Jalan-jalan ke Taman Ayu

Street scene in Taman Ayu, Tangerang, Banten, western Java

Yes, it’s true. I am going to Indonesia for three weeks. God willing, I will be on board a flight from Portland to Tokyo sometime after twelve noon on Sunday, December 18. The title of this post, I hope, means something like ‘a trip to Taman Ayu.’ I am still at the beginning of learning to speak bahasa Indonesia. It’s the easiest language I’ve ever tried learning as far as structure, but if it weren’t for the frequent intrusions of Arabic and Sanskrit—languages I am familiar with—acquiring vocabulary would be daunting. Not a single word in the blog title traces back to anywhere outside the East Indies.

I will be staying with Yudi Kristanto at his place in the Taman Ayu (Park Beautiful) housing project. He shares an apartment with two sisters, teachers at Christian schools just as he is. The two girls share the larger bedroom, he the smaller. It is a good arrangement for all of them. They are doing what young people just starting out in life do all over the world, share an apartment or house so they can make ends meet. They are all Christians, a minority faith in this largest Muslim country on earth. I am going to see for myself what life is like in this kind of environment. Fortunately, religious conflict is uncommon in Indonesia. Nevertheless, it does happen.

In Tokyo I won’t probably leave the airport during my eighteen hour layover, but I have plenty to keep me busy and I’m looking forward to being in Japan again. It will be cool there if I get to go outside. The weather is similar to the Pacific Northwest. When I get to Jakarta the afternoon of December 20, the temperature will be tropical. That’s another part of my ‘experiment’—will I wilt under the hot, humid conditions? This is not going to be like Florida, I don’t think, but we’ll see. Visiting my Dad every year in Sarasota has gotten me somewhat acclimatised. My northern rainforest blood will probably be crying out for mercy after a few days.

But I don’t care. This is my planet. I used to say that, ‘this is my planet,’ to justify my enjoyment of being out in nature, especially in the winter, here in Oregon wearing just my trousers, bare-chested, with unsocked sandaled feet, as I walk through the forests near my home. Pretending to be a Native American, I still look forward to living here someday, out in the wilds, like an ‘Indian.’ But that may just be the private dream of a person who never was. In the real world, aside from my leisure hours at home, I dress and conform to mainstream culture like everyone else. No, I don’t wear Birkenstocks.

Going to Indonesia is for me another following of the call. I have no idea of what I will do there, or of why I am being sent. I have no delusions of ‘being on a mission’ any more than the next guy. My whole life is a mission, and I am not in charge of it. Like a poor beast of burden, but one lavishly loved by its owner, I just keep moving in a direction He only knows. Beast of burden? Well, no, that was a very poor choice of words. Our good and gracious Lord treats no one, absolutely no one, that way. Not as a dumb beast, not even as a servant, not even as a son, but as an only son and a firstborn: that’s how He treats us, all of us.

It is a beautiful, sunny day here in Oregon, on my last day ‘at home’ for awhile. I love my homeland and country so much, but strangely, I love even more wherever and among whom the Lord sends me. Fr Louis Evely writes, somewhere in his book That Man Is You—I can’t find the exact place—it’s because the saints have no home anywhere that they can feel at home everywhere. By saints, of course, he means you and me. (Sometimes I forget just how much I owe to this Belgian Roman Catholic priest who finished his course outside the institutional priesthood, and with a good conscience.) Where I’m headed, always seems home.

A final greeting for the year to all my friends, and to my enemies too, if I have any. What would life be without your friendship? What would life be if I were not wearing these chains? The way of Christ is perfect, because it is a life of mercy, of forgiveness, of affirmation, of freedom, of love. It is being transformed beyond all that you once could recognize. It is being poured out and yet never emptied. One blood, one body, one heart, the human race redeemed and ransomed by the head sorely wounded, to be part of that, to be knitted into the seamless robe of Jesus Christ, what is called ‘the Church,’ who is called ‘the Bride.’ Yes, always, not ‘what,’ but ‘who.’

Once we were lumps of clay, but the Threefold Radiance breathed soul into us. Once we stumbled and broke ourselves, but the Only-Begotten fell with us into that deepest of all pits, and then stood up, taller than the sky, and raised us on high with Him. To free us from our passions, yes, the Merciful Lord, having done all that He was sent to do, releases us now in Himself to do even greater works, because the Divine Nature before all ages, has come among us as a newborn Child, and invites us also to appear before the world. The First-Born from the dead, first-born in every way, invites us to become as He is in the world. ‘You are the Light of the world…’

Christ is born! Let us glorify! Χριστός γεννάται δοξάσατε

After I returned from Indonesia, I created a blog that chronicles what I did there. You can read all about it at Yndonesia.