The Last Pygmy
July 26, 2010
In the remote border region between Burma and Tibet lives the Taron people, a “pure-blood” race of Mongoloid pygmies on the verge of self-imposed extinction. Rabinowitz shares his encounter with one family member, Dawi, who saw the “deep, deep hole” existing within both men — and the bounty of that friendship in his own life.
This story touched me, especially since I’ve been reliving my experiences in Nepal on this blog. I hope you enjoy this 4-min video. We have so much to offer each other regardless of race, language, religion, or geography.
The Last Pure Pygmy and His Gift from Speaking of Faith on Vimeo.
Trekking Nepal: Episode IV
July 25, 2010
Vampires in Paradise
I have seen a goddess. And now she is gone, vanished behind stacks of clouds. Other peaks come and go in the billowing mist, but I watch them without seeing. My pupils focus inward again and again, straining to see the twisting ridges of Machapuchre, her vaporous after-image burned on my retina. Looking back, it’s hard to believe the horror I would confront this very same morning, not on the horizon, but at my feet.
After breakfasting on boiled eggs, fried cornbread, and wild honey, we set out for Pohtana. I am not happy about making Pohtana our destination for the day because it is only an hour and a half up the trail. We are short on time and I want to get higher, farther, faster. Our guide, J.V., normally leads three-week-long treks that require slow acclimatization to altitude. But, due to my busy residency schedule at the hospital, we have only four days. Despite my pleas, J.V. will make no exception to the rules of acclimatization.
We slug forward.
After forty minutes of steep climbing we stop at what looks like any other pleasant resting place along the trail–with flat grass, smooth boulders to sit on, and small rocks for foot stools. A cool brook babbles nearby and the ground is only mildly spongy. There is no hint of the squirming hell that lurks beneath the mossy turf.
Sitting comfortably on a stone, I remove my boots and spread my toes, messaging the balls of my feet.
In my peripheral vision, the grass appears to move, like a shag carpet fingering the air in a breeze. But there is no breeze. Something is off. I can’t put my finger on it.
I squint and look closer. The patch of ground at my feet darkens, like an expanding blot of ink. The margins of it are hairy and wriggling. It expands unevenly, almost spastically, like a hoard of arthritic fingers ratcheting toward me. I feel a needling rush cascade down my spine, corkscrewing the hairs on my neck into quivering spikes. Something primal in me screams and I grab my boots, cram them onto my feet, and jump up without bothering with the laces.
But I am too late. An undulating mass surrounds me and fear and fascination hijack my nervous system. I am rooted to the spot.
With curled lips and wide eyes, I watch as a knot of spaghetti-like creatures crawls up my bootlaces. Caterpillars, I wonder? No, these move too fast.
They spring like grasshoppers up my ankles, making a bee-line for the warm regions of my socks. They surge over me like barbarians over a Roman wall. I feel a pulling sensation as small weights accumulate on my calves.
Dear Lord. I’m sinking into living quicksand.
“Leeeeches!”, J.V. screams.
Like a key, the word unlocks me. Leeches. Of course! But these are nothing like the leeches that cling to rocks in American lakes. As J. D. Hooker writes in his Himalayan Journals of 1854, “Leeches swarmed with incredible profusion… they got into my hair, hung from my eyelids and crawled up my back.”
Suddenly, I dance and shake as if I am on fire. Dad and J.V. do the same. With flicks and flings and curses, we hop and zig-zag away from the marshland as quickly as possible. We behave as if we have stumbled into a hornet’s nest. Our eyes are wild and unfocused. Our nostrils flare like snouts of horses at a derby. After fifty yards of flailing, we turn around abruptly and stare back at the marsh, breathing hard, trembling with nervous energy.
“What the !@#$!” I gasp.
Even Dad, normally so cool under pressure, looks disheveled and unnerved. J.V. simply collapses into a pile of loose limbs, saying nothing.
Haemadipsids–or Land Leeches–are a nasty slice of Nepal’s biodiversity. This is what I learned in my research after I returned safely to U.S. soil:
“They drop from trees on men and animals and creep through all the openings in one’s clothes, even the eyelets of one’s shoes. If one tears them off, one loses more blood than if one lets them drink their fill, when they fall off by themselves. Some of the valleys are infested to such a degree by leeches that one simply cannot protect oneself against them. The best way of keeping them out is by wearing socks and trousers steeped in salt,” (Heinrich Harrer, 7 Years in Tibet).
These annelids evoke both horror and fascination in me. They are terrestrial blood-feeding worms of unusual stealth and speed–with an equally unusual biogeographic distribution; found only in the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, Australia, Melanesia, Madagascar, and the Seychelles. All other leech families are aquatic and have a global distribution. Haemadipsids (from the Greek word Haematodipsia, meaning “a sexual thirst for blood”) are only about 2 inches long, but what they lack in size they make up for in numbers.
“…they swarm in myriads in every wood… it is impossible to take a single step without being attacked… they are on every bush and tree, from which they drop on the head and neck of the passer-by,” (Haekel, 1883 — A Visit to Ceylon).
And if I had read the following sentence before venturing out, I would have searched the world over for a pair of Teflon underwear:
“I counted no fewer than ninety-seven of them on my body, most of them concentrated round my private parts!” (Campbell, 1953 — Jungle Green).
Thankfully, I fare much better than any of these early explorers. After a meticulous body check, I find not a single leech has gotten its slurping kisser into my skin.
Thank God for small miracles.
To be continued…
The Life of Jesus, (Part I)
July 21, 2010
ConneXions Class 7/24/10: The Life of Jesus
Facilitator: Marc
9:30 AM, Classroom A, Bend SDA Church.
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion and that man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. For this reason the gravest question before the church is always God and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at any given time may say or do but what he, in his deep heart, conceives God to be like. We tend, by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God.”
– A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy
“If you have seen me you have seen the Father…”
Revolutionary Love
July 1, 2010
ConneXions 7/3/10
Watch and discuss Revolutionary Love by Tony Compolo
Facilitator: Laura Silva
See you there!
All Church Meeting June 9
June 8, 2010
All church meeting tomorrow night: 6pm at the church. Bring fruit, sandwiches, veggies, cheese, and crackers. The goal of the meeting is to provide church members with an update on issues the Elders have with ConneXions & First Serve. A bit of history will be provided, an overview of the issues at hand, and then an opportunity for you to ask questions. We are not voting on anything. The goal is to put the issues before the church members so they can provide feedback to the leadership.
Jail Break
June 2, 2010
Once upon a time there were two men who had brought a compelling message to a small town which desperately needed to hear it. An inadvertent act of kindness lead to them being blackmailed. The media so twisted their story, that the local mob was brought in to teach them a few things about using good manners. The police intervened just long enough to drag them to jail where they were beat further, just to appease the local powers that be.
The story doesn’t say if they were discouraged. But it does say they turned some dirty fishing tunes into what turned out to be something like gospel jam session. They didn’t expect anything except a public hanging in the morning. Instead there was a jail break; even they were surprised with the outcome. More June 5, 9:30 AM at the Bend church.
Trekking Nepal: Episode III
May 23, 2010
Featuring:
A himalayan Hilton–a Mermaid mountain–a 25-year-old memory–and a mirror of another world.
Around the bend and up a small hill is the town of Dhampus, with its celebrated view of the Himalayas. Even better, it is home to one of the poshest hotels along the Anapurna base-camp route. After hours of hot and sweaty trekking, followed by a slog through torrential rains, we are eager for some dry clothes and hot food.
When we step into the lobby of our two-story hotel, we immediately feel like tramps. We are dripping from every crevice. Muddy pools collect at our feet and spread like oil slicks across the clean tile floor. A concierge in a red vest looks up from his mahogany desk and asks, Read more
Trekking Nepal: Episode II
May 9, 2010
Featuring:
A stone escalator–a fern poultice–an official swindler–and very soggy GORE-TEX.
We eat a hearty breakfast of Dal Baht and boiled eggs and set off into the mountains. The trail is literally a stairway to heaven. Laid into the precipitous canyon wall are thousands upon thousands of rough-hewn stones, forming an ancient staircase, a belt of stone twisting skyward past ferns and Eucalyptus, past waterfalls and vines, up and out of sight into green mists. The fact that each stair is man-made astounds me. In some long-forgotten past, I see wizened villagers with slick and muddy hands planting every stone with individual care. I cannot fathom how many years it took to build this stone-age escalator.
After an hour of climbing and wiping greasy sunblock off my brow with the back of my hand, we come to a plateau. The canopy of ferns opens and unveils a small village clinging to the canyon wall–a green expanse of millet fields and squat huts. Pale curls of smoke rise from a dozen chimneys, seasoning the air with Read more
A New Theology
April 29, 2010
A NEW THEOLOGY Join me 9:30 AM Saturday morning for ConneXions open forum discussion. We are going to look at a new theology, which was captured in a story Jesus shared in response to being asked, “what is required for my salvation?”
We’ll delve into the story in class (Luke 10:25-42), but just as importantly, we’ll ask some of the hard questions about what this says to us today. Questions like:
Who is my neighbor? What is my response to their suffering? What is our response as a community?
I can’t help thinking, when I read of the life of Christ, that we are being called to a new theology….
Conversational Intimacy with God
April 22, 2010
It seems like a lot of folks in the Bible actually talked with God and heard from Him. There was a give and take in their verbal exchanges with Him. Is this normal? Is this supposed to be normal? Weren’t guys like Moses, David, and the Apostles just exceptions to the normal rules of relating to God? Isn’t the whole Bible, in fact, just a book of titillating exceptions? Or is it, instead, a book of examples…
Come find out.
ConneXions Class: 4/24/10, 9:30 AM.
Facilitator: Marc Wagner
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