.

Let’s embrace each strand, no matter how small:
when we sleep, or kneel, when we mourn with a friend,
reset the mousetraps, scour the sinks,
mask up (or not), re-brush the dog,
make lists, make love, make sincere amends,
recycle, pay bills, exercise,
tithe, take the stairs, sanitize hands,
binge, commute, argue, pray,
zoom, google, sing in the shower,
cha-cha, chop onions, shop online,
change diapers, change lanes,
send faxes, do taxes . . .

Thank God, there’s always one more holy, holistic way to practice resilience.

Where are you torn, and how will you treat the hurt place today?

You might also like “Holes and Holiness”

Here, a scribe leveraged three page holes to create a laughing face.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: You might also enjoy Crossing the Gap

Photo of spools by frank mckenna on Unsplash

Hands and thread photo Conor O’nolan on Unsplash.

Lessons from a Moose

by Laurie Klein 30 Chiming In

Heartsick and hunkered under a lap quilt, I light my prayer candle. The votive flickers within its chunky glass holder, a treasured, fire-in-ice gift from my lifelong friend. Yesterday, she was diagnosed with cancer.

Oh, friend. Oh shit. Merciful God, please intervene!

I yearn to help. And I want to bolt, escape to the woods, outrun heartbreak.

Beyond my window Indian Summer burnishes the aspen’s heart-shaped leaves to quavering gold.

Hold on. Those movements exceed a passing breeze. Branches thrash.

Camera in hand, I edge onto our deck: grunts … rustles … CRACK! — massive jaws are tearing off limbs.

I inch nearer. A dark, unblinking eye slues in its socket, meeting mine. Abashed, I shift my gaze. Behold, 800 swayback pounds of fur quixotically arranged atop legs like stilts: a moose.

AND her twins.

I study their commandeered buffet — this time, the crab apple.

Does the cow scent human? Have her calves ever seen one?

Stilling breath / bones / muscles … I try to communicate: No threat here and No greens for me today, thanks. After all, a mature moose weighs as much as a car, can charge at 35 miles per hour, and possesses front hooves designed to lash out in any direction.

So, I stay put, snapping breathless photos.

Then … simply watch, rapt. Only God could imagine into bone / joint / sinew-and-hide these stoic, browsing eccentrics. How effortlessly they radiate wildness.

Moose are focused. Adept. Insouciantly unafraid.

Moose: literally, “Eater of Twigs.” De-nuder of trees. And these three are thorough. The ornamentals will soon be whittled to nubs!

Stamping my feet, I shout. Flail. Make noises, mostly unintelligible.

It’s a lot like praying for someone with cancer.

Are such cries disrespectful? Do they communicate? Are they vacant gestures against a disease all-consuming in its hunger?

I mutter prayers anyway, writes author Brian Doyle.

Did they have any weight as they flew?

I don’t know.

But I believe with all my heart that they mattered because I was moved to make them. … believe that the impulse to pray is the prayer, and that the words we use are only envelopes in which to mail pain and joy …

It’s the urge that matters — the sudden Save us that rises against horror, the silent Thank you for joy.

Even the wrenched-out gutterals — ?!#%?&?! — all that is ornamental pared back to the raw shoot.

So, I pray for my friend with cancer. And for others I know, also gravely afflicted with different versions.

I pray for all of us. That we remain focused. Adept in grace. Insouciantly unafraid.

What’s staring you down, eyeball-to-eyeball? I’d gladly add my prayers to yours.

Brian Doyle, Leaping: Revelations and Epiphanies