Joy in Klaten

My friend Samiyono had planned our trip to Klaten to visit his family, my friends. When I arrived at his house, fortified with Anti-Mo and Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution, Sam hands me the keys to his van while everyone else piles in the back. Turns out Sam has neither the experience nor the license to drive his own vehicle. What could I do but laugh and scoot the driver's seat all the way to the rear?

The weather on southern Java is scorching. Rainy season's humidity levels put the air somewhere in the viscosity range of 10W-30 oil. Sitting on a rough concrete floor with brick walls and clay tiles over head, I wanted nothing more than to jump into the well in the back yard (a big white stamp declares it as being donated to this earthquake hit area by UNICEF). A septegenarian man, who came with us as much to bottle well water that could "make a dead man come back to life" as he did to laugh and eat his way through the day, suggested with both words and visuals that I strip down and jump on in. I retorted to the merriment of all the men there that when I am as old as he I may can get away with that.

We visited the homes of Sam's parents, in-laws, brother, sister, and sister-in-law, staying around 30 minutes at each. Just enough time to eat soto ayam (chicken broth over steamed rice) and hot peppers at each place. By the end of the day, I had consumed several liters of soto and numerous glasses of hot tea. Floating to the van and squeezing behind the padded wheel became incessantly more difficult with each stop.

In late afternoon, just as Sam said it was time to leave, lightning struck about a half kilometer away, shaking the whole neighborhood. The older laughing man, wide-eyed and stock still, plucked 3 hand-sized leaves off a tree in the front yard. He said that each one represents a different element of the earth, providing protection from being struck. Over the next 4 hours, these leaves slowly wore down as he fondled and caressed them religiously.

One observation of joy: yesterday I was able to see my friends as something profoundly new and yet obvious: bearers of His image. When I shook hands with the 83 year-old matriarch of the neighborhood, I saw Jesus, and I wanted to serve her. The same thing happened when I was chasing kids down the road or hiding as they tried to be stealth about looking at the "ghost." It happened when the old stripping man and I were laughing like children. It happened when a local woman asked me to pay for the second-story addition to her house and when the young man at the road-side food stall asked me to take him to America so he can get a better job. For every person I encountered, I had a heart to listen, to embrace, to laugh, and to rejoice. Please don't take this as self-righteous meandering. Because the reality of what happened in my heart was a beautiful thing. I find myself falling in love with these people, my friends, my neighbors, my siblings more and more. And I desire to love them as an action of melded mind and heart and spirit, not simply as a cultural abstraction or religious obligation.

What joy it is to find the courage to look someone in the eye long enough to see there soul.