Phonemic Ambiguity

A dark void is not an abyss;
At least there is darkness inside.

Termite-ridden tree-trunks are not destroyed;
Merely transformed into an amorphous, edible abode.

Hope sinks as it sighs;
Eyelids drip with much-belaboured heart sweat.

Where is peace? All there is is piece.
Where is rest? All that remains is the rest.
Is there anything to make one glad,
Without turning into a garbage bag?

Hope frozen over; the chills of intergalactic vacuum
pressing in, squeezing against
bunny rabbits, rainbows and bright, sunny
spring days.

Hope springs eternal
unless it’s clogged with ice.

Gossamer Junctures

I am sitting here in my classroom on the last day of a long weekend, indulging in an iced mocha from 7-11 while munching on a brand new favourite: garlic toast crackers. Usually, I would be working on my schoolwork, but my iced mocha isn’t finished and I would consider it a capital offence to squander the liquid rejuvenation on something so vulgar as humdrum work. As a result, I sit here, writing my contemplations on this past weekend.

Community is such an odd beast. It is so fragile that the gust of wind from a single whisper can topple years and years’ worth of mutual construction; yet it is so resilient that no force in the universe can sever the bonds created through such interaction. It is an oxymoron: to build it requires reckless abandon & infinite trust as we reveal our deepest weaknesses before the other; yet it is through the stalwart resilience of its members that we are made to feel safe to do so.

Community is spider’s silk.

I was reminded at how perplexing and (at times) absurdly irrational community was this weekend, when I was abandoned in the middle of a mall that I had never been to before in the middle of a part of Bangkok that I had never set foot in before. At the best of times, I find it difficult to assume the role of passive dependent, and being in Bangkok—not able to communicate basically at all with anyone around me—accentuates the stress that such a position puts upon me. I am a rather independent individual, seeking foremost to lead others, then either to follow proactively / cooperatively or to blaze my own trail solitarily. Having to rely on others and wholly to abdicate personal efficacy is difficult, but when this is compounded by being / feeling abandoned by those upon whom you are trusting, my stress really rises.

Often at home in Canada, I felt overlooked, ignored or (perhaps “at best”) obligatorily included in much of my “community’s” activities. I felt that association with me—for the most part—was done strictly out of courtesy and manners than out of genuine interest. Needless to say, such a social position does wonders for one’s self-esteem, and since you’re often forgotten about, you end up having weeks to sit in your house thinking about it as you hear that your “friends” are either out doing something, gone on a road trip or something to that effect whenever you try to contact them. After spending a couple of summers working at a Bible camp in the Rocky Mountains and being exposed to a different sphere of people, I discovered that my social predicament was not all that was available: there could be more; there could be real interaction and real community.

I resolved never to acquiesce to any trend of substandard social treatment again, concluding that a life with little-to-nonexistent but real community was more fulfilling than a life filled with scores of casual acquaintances who made you feel about as welcome and accepted as the mat on the floor which kept the mud from shoes and boots off of the tiles. Since I’ve been well-versed with “mat treatment,” I tend to be rather sensitised to any instance of being treated that way, and since my resolve for anything is about as weak as my drive for oxygen, I have pretty much zero tolerance for such treatment, seeking to remove myself from the situation as effectively as possible. I don’t take well to feeling as though I am an accessory or a tag-along to a group, and when I feel abandoned—as I did this past weekend—my mind is flooded with negative memories and negative emotionality.


Flip the Switch

On the other hand, this morning, I was delightfully surprised to have my roommate run up the stairs, looking for me. He told me that a bunch of people were getting together for morning brunch and that I should come. I’m not sure if he realised how much such an invitation meant to me—having lived the majority of my adult life being (or at least feeling) overlooked whenever those around me were doing anything. Furthermore, having just—not more than 20 hours previous—been assaulted with a strong reminder of how miscommunication and oversight is so caustic to (at least my apprehension of) community, this completely opposite gesture made my heart leap with joy and invigorated my soul. The smiles of welcome and the genuine interest of those that I ate with today were as refreshing as a cool salve on blistering sunburns.

“

20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.

—John 17:20-22

“

3We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4We write this to make your joy complete.

—1 John 1:3-4

Exuent All

The weeds are heavy and barbed as they wrap around the swimmer’s legs. Tugging, taunting, tearing into feeble flesh. There is no respite: ocean waves prophesy a coming storm as their whitecaps swell and crash o’er the swimmer’s bobbing noggin’.

“Fish food,” he thought. Shark bait; snail fodder. A murky red cloud seeps up, confirming the pain from his weedy lacerations. The moon is high; the tide comes in: these anchoring plants do not float.

A blazing brilliant snap of electric fire illumines the pitchy sky and inky sea, though it is no help. The fishing boat’s no less than kilometres away, barrelling towards the harbour, bent upon preservation.

Breathing liquid salt, the tired swimmer yearns to rest. Without this fight for air, perhaps the kelp snare could be vanquished. Driftwood, volleyball, life vest, styrofoam—anything to keep air in and salt out. Anything


Pass the popcorn, I’m hungry.
What? No butter?!
Nevermind.

Potassium Fog

Tin wooden motor shack, burning down the street
Fuming billows of soot and spewing seed for rain

Passengers zoom by: some in some out
Some under tires, being chewed to rubbery mulch

Rain soot. Rubber blood. Fields of fallow sorrow.
Cloud seed. diesel blood. Broken pumps for pain.

Rack
Clack
Shack
Smack
Lack lack lack

Back pack
Cougher’s hack
Sound of taxi horns attack

Where is rest: In the wheel well?
Where is consolation, the stays of stilted houses?
Along the soi; dredged in the klong; scurrying away in the gut of a five-inch cockroach?

Though their leaves serve as umbrellas
I am still looking
Searching
Searching for the banana seeds.

Shadows of Hope

It started off as a very pleasant evening. I was sitting, waiting for a handful of friends who were going to meet me for dinner at a nice Indian restaurant on this tropical island that we were visiting for the long weekend. The food was great, the conversation was decent and the people were all excellent company (it isn’t every day that a lone guy can hang out with five girls for three days straight and not be driven completely mad). We were just finishing up the main course and discussion was rumbling about finding a nice little corner somewhere to grab a bit of something sweet for dessert. Then something that I could never have expected happened. One of the girls piped up—completely out of the blue, and not fitting with the present conversation topic at all—and said, “Just to make the record clear, Bill’s father has died. He’s planning on staying for the funeral and hanging out with his mom for a bit, but his e-mail said that he’ll probably be back in a few weeks.”

I felt as if I had been just sideswiped by a tractor-trailer. I know that not many of you probably have fallen 3.5 storeys, like I have, but the feeling of the absurdity of what had just happened was very much the same. When I fell in 2002, the thing that struck me the most (aside from the 8” steel pipe that I landed on) wasn’t the shooting pain on my left side which left me sitting up, gasping in agony. It was the incredulity that I had actually just fallen about 30 feet. The crazy thing about that, though, was that this disbelief of falling set in the moment after my hands lost their grip; it did not really pass until we started to drive off to the hospital.

The announcement made that very night—this past Monday—felt very much the same. Now, although I wasn’t tumbling in a free-fall towards a large metallic tube this time, I just as much felt the dread of being out of control as I headed towards a destination that I did not want to meet.

Bill isn’t his real name, and the reason that this news struck me so much, perhaps, is that Bill’s brother is my best friend. Bill’s family is as dear to me as my own.

* * * * *

It was torture waiting for the cheque to arrive. Our server was being as charming a chap as anyone could ever be, showing all of us several card tricks. I know that if it had been any other night, with any other bit of news, I probably would have eaten up his sleight of hand, but at that moment, I was so removed from what was happening: I just wanted to escape. The cheque came; I paid my fare and quickly excused myself from the company of my counterparts. I didn’t make it back to my hotel hut before the tears overcame my willpower to contain them. Through the liquid blur, I did finally manage to make it to my room, where I crumpled beside my bed and wept. I did not want consolation; I did not want company; I did not want anything, so I sat there—a big mess—surprising even myself at the strength of my grief. My shirt quickly became drenched with tears and sweat (I never knew until then that grief could require such exertion); my throat was worn raw and my body exhausted after 90 minutes of heaviness. Then a peace welled up within me.


Bill’s father had cancer. He was diagnosed a week before I flew halfway around the world to teach & do missionary work. It had been something like 11 weeks since his initial diagnosis, where the medical team thought that he had a high chance for successful treatment. Not a day had gone by—not even 6 hours typically passed—that I did not beseech the Lord to move in such a way as to make His glory known through this difficulty. I prayed and prayed and prayed, and I actually came to the point that I really, really believed (without even the slightest doubt) that God would heal Bill’s father and restore his health. My grief wasn’t directed so much at the death of Bill’s dad: we would all see him again—especially since Bill’s father decided to draw himself back towards the Lord during these final weeks. My grief was mainly focussed upon the huge loss that my friends were dealing with, those that Bill’s dad left behind. It was huge; it was gross; it was sudden. Not only this, but I felt even a bit betrayed by God. I felt lied to. The Bible tells us that if we ask for anything in the name of Jesus—and that if we pray and do not give up—then whatever we ask for in His name, the Father will give us, because He likes to give good gifts to His children. All of my prayers, all of my intercession added up to a big pile of horse poop, because it seemed as though God didn’t care about what I asked for. Then I remembered. I remembered that although I asked for Him to heal Bill’s father, I had this one string attached. I prayed that God would heal Bill’s dad, but only in a way that His glory would be made fully known.

Now, I think about the story of Jesus & Lazarus in John 11. I have a new, fresh perspective of how Mary & Martha were feeling. They knew that Jesus had the power to heal their brother, but Jesus purposefully did nothing. He let Lazarus die, and when Jesus came to the funeral, Mary & Martha were grieved, confused and broken-hearted. Part of me thinks that they thought Jesus let them down. I know that the power of God can raise people from the dead, and so did Mary & Martha, yet they considered only that the glory of God would be made known “in the resurrection at the last day.” I see myself considering the same. I find myself asking the same question that the bystanders were asking in John 11:37, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” Doesn’t Jesus have the power to stop this sickness and death? Why didn’t He?

Perhaps, it is because God has a bigger plan in the works than we could ever understand. Even now, I still pray that God would let His glory be known through this sickness and death—who knows? God rose Lazarus; perhaps He will do the same for Bill’s dad. That would be amazing. I know that He has the power to do so; I just no longer have the confidence to say that he will do so. I would love to see it. I really would. Yet even if He doesn’t, I can hold on to the truth knowing that God works all things for the good of those who love Him.