New Books, New Stories
“the currency here is stories. can you tell a story? is your story worth telling? how will you tell you story when there is nothing new under the sun? “ - Mei in L. A.Yes, it’s true. These days I believe it more than ever...
Yesterday I wandered into a few used bookstores by Tai Phae gate on the East Side of Chiang Mai after a greasy as hell burger from “Mike’s,” this burger joint where evidently all Americans need to go at least once. I’ve gone once... I don’t think I’ll go back again unless I want my arteries to harden.
It’d been forever since I could wander a bookstore where I can actually read and understand the language (English, not Thai. Silly). I felt like a kid again: stacks and stacks of books on all subjects imaginable, some organized in neat sections, others in random piles, all carrying that distinct ‘used’ look and smell with the creased bindings, faded covers, just slightly yellowed pages that you can only notice if you look closely.
I don’t usually have a lot of time to read during the semester. These next few weeks will probably be the only time I have. As a result I scanned the shelves carefully, wandered several stores. I needed to find something worth my time, something that had soul. I found plenty of abstract pieces worthy of my time like Tillich, Choamsky, Sartre, and so on, but theology and philosophy can be overrated.
I needed a Story.. .
By the end of my search, I walked away with three stories. Each one called out to me and I couldn’t help but shell out the 1000 Baht to take them all home with me.
The first called “The Global Soul” by Pico Iyer is a travel memoir focused on how how a life can be shaped by globalization and constant movement within this shrinking village of a world. Somehow... I felt maybe I could relate a little. I’m not a real world traveler by any means... but my soul is as displaced as the next. You don’t have to physically get in a plane and go some where far away to lose yourself.. .
The second is a collection of short stories entitled “The Bridegroom” by Ha Jin, a notable Chinese author now living in the States. I’ve read a few stories already and have been blessed greatly by their ability to capture modern China, it’s people, attitudes, and life in so few pages. Given my short experience in China, his stories reconfirm as well as enlighten what I have already seen: deep woundedness, loss of presence, displaced anger, and then some.
The last, “The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.,” was the piece that took me by surprise. I was ready to check out when I noticed it sitting on the top left corner of the “Recommended” section. Something inside me clicked and I knew I had to read it. I’ve studied this giant of faith and justice on and off throughout college, but never in the detailed way I desired. And here, in his own words (compiled and edited by Claybourne Carson =P), he invited me to see his life.
His story has something important for me... I can feel it in my bones.
“I remember another experience I used to have in Atlanta. I went to high school on the other side of town - to Booker T. Washington High School. I had to get the bus in what was known as the Fourth War and ride over to the West Side. In those days, rigid patterns of segregation existed on the buses, so that Negroes had to sit in the backs of buses. Whites were seated in the front, and often if whites didn’t get on the buses, those seats were still reserved for whites only, so Negroes had to stand over empty seats. I would end up having to go to the back of that bus with my body, but every time I got on that bus I left my mind up on the front seat. And I said to myself, ‘One of these days I’m going to put my body up there where my mind is.’”
- Martin Luther King Jr., from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.
Now that’s the kind of attitude that makes life worth living, the kind of passion that ignites movements, the kind of thoughts that are fostered by the Almighty to become transformational movements. That’s a story worth telling.
These days my body is in Thailand... but my mind... I don’t know where it is. It’s every where and no where. I’m homesick, homeless, and home bound all at once and it’s killing me.
But perhaps the seed needs to fall to the ground and die before it can give life?
Tell me, Pico, how did you find “home” in the midst of your endlessly moving life? How did you find rest for your soul when there was no place to lay your head? What’s your take on the emerging global culture of today? And if you have the time, I’d like to hear your opinions on what you think of my being in China for these next few years.
Tell me the stories of the Chinese people in such a way that help me to see their souls, Ha Jin. Show me what it means to be Chinese in today’s modern world. The short fiction you write is overflowing with the subtleness of life only a Chinese could see and experience. Tell me more. I want to learn so that I might serve more wholly.
Tell me, Dr. King, how did you become the man you did? How did you come to the beliefs you held until your death? Give me a little insight, please. I want to see that front seat as clearly as you did, past the sinful structures of humanity that kept you out of it and into the transformational, Spirit-touched passion that changed the world.
And you, reading this entry, tell me your story. My friends and family, tell me what is on your heart and what makes you cry and smile in recent days. I miss you all so much more this week than at any point during the busy semester because in this week I’ve had the chance to slow down and remember you. I’m sure you’ve all got some great stories and some breath-taking, wonderful dreams.
Much thanks to all those thinking of me and dropping me emails. You've done so much for my soul.
posted by Unknown @ 10:41 PM
<< Home