Homily   Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time -   2/22/04

 

A reflection on twenty-four days in South East Asia

 

As I promised I will attempt to recap for you what my trip in January to South East Asia was like. In twenty four days there are a lot of impressions- sights – people. I’ll try to highlight the most powerful of them. I was wondering how to justify this travelogue and connect it with the scripture – and actually I think the readings for this seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time make it possible in a sense! We talk in the scripture about our responsibility to one another – how we treat one another – about recognizing the sacred in the other. I certainly feel that we need to realize the smallness of our world – the fact that we are related to one another – that we belong to one another – we cannot in this world that is full of fear and being threatened and how to be safe – we cannot isolate ourselves from one another – And so I traveled to a place very far and very different and so much the same.

 

I arrived in Bangkok on Wednesday evening, January 14.  I’d been to Bangkok before – twice. I remember the first time I was in Bangkok in 1999 that I at first wondered how anyone could like the place – it’s big and busy and hot and smoggy – and then you meet the people – always gracious and friendly and fun. And the temples and the rivers in Bangkok are so unique and their reverence for their wonderful King – all of this and so much more make it a place that is exciting to visit. But this time I’d only be in Bangkok for three days – and in those three days I made some plans on where else to go in this adventure of three weeks and a few days.

 

On Saturday I flew to Phonm Penh – the capital of Cambodia. Four days later I traveled by boat to Siem Reap in Northern Cambodia.  Four days later I traveled again by boat to Battambang in Western Cambodia. A few days later I flew to Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. And finally, after five days in Laos I flew to Phuket in Southern Thailand for a few days enjoying the beach and the sea.

 

There are a few things that stand out above all from this trip – I’ll explain them.

 

I spent the greater amount of time in Cambodia. Five years ago I visited Cambodia for three days and visited the temples at Anchor – there was a lot of fear present – and few tourists. This time things are different. Tour busses are present - people are proud of their country – their heritage. And they talk about the horrible years of war – civil war – and the four years of terror with the Khmer Rouge.  In Phnom Penh I visited the Killing Fields. Five years ago no one talked about the Killing Fields – and now they are anxious for you to visit them. The Killing Fields are the places when in 1979 the Vietnamese won the battle with the Khmer Rouge government under Pol Pot they found thousands and thousands of bodies buried in mass graves. Now the Killing Fields are empty holes and a large Stupa – a burial monument that is filled with the skulls and bones of those who were murdered from 1975 until 1979. But in the midst of this somber places there were local village kids playing and laughing – a sign in a sense that the country has moved on. I visited Tuol Sleng in the city. Toul Sleng had been a school but in 1975 the government under Pol Pot used it as a detention center – people where detained there, chained to beds for as much as 6months or longer – tortured and eventually taken to the Killing Fields and murdered.  What is eerie is that Tuol Sleng is filled with pictures – they documented everyone who passed through. Some of the pictures are of the prisoners and some are of the guards – the only difference is that the guards wore hats. And they are all extremely young. Young Cambodians tortured and killed young Cambodians.

Pol Pot was in a sense a utopian. When he won the civil war and took power in 1975 he abolished all money – all business – all education.  All people were evacuated from the cities and sent to the country – and so if you were in one part of the city and your partner or child were in another you were sent to different places – and some people were never reunited.

 

What struck me about all of this is the resilience of the people – they lived horror for so long – beyond the four years of the Pol Pot regieme – and yet they have moved on. Last summer- I was thinking – when our lights went out for a day people talked about how resilient Americans and New Yorkers and the East Coasters were to be able to manage all that without falling apart – and yet these people still had hope and are rebuilding their lives – almost without help.

 

In the midst of the genocide of Pol Pot they stood alone – no one, including the US really paid much attention. We supported Pol Pot because the Vietnamese didn’t – and the Vietnamese were our enemy.

 

These beautiful people have moved on to try to rebuild their lives and their country. Their roads are still devastated by years of war – there are still land mines in their rice fields and you see so many people with missing limbs – their economy is still shattered. But they are gracious and welcoming people – and trusting people who go out of their way to welcome you – not for the dollar – they ask for little or nothing – they enjoy your presence.

 

The temples in northern Cambodia – build in the 10^th through the 13^th century are amazing. Miraculously they were not destroyed by Pol Pot or by the US planes in the Vienamese War or the other conflicts of last half of the 20^th century. They were built with grandeur during a time when Europeans were building cathedrals and monuments and they rival them in scope and mastery.  They point to the people reverence for the Buddha or the Hindu Gods.  There are hundreds of temples and statues and monumnents. They fill you with awe.

 

I traveled by river from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap – a seven hour ride and from Siem Reap to Battambang  - another seven hour ride. I can’t imagine a more beautiful setting - the river scenes are magnificent. I think we can mistake the simplicity of the lifestyle with poverty. People wear simple clothes – sarangs and sandals – they bathe in the river – they eat a simple diet – they travel by boat - you seldom see a car – sometimes a motorcycle. They are proud of their farming – they revere their temples. They don’t live like us – they simply life differently.

 

In Battambang I met a motorcycle driver, Kris, who took me to the “bamboo train”. The bamboo train was in a village about 45 minutes from the little city of Battambang. We traveled through little villages and heard the reverent sounds of monks chanting at a Buddhist funeral – the children and the adults waved welcome as we rode through the lanes. The Bamboo train is two sets of wheels with a slab of bamboo attached with a simple gas motor. This is how the villages travel to the city and transport their rice and go from village to village.

But even more interesting was Kris. He talked and talked and told jokes and posed riddles. But finally when I started asking about himself he told me that he was one of four children – his father had died a year ago from stomach cancer – his mother sold the rice farm to pay the medical bills and thus he drives a motorcycle to  make money to support the mother and his younger brother and sister.

Like almost everyone I met he studied English when he could. We could look at his situation as being bleak – what chances in Battambang for a 23 year old motorcycle driver?  But he was full of hope and peace and warmth.  What is most important to him is to take care of his family – to find a woman he loves and have a happy life – Like the others I met he doesn’t talk about material things – his values, in the midst of such difficulty – are impressive.

 

I visited the northern Laotian city of Luang Prabang. It’s a world heritage site – which means that the UN will help preserve the many temples that are some of the most ornate in the world. It’s a beautiful town and the money that the UN has brought in is fixing roads and sidewalks and restoring buildings. It shows what can happen when we are able to pool resources and respect culture. Anchor Wat is also a world heritage site and the French and the Japanese and many others are working to preserve and respect what otherwise might be lost.

 

I guess the bottom line is that once again I found in South East Asia what we can find anywhere – good people who want simple things out of life.  People wondered if I ever felt afraid or unsure when traveling – to tell the truth there was never a moment walking down the street or riding with a moto driver or sitting in a restaurant that I ever felt anything other than an ability to trust these wonderful people.  People worry about disease – the avain flu broke out when I was there! I can’t imagine how these people can sustain another shock to their very fragile economy. And while our country talks about spending trillions to put a colony on Mars I feel quite sure that that money could be better used to help rid some disease or fix some roads or build some medical facilities.

 

I love being far away – you know that. And I’ve found such warmth, spirituality, welcome with these people of Cambodia, Laos and Thailand that its worth the day of travel. But I think it helps me, at least, to realize more and more our interdependence – to challenge our feelings of isolation – our feelings of superiority as a people and to realize more and more that we do indeed belong to one another – that how we treat each other – the other – no matter how different – is the key to building the kingdom – and the key to truly be safe and sound.