Thai Hooker

3:00 A.M.

In the lobby of the hotel

In Bangkok,

(Where, they say

What happens there must stay)

Stood a bone skinny woman in an ugly purple dress

With no back and hardly any skirt.

Dressed to flirt

Hair a mess,

Tangled, matted, she talked hurriedly,

Chattered worriedly,

Seeking reassurance from a cell phone,

A cell phone half hidden from view by tangled hair.

Tangled hair that also hid as it tumbled down,

Her skinny, angular cheek bone, no longer brown

But as purple as her dress from its encounter with the fist

Of the man with the upper body

Sculpted like an African god.

The drunk man who looks like a god

The sullen man who wonders why we’re making such a fuss

Too drunk even to see the necessity of paying her off

With 5,000 baht.

Whatever.

She was never

That hot.

A bundle of bones in a purple bag

And an ugly temper.

From a well-used position of vulnerability

Reaching out for the only strength available to her,

The strength of the cell-phone,

The strength of wheels and deals made with cops and pimps

And aggrieved solidarity from other working girls

She limps

Through the dark narrow streets of Bangkok.

Limping from one man to another,

One wallet after the other,

As they fly in and out,

In and out,

On business trips,

And pleasure trips.

Lying, standing, kneeling

No longer feeling

Their gnawing lips,

On her face,

Her neck,

Her bone skinny breasts,

And their hands only when they are fists.

Even the body sculpted like an African god turns her on

No more or less than the dirty old European retirees

With their saggy speedos on the beach.

What difference does that make to the whores?

Their money is as good as yours

And they can’t hit as hard.

And I, looking into her lean, angular face

As cunning and furtive as a fox

As she stands

In the lobby and demands

5,000 Baht,

I realize I have nothing to say.

We just need to get this taken care of and catch our flight.

I am coherent because I slept that night

A couple of hours anyway.

And I am sober. I could go get 5,000 Baht

From an ATM but I will not

Insult her like that by trying to pay

For her flesh, now purple, or covering up

For the man who should have been a god;

Who looks like an archangel and sullenly counts her price in slips of paper.

The injury is not bad

The bruise will fade

And after all she has made

A life (as much of a life as can be had)

From selling her flesh to men with the bodies of gods

And men with the bodies of slugs.

Men kind and men savage,

Drunk and sober,

Long or short

Large or small.

Purple flesh just costs more. That’s all.

She is already pained

There is nothing to be gained

In beating senseless the man sculpted like a god

For that will not

Better her life,

Erase the bruise

Or pay his dues,

Or make amends to his wife

Pregnant with their first child and home alone

Who will never know or understand

What stayed in Thailand

And what perhaps came home.

Far away

In America the next day,

In the heart of a woman who knows what love is

I tell the hooker’s story

And offer up my prayers

And tears

For they are all I have to give

And no one else lives

Who will give

Even that.

The Thangka School

In lieu of writing something new (Internet is intermittent around here) I am borrowing something I wrote in an email to my Uncle. Since it seemed like a good story I thought I would share it on the blog as well.

Uncle Chris,

I was visiting an ancient Hindu temple complex in Bhaktapur last week and let me tell you, it was well worth seeing. One of the temples was the temple of Shiva dedicated to the Kama Sutra, complete with xxx rated sculptures in bas-relief all over it. Unbelievably ugly and comically awkward at the same time.

Of much more interest, there is a school there where they teach Thangka painting, which is an ancient Buddhist method of instruction and worship, originating in monastaries in Tibet. I did not see any of the students painting because it was a holy day (saturday is the Hindu holy day) and also Buddhas birthday.

Why would a school of Buddhist art be housed in Hindu temple you ask? Well, from what I have seen in my travels and in reading, comparing the pure Buddhism of, say the Dalai Lama or other high level writers, to the popular Buddhism of Tibet, Nepal, India etc. I would have to say that pure Buddhism is extremely rare. One of the proprieters of the school was there explaining the history of Thangka painting and the meanings of it and we had quite a long talk about Buddhism and Hinduism. He was a little irate about it. He quite emphatically insisted that the Buddha never spoke about god or gods or any other independently existing spiritual entity. However, the vast majority of people cannot seem to handle a religion without gods, so wherever Buddhism went people simply grafted in the gods that they had always worshipped. So all the literally thousands of Hindu gods are no subjects of Buddhist philosophies and Buddha is one more god.

You wonder why the Catholic missionaries often freaked out about that sort of thing. "Oh, so you're bringing in another god? Whats his name? Jesus? Sure, bring him on! The more the merrier. He'll be in good company. So what is he the god of again?" I can see how that might be a bit disconcerting to someone who set out to convert the benighted pagans.

The painting, however, was amazing. Highly ornate, very stylized, and incredibly detailed. The proprieter explained that some of the paintings were for philosophical education, some were to tell stories, such as the life of the Buddha, some were mandalas, symbolic representations of temples with complex interpretations, and some were for medical purposes. It was a fascinating lecture. At the end of it he made sure to let us know that the paintings were for sale. There was a very large one, about 3' × 4', painted by one of the masters of the school, one of the lamas. It was unbelievable. The sheer detail was incredible. Some of the details had been painted in using a brush with only one hair, they were so tiny, and some of the paint was made with real gold. It took the lama four months to paint it. The price? 80,000 rupees.

That's about $940.00 U.S.

One of the guys was there with me and he said I should haggle about it if I was going to buy it. In all the markets in Thamel (the touristy strip in Kathmandu) haggling is the name of the game. I am terrible at it, by the way, and always end up paying twice or three times as much as the next guy. He thought 900 bucks for a painting was a ripoff, especially since he could go to Thamel and buy a copy of that exact paint for maybe 5,000 rupees.

I more or less ignored him and continued talking with the proprieter. He explained that this school was struggling to keep the heritage of painting alive and that the proceeds from the sales went to buy paints and pay for room and board for the students during their 10 year (!!!!!) stay at the school. He explained that selling the paintings was done in a co-op like that because most people, after spending every waking moment for four months working on that painting are going to have trouble parting with it or setting a reasonable price. I agreed.

I am beginning to realize that the habit of courtesy that my parents inculcated into me from an early age is far more than simply a grasp of a particular culture's ettiquette. In fact, that courtesy has stood me in good stead in every country I have visited to the extent that I often find myself getting along better with the natives than I do with the Americans. It is, primarily, a concern for the other person's comfort and sensibilities, and as such manifests itself in a willingness to listen to the other person. If you practice listening long enough you get used to it, and you develop the ability to see things from the other persons perspective, which in turn makes them more willing to try to see things from your perspective. There was a good deal of respect between that little proprieter and myself. I listened and I understood where he was coming from. I explained that I agreed that it was a fair price, but that I had a responsibility to use my money for other things. He offered to call the artist and see if he would lower the price, but I said no, I did not want him to. That price was more than fair and I did not want him to sell it short. I left a donation in the box, we bowed and shook hands and parted with, I think, a great deal of mutual respect.

Once outside I somewhat took my buddy to task over the whole thing. I recognize a true believer when I see one, and I respect that. The lama who painted that thangka and the man who was explaining and selling them had both dedicated their lives to that art. That painting had taken four months of a man's life to create, and more than that, was the product of an entire lifetime of study, practice and sacrifice to deepen and perfect his art. Whether or not I completely agree with the faith that inspired that art, I cannot help but respect the good that that faith does in the lives of its practitioners, and certainly I have to respect the sacrifice of an entire life to the pursuit of that faith and its art.

There is a story told of Picasso, to the effect that one day as he was walking down the street, an art aficionado came up to him and asked if he would sketch his portrait. Picasso obliged and in about thirty seconds sketched up an amazing likeness on a sheet of notebook paper. He offered it back to the man saying, "That will be $5,000 dollars."

The man was flabbergasted and said, "But it took you less than a minute to draw that. Surely your time is not that valuable."

The artist replied, "Sir, you are wrong. It has taken me my entire life to draw that."

While there is an element of arrogance to that, there is also an element of truth, in that the work of a human life is quite literally priceless. Where Picasso went wrong was in assuming that his life's work was any more valuable than, say, a ditch digger's life's work, done with the same level of dedication.

Whether my buddy was impressed with this argument or not I cannot say, but I followed it up by breaking down "four months" into familiar terms. Say our artist monk worked from 9-5 every day. That is an eight hour day, times the typical Nepali 6-day work week, times 16 weeks, for a grand total of approximately 768 man hours. When you factor in the price of materials and a commission for the seller (who, small as he is, also needs to eat), that monk is not even making a dollar an hour. No worker in America, not even a burger flipper at McDonalds, puts in 768 man hours and only makes $940. You yourself would certainly not paint a portrait for four months straight and sell it for less than $1000.

(My uncle is a professional artist and graphic designer. I remember him saying once, "Customers always want fast, cheap, and good quality. I tell them pick two. You can't have all three.)

That argument impressed my buddy enough that he acknowledged that it "definitely was not a racket."

I meant also to cover some thoughts in this email about that evangelization of manhood idea, as I have had some new thoughts (bringing in Brad Miner's Compleat Gentleman) but this email has become much longer than I thought it would so that will have to wait. As a matter of fact, I might recycle this email as a blogpost, if you do not mind. It would save me some time.

Hope you are well.
Ryan

Original Sin: Well, Could be Worse

When talking about the idea of Original Sin, which is the idea that there is at the beginning of human history a sin which taints all subsequent generations, sometimes Christians are accused of an existential pessimism. This appears to be a doom-and-gloom outlook on life which is popularly supposed to rob us of all our joy. Far be it from me to deny that such may often be the case! However, in my opinion this is often merely a misunderstanding of an honest, but fundamentally cheerful outlook on life.

Christians, and indeed, all people who watch the news, are distinctly aware that the world is often an unpleasant place, rude, hateful, petty and sometimes just plain senseless. Where most people act shocked and ill-used, as if this were somehow a personal insult to them and often end up concluding that the whole thing was a bad business from the start, the Christian has the doctrine of Original Sin to fall back on. Something unexpected happened in an otherwise good and useful system, some person did something that made no sense, and it threw things out of whack. We feel the effects of it today, much the way a baby born to a crack addict will feel the effects of crack addiction. We even add to the effects. So much we admit. Life is often tragic, absurd and ugly, but surely the fact that we can recognize that argues a deeper awareness of joy, reasonableness, and beauty? And does not the awareness of that fundamental defect somewhat take the sting out of it?

Rather like two guests, both staying at the same out of the way, Mom & Pop Inn in Nepal may have totally different experiences because they have totally different outlooks. One is expecting a five star hotel, and is frustrated by rolling brownouts, unreliable internet, spiders in the bathroom, no menu to choose from, and 58 steps to climb just to get to breakfast. The other realizes that this is what it is, an out of the way, Mom & Pop Inn in Nepal. Given that realization it is not nearly so bad as it might be. We have power quite often, the internet sometimes works, the spiders don't bite (or at least haven't yet), the food is healthy, delicious and plentiful, and at least a little exercise is guaranteed every day, just getting to breakfast!

In the same way, when you finally accept the fact that the world has that existential flaw which we call "Original Sin," you are free to recognize that these flaws are evils in a good system. The world itself is not evil. Certainly as a paradise our world falls quite a bit short, but for most of us it certainly is not a hell either. As worlds go it might be much worse. All in all, I would say it is not that bad. Good still happens, surprising and yet refreshing when it does, indicating that redemption, though difficult and incomplete just yet, is perhaps possible. That, to me, sounds suspiciously like hope.

God: The Ultimate One-Upper

A while back my younger brother, in a fit of introspection, asked me, "Do you think I am a one-upper?"

I had to admit, he is a bit of a one-upper. All of us brothers are one-uppers, to some extent. That is, we inherit our Dad's love for anecdotes, some more and some less. Any story you can tell us triggers a story in reply. We don't set out to one up, but sometimes the stories are just one-uppish type stories.  When you have been in the Navy for six years and cruised all around Europe and the Mediterranean the subject matter you have to draw from is pretty rich.

However, I really believe that as much as we Kraeger males like to one-up people around us, we ain't got nothin' on God. He is the ultimate one-upper. He even says so: "Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” Luke 6:38. No matter what you give to Him or to anyone else, He is going to one up you.

This truth was brought home to me today by my experience in going to Mass. I wrote recently about the church I found near Kathmandu, and what the experience of attending Mass there meant to me. Well it has been a couple of weeks since I had a Sunday off but this weekend I had three days off. The problem was that I am not completely independent here. I am a member of a team, and I cannot just go where I want or do what I want. Half the group wanted to go do things elsewhere, so that took up half of the guys and one of the vehicles and drivers. Even on days off we still have to have guys on duty and that takes up people there. The rest of the guys needed to get out and do some shopping, which I did not need because I had been working in the city for some days. So when we planned out our weekend I was left on duty. Ordinarily I don't mind that, but it was a Sunday off and I hadn't been to Mass in weeks. I was aching for the sacraments. 

So I had to ask. I had to ask one of the other guys if he would switch days with me so that I could go to Mass, even though I had been in the city for several days earlier. I had to ask the guys who were going down to leave very early in the morning on a day off so I could make it in time. 

I don't like asking people for things. I especially don't like asking for help from the other guys. They do not believe, therefore they do not understand why this is important to me. I don't want to be seen to be using my religion for my own personal gain. I don't want to give them reason to think that faith and being a good soldier are incompatible. 

But then I have to ask myself, what is really important? What is most important? If I believe what the Church teaches, that confession really does forgive sins, and that the Eucharist is truly the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, and if I really do have an opportunity to receive these gifts, how can I justify not exhausting every resource to be able to receive them?

One of the things that made me more able to accept the embarrassment was the certain knowledge of God's one-upsmanship. Sometimes He arranges things so that following Him is possible, but inconvenient, simply so that I will have to brave the inconvenience. It makes me value the following more. (This is a pattern in our relationship. You get used to it after awhile.) However, my experience has been that when He requires an unusual effort on my part, He comes back with an unusual result. Or maybe another way of looking at it is that when He has some unusual gift in store the devil goes to unusual length to discourage me. Maybe a little of both. Who knows? Certainly not me. I just know that I have not yet put on ounce of effort into my faith that has not been rewarded a hundred times over. 

So I swallowed that lump of pride and asked. It made some waves, sure enough, but the guys are more or less used to me going to unusual lengths to go to Mass. Their plans were more flexible and could be done another day easily enough, and the switch was made. 


So we left bright and early this morning, careening at a breakneck pace along the narrow winding road to Kathmandu, but the hiccups were not over yet. The driver did not know exactly where the church was, even though I had the address written down on a sheet of paper, and we were cutting it close on time. One of the other guys in the car had plans that also had a time hack, and he didn't want to waste time searching around for a church, so I had them drop me off at the bridge to Lolitpur, intending to let them go on their way while I found a cab. I would just show the cabby the piece of paper with the address... Oh Crap. I forgot the slip of paper. 

To late to go back for it now. I remembered two words of the address, and armed with those I hailed the nearest cab and jumped in, saying a prayer that he would know what I was talking about. He got the city and section of town (those were the two words I remembered) but didn't know which street (that was the word I forgot). He knew of several churches, and with time rapidly ticking away the two of us roamed around Lolitpur, asking other taxi drivers and random strangers if they knew of any churches in the area. As we were directed to them we drove there and I gave them a yeah or nay. I'm sure he was wondering what could possibly be so different between one western church and another, but he was a good sport about it. Finally, with a minute to spare (literally) I recognized a street and shouted "There!" pointing down the alley. He slammed on the brakes, and then backed up and did a fifteen point turn in the middle of the street. I am sure that earned us some bad thoughts from the other drivers.

But I made it, and walked in in the middle of the opening hymn. 

The church was full, and the altar was a sea of red vestments. Of course, it is Pentecost sunday. I knew that from reading Morning prayer for the last ten days. I have been counting down to Pentecost for weeks. 

What I didn't know was the Our Lady of the Assumption chose Pentecost Sunday to confirm seven of their young people and the Mass was being celebrated by he Apostolic Nuncio to Nepal and India, His Excellency Archbishop Salvatore Pennacchio, and concelebrated by His Excellency the Bishop of Nepal, Msgr A Sharma SJ. There were at least a dozen other priests on the altar, some of the most reverent altar servers I have seen since I was last at Our Lady of Good Counsel in Verona, NY, incense, full choir, the whole smells and bells experience. To top it off, Archbishop Pennacchio bestowed upon us the Apostolic Blessing of Pope Francis, and Archbishop Sharma had received a similar privelege from Blessed Pope John Paul II, and even had a relic of Blessed JPII for us to venerate. And just as the last little bit of showmanship, I went to confession after Mass and the priest was a charismatic priest with an epic Indian/British accent who prayed fire and brimstone over me for about five minutes. They practically blessed the hell out of me today!

When I told my girlfriend about it later over the phone her comment was, "Whoah! I wonder what crazy thing He is prepping you for." Which I agree, I do have a tendency to get suspicious when extraordinary graces are bestowed, because I have to wonder what is coming next. 

But what the heck! Why worry? God's love is not a come and go thing. This is not an example of Him loving me any more than He ever does, and if some trial comes up soon it will not be an example of Him loving me less. This was an example of showmanship, if it is not irreverent to use that word. A showing. A manifestation. Just like a birthday or Christmas or "just because" present is an example of showmanship, a special expression of a love that transcends that gift, so this was just a special gift.

And I think He likes showing off for His kids. What Father doesn't?

The Adventure Worth Having

In my last two posts I talked about home, and what home is to me. Home to me is people, or a Catholic Church (which is really a Person). I do not miss places. I enjoy them when I am there. No matter how long I am there I find them beautiful, and no matter how long I am in different places I don’t miss the old ones. Perhaps because there is so much to discover in any one place, and perhaps because I try to enjoy everything I am presented with, I am always too busy enjoying my current place to miss my old place.

One interesting result of this way of thinking of place is that it radically (in the old sense radix: root; from the roots up) shapes my idea of adventure. To most people going somewhere they have never been before is an adventure, in and of itself. The very idea of seeing something new is exciting to most people, or terrifying, or inconvenient as the case may be, but certainly the novelty of a place they have never seen before is one of the key features of that place. 

For me this is less true. It is true that I enjoy seeing new things, but no more than I enjoy enjoying old things. For this reason I consider it a very good thing that my job has forced me to go to new places and see new things. It has greatly broadened my mind and sharpened my mental and emotional appetite for beauty. It is a good thing, not because I would dislike the idea of traveling if I were not forced to, but because without that impetus I would probably be too busy just being wherever I was or doing whatever I was doing.

Simply going somewhere is not an adventure for me.

Neither is adrenaline. I have experienced my share of adrenaline. I have hunted IED’s with a knife and handheld mine detector. I have witnessed IED’s blowing up a mere vehicle length from me. I have been shot at with rockets. I have jumped out of airplanes. I have practiced martial arts and fought in full contact tournaments. I have blown things up, fired thousands of rounds until simply pulling the trigger was a chore, and broken into rooms with live bullets flying feet from my head. I have cross country skied into back country mountain passes and downhilled across miles of untouched powder (rather clumsily, I might add; my skiing skills are not the best. I have navigated across miles of wilderness alone with a map and compass. some of these things were fun in their own way, or terrifying, or merely a dreadful bother, depending on my mood at the time. All were thrills, at least at first.

None of them have satisfied me. Not one of them provides a strong enough reason to keep doing what I am doing, which is part of why I am getting out of the Army at the end of this enlistment. Thrill is not a reason for existing. An adventure ought to have a purpose, and only one purpose have I found that still seems meaningful to me. It is not “America’s Interests.”

It is not that I consider all of those “adventures” worthless. Each one served its purpose, although it was not necessarily the purpose I or anyone else thought it served at the time. I have grown from each one. I have succeeded where I expected only failure, and excelled when by all rights I should have flunked. I have also failed when I expected only success. I have met my limitations and surpassed them, met them again and been utterly crushed and unable to go one step further. I have cried out for help in desperation and been answered out of marvelous darkness. These are good experiences, I think, for any man to have in his younger days.

If nothing else they have given me this perspective, that I have tried them and found them wanting. At twenty-eight years old I can say confidently that love is the only adventure worthwhile. Love of God, first and foremost, and then love of everyone that He loves. Love is the only purpose that still seems meaningful to me.

But lo and behold! Love is meaningful, and for its sake and by its light every other thing is meaningful. Everything is an adventure. Everything is worthwhile and beautiful when done with that love.

That seems to me to be something worth learning.

Beauty Near and Far

In my last blog I explained how home has never been a place to me. Rather, it is the people who make home. For this reason I have a lot of “homes.” When I visit the farm in upstate NY, I am home. When I visit my cousins in VA and make goofy home martial arts videos, I am home. When I get to see my god-children I am home. When I wake up at 7:30 in the morning for two or three hours of leisurely conversation over a pot of freshly brewed tea with my aunt and uncle, I am home. When I sit in Panera bread in the Tacoma Mall, surrounded by other young Catholics, studying the readings of the day, then I am home. I am home when I smoke a pipe or drink a beer with my brother. I am home making pizza for my friends, or going for a hike up Mt. Si with them.

There even more places that are home to me, in a deeper sense than I have ever known, so deep that I cannot blog about them. But home is always the people I am with, never the place I am.

Some people have a hard time understanding this. Most people, I think, have a certain amount of nostalgia for place, whether the place they grew up, or the place they spent much of their time. Some people truly do love, say, the hills of upstate NY with a fondness bordering on passion. For myself, it is not at all that I am indifferent to place. Instead, I love places. I love them all. I love the crispness of upstate NY,


the lazy warmth of the deep south,

 the glory of entire landscapes changing colors in the fall, and the warm smell of sun-baked pinestraw on the floor of forests that will never change their hue.

 I love the ice and snow of a New York winter,

and the sun, sand and warm water of a beach in Thailand.

I love the fertile, windswept high prairie of Eastern Washington and of Colorado and Wyoming,

and also the cozy grey drizzle and precious clear days in the Northwest.

I loved the tangled fertility of the Tigris river valley, and the blinding, unlivable sands stretching away from it as far as the eye could see. I loved the wild, harsh austerity of the Hindu Kush,
and the glory of the Himalayas, when the sun breaks over the barely visible peak of Mt. Everest.

 Beauty large:

And beauty small:


I love them all. When I am there I soak them up and glory in them, but I do not miss them when they are gone.

I miss people. One of the consequences of this attitude towards place is that it radically alters my concept of adventure, and what adventure truly is (that is subject for another blog). No matter where I go I see beauty to be shared and I find stories to be told, but what on earth is the point if there is no one to share them with or tell them to?

That is the point of this blog. To share beauty and tell stories. Not just the strange beauty that it has been my great good fortune to see, but the familiar beauty that we, strangely, do not see. All of it comes fresh and whole from the heart of God.

*All photos in this post were taken by the author.