Japan for the first time (finally!) / Chefoo Reconsidered Japan (finally!)

Though I have a one year visa I knew that I wouldn't be in Thailand for a full year given important things like 90th birthday and high school graduation celebrations. So I knew I would be in the US from mid April until Mid June for those celebrations. I didn't realize when I arrived in Thailand in January that a couple weeks later I would be flying to Poland for the week and then return for 'take two' as I 'restarted' my time here. And I repeated this pattern when I returned to Thailand in June, spending just ten short days in country, before making my way back to Bangkok and on to Japan for twelve days. However, this was not a last minute trip but rather a trip that had been planned since before Covid rearranged almost everything in the world. 

I've been involved with the Chefoo Reconsidered community in various ways for quite a few years now. In what seems like a lifetime ago (sometime in 2019), the committee that was planning the CR Japan event asked me if I would be interested/willing to facilitate the group sessions during the week long get-together that was planned for June/July of 2020. And then Covid happened and this event that had already been postponed at least once, was push backed again... and again... but finally the the committee (along with Japan, the world and all the powers that be) were able to confirm that at long last we would  be able to gather. And so five years after planning got underway, Chefoo Reconsidered Japan finally happened the week of July 3-7 and it was such a great week on so many levels and definitely worth the wait. 

It was great to be reunited with Elwyn ten Brink who co-led the CR Philippine Bus trip with Jon Fuller and me in 2017. We had been speaking during the past few months as we planned the general direction and content of the week and were both very happy to find ourselves on the same page - desiring to go beyond some of the important TCK information that has been presented at past CR events - to really encourage and give permission to those attending to feel the impact of being sent away to boarding school and being separated repeatedly from our parents. We wanted to offer ways of building resilience and paying attention to our bodies and what they might be telling us - and of course we wanted to include much time for sharing and listening to stories as that is where the real magic and healing happens. 

Planning Committee before everyone arrived (mountain hidden in the background)

The CR Japan planning committee did such a fantastic job planning the events of the week - balancing our structured sessions together along with sightseeing and revisiting familiar places to some and introducing Japan to those of us who did not attend Chefoo Japan. So many details were worked out that just made our time so easy and delightful to be together. There were close to 30 of us who gathered for the week - twelve or so Japan 'kids', six or seven other Chefoo 'kids' and then eight or nine spouses and family members. We stayed at the Onuma Prince Hotel (a step up from CR Malaysia sleeping situations) and held evening sessions at the hotel while having morning sessions at the former Chefoo Nanae school - now being used as a school for Japanese students who have dropped out of the Japanese school system. 

Committee visiting Chefoo before everyone arrived

Welcome dinner at the hotel

First night - Welcome

Arriving at Chefoo

The Yew tree - touchstone for many

And there she is...Chefoo Nanae

Exploring every nook and cranny

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Wondering...

 You might be wondering how long will I be here in Bangkok and what I will be doing? Two very good questions and the answers to both are unknown at this point. Initially I was planning on getting a longer term visa (up to 9 months) but logistics and the situation on the ground and in my heart changed  since leaving Bermuda, so my visa is for two months with the option of extending a month...we'll see how it goes in the next few weeks.

As to what I'll be doing...for sure continuing to work on my Thai, I've (re)taught myself to read and write again over the past few months - just finished working through this page here - but at times it's laborious at times and my brain feels like mud...so many rules to remember!! Maybe this is age, maybe jetlag...

I originally planned to spend most of my time up north where I did the fields two years ago and will probably get up there for a few days but most of my time will be spent in Bangkok and hopefully getting to the beach and visiting places I've never been, but some of this will be determined by Covid and individual province regulations and quarantines. Despite my wandering status this year, I really do want and need to have some semblance of community around me and I am hopeful for that here in Bangkok and being able to reconnect with friends and make new ones.

Part Two of the answer to what will I be doing...is perhaps a little deeper...

I woke up at 2:30 in the morning of my second night here (thank you again jet lag) to a terrific thunderstorm and lightning show and suddenly realized that I am on the second leg of my 'eat pray love' tour. Though my story and journey is not the same as Elizabeth Gilbert's, I appreciate the categories to play and work with.

Bermuda was less about literal eating, but it was about paying attention to and nourishing my body and my senses. I needed to be surrounded by water and sky. I needed to be able to plunge under the water and disappear. I needed the crashing waves that could end my life if I wasn't careful. I needed the challenge of currents, of the cold and the deep. I needed to encounter 'the other' in the form of underwater beauty, creatures, colorful, watchful, usually not but sometimes dangerous... I also needed to be surrounded by asparagus ferns and spice tree forests, sea grapes, hibiscus and so many other plants that covered the hillsides. I needed the wind and the salty air. I needed to run up and down hills and fill my lungs with Atlantic air, I needed to watch the blue sky and hear the rain. I needed to hear the little frogs singing at night. All of this calmed my body, strengthening it and I hope providing some healing.

Thailand is about attending to my spirit and my soul. As soon as I arrive in Thailand I am calm and content and at peace. I don't understand this but it's always been that way. I won't be hanging out in an ashram ala Elizabeth Gilbert but I will be with community that challenges and encourages my faith even through language and cultural differences and often an inability to understand.

Don't ask about the love  portion of the trip (how about we use the word friendship or community??) but the tickets are booked for that too - later on this year. Hopefully I will see a few of you on that third leg of the journey!

Duncan

Words that have Sustained

During Advent I posted a series on fb of words that have sustained me this year...as the year comes to an end, I'm copying some of those posts here. Grateful for their companionship.

Bermuda Railway Trail

'I believe in God's very real and unshakeable love for me and for every person. The value that brings to our lives is what gives dignity to the paths we walk, whether the paths were of our choosing or not.'

- Amy Grant

Royal Navy Cemetery, Bermuda

“I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” - Rainer Maria Wilke

Bermuda, View from Boaz Island

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. - Amen

The Book of Common Prayer

Gibbs lighthouse, Bermuda

You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending. - C.S. Lewis

Upnor House, Boaz Island, Bermuda

Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day's chalking. - Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace.

You have permission to rest! You don't have to fix everything that's broken. You don't have to try to make everyone happy. It is time to rest. It is time to find refreshment for your body and soul. (not sure who said it) - with a little nod to my Malaysian roots...

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

Be excessively gentle with yourself.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from, 'For One Who is Exhausted' found in his books: Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US) Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

I posted this on fb a year ago and it has stayed with me ever since.

Settling In - Initial thoughts and observations about Duke and Durham

In many ways, as many people know, Duke University is an impressive school. (Thus we start off with a very unimpressive photo of Andrea and I entering our town house for the first time - toilet paper in hand! ) Oprah was the commencement speaker this last year. Bill Clinton gave a speech here this summer. Maya Angelou has delivered an opening address at the opening convocation for the past 15 years. Power speaks. (And I haven’t even mentioned the research that goes on here or another local favorite of folks around here called Basketball). But in church on our second Sunday at Duke Chapel, Sam Wells, the Dean of the Chapel, went straight for the heart as he addressed new students telling them they have come to a place of great power – where the three streams of knowledge, money and social influence come together. He went on to say that when we like and approve of this power, we call it wisdom. When we don’t, we call it privilege. Going a little deeper he noted that all Duke students know what privilege is. Either they have rich parents who are paying for it or they have convinced someone else to (or they are going into massive debt – but he didn’t really mention this category!) Either way, Duke students are privileged. Wisdom is a harder and less fashionable word but hopefully wisdom is what students are really trying to achieve while in school. With privilege you often have many choices, but choice without wisdom is useless. Wisdom allows you to make good choices. He then wove this all together quite well with the practicality of Ephesians chapter six. (Aerial photo of Duke Chapel and surrounding countryside. Not taken by me. The following two I did take though.)

So it was good to hear someone speak truthfully to the privileged and powerful. It is good to know that there are those at Duke who are not all about rank and name. Andrea and I have seen this lived out in a variety of ways. We know that even before moving here we fell into the 'privileged' camp compared to most of the world's population but being here forces us to continue to ponder what this means.

As the spouse of a student, my favorite thing about Duke so far is the chapel. 'Chapel' is really a bit of a misnomer though. Duke Chapel is a beautiful Gothic style cathedral and supposedly has the largest involvement of all university chapels throughout the United States. For more info go here. The music and setting of sacred space has been stunning and life giving…

Other things we like about Duke…the Lemur Center! With over 300 lemurs, it is the largest gathering of these cute animals probably outside of Madagascar. We haven't been there yet, but we are looking forward to it!

Duke also has the spectacular Sarah P. Duke Gardens, again one of the ‘best’ private collections in the US. (photo above, the aspiring student with some very large water lilies.) Duke is surrounded by forest which is beautiful but this leads to one of the things we don’t like so much about the area. Durham and Duke and the surrounding cities are urban areas plopped in the middle of forests and fields. Because there is so much land available, this area is a great example of suburban sprawl. There really does not seem to have been too much planning - but what do we know, we've only been here a few weeks. Certainly there is no laid out grid to speak of. I call where we live forested suburbia. The views alternate between forested countryside and large apartment/condo/townhouse complexes that are plonked down in the middle of the forest. Infill is not a word used here yet!

If Duke and Durham were looked at as an island, then the island is completely surrounded by a confusion of intersecting highways and roads. This is helpful for those who know where they are going as there is always a multitude of ways to get anywhere, but for the newcomer, it is a bit of a maze and a challenge. And just to make it a little more complex, it’s all flat. No hills or really tall buildings so to speak to get your bearings. Just stretches of trees.

Other things we have noticed – people are very friendly and try to be helpful (even if the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing!), lots of pine trees, this is the land of fried chicken, rivalry over what kind of sauce (either vinegar based or tomato based) that you put on your barbecue depending on if you are from the east or the west part of the state and much, much rivalry over Basketball.

One of the most interesting things we have encountered in Durham is that the homeless or panhandlers who stand at intersections hoping for a handout as cars drive by, MUST wear orange vests. Whether this is for their protection or it just makes them official we don’t know yet, but it is unique!

Weather wise, it's been humid and hot this first month - can't complain! All my plants that survived the journey are thriving and loving their new home. When it rains, it rains tropical Asian style – heavy and then it’s over and the sun comes back out to bless the steam coming off the roads. It is interesting to be in air conditioning most of the time. But there are times when I step outside in the morning and the combination of the pine trees, the cool morning air and droning cicadas, if I closed my eyes I could think I am in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia. A couple of times it has taken me by surprise. I love hearing the cicadas and the other myriad insects and birds throughout the day and night.

We have told various ones we have talked with that it is an interesting and different place. But it might be a place we come to really love. It has been difficult at times. Any big move and change can be difficult but the dynamics of the past year of travel, leaving Thailand, having a rushed month in the northwest and then coming here has left us in a strange state – somewhat tired and unable to be too excited about anything. It’s been a weird feeling. As an old saying/song goes - “Can’t go over it, Can’t go under it, Can’t go around it. Have to go through it.”

The other night we made Sushi, sprinkling on some sesame from the fields of Napajat that Pi Toi gave us. We have a bottle of wild forest honey from the forests of Maehongson that made it back with us too as well as our bottle of olive oil from Levanto from the olives I helped pick. We are surrounded by tangible gifts and memories of our trip, friends and God’s goodness to us. Having it smell like the Cameron Highlands is simply a bonus!

Duncan