Checkpoints and Love

When my friend, publisher of Ode, Jurrian Kamp asked me to become a contributor to the Ode blog, I was thrilled. I have so much to say, yet I was concerned by the fact that I am not connected very well to the worldwide web, not for the lack of technology in Sri Lanka, but for lack of time. Spending much of my time in the front lines in the field and with people facilitating workshops and some of it for days away from home, leaves me little time to browse the web. When I am at home, I like to spend that time with my four children and wife, Samantha. As a result, I end up barely managing my e mail.

So, I am concerned that I may not have time to enter into dialogue and debate about the things I am going to write. Yet, I want to become a part of the global dialogue about the need to change our world. I am sure there are many out there with so much knowledge and insight who should become a part of this dialogue, but for lack of access or time, are not connected.

So, it is wonderful that Ode is trying to reach deeper to harness this wisdom through the new web based process. I am all for getting the good people - the people who normally stay silent for whatever reason - together to create a common voice to bring some love and compassion; tolerance and understanding to this world that seems steeped in hatred and violence. Or is it just the media hype about all the bad things that are happening ?

In the meantime, good things get ignored or merely not newsworthy.

From the outside world, Sri Lanka seems a basket case. The recent escalation of the war and violence has been well publicized worldwide. Judging by the lack of tourists in our pristine beaches and the countryside is a testament to the media?s effectiveness.

Yet, life goes on. Children go to school, they have their concerts, plays and sports, parties happen, the Sunday afternoon jazz at the Colombo Rugby and Football Club happens every month to about 400 locals and expatriates and obviously a testament to the fact that many foreigners still live here. So life goes on.

What is different is the security presence, the checkpoints, the closed roads and road closures for the politicians to travel safely and all this is an inconvenience we are getting used to. Of course the occasional and now more frequent bombs close to where we are, compounded by the LTTE air raids with their small planes is becoming more than an inconvenience. Yet, when a bomb goes, we call around to close relatives and friends and when they are safe, we go about our life with not much of a fuss. The place where the bomb goes off gets cleaned up in a few hours and its business as usual.

Are we getting numb to all this or is this the way our minds work to allow us to adapt and continue on with our lives? Either way, the bar of tolerance has been raised, as we choose to continue to live here.

In spite of all this, the quality of life for us and our children is good. They are also learning about life, its impermanence and its suffering first hand. Yet they also have a lot of love around them from not only us, but the rich social network we have.

Colombo is a very social place. There are always people around us and never lonely here. The children are exposed to so many weird and wonderful people, their extended family of uncles, aunties and other kids who are friends. This is what provides for the rich and varied life we have.

A couple of days ago we had an evening of poetry at our home with some close friends and their children. The star was Krisantha Sri Bahggiyadatta, Sri Lankan born Canadian poet, who is a part of Colombo's interesting community of the different and interesting people. He read from his new book of poems and songs - Checkpoint in Heaven. It was so nice to see all the children sitting on the floor of our living room looking at him in awe at his animated style as he rapped his poetry to an African beat. In his poetry book he states:

"Checkpoint in Heaven started off as a collection of what went through my mind every time I went through a checkpoint, as well a comment on war, and ended up as a comment on the merchant oligarchy and its discontents, where inability to pay is a possible sign of terrorist intent."

He opened the evening to a thought provoking and fun filled session of poetry, song, drumming and readings from friends and many children. We were especially amazed at the insightful stories read by our elder children Sacha (15), Natalya (13) and niece Tulasi (13). Their stories reflected on the contradictions of life as they see it by living in this part of the world. I was holding back my tears as I realized that they are accepting the impermanence of this world. From their readings I realized that they understood that life is change and change is life. I paraphrase some of what they said and how I understood it:

I cannot control the future nor predict it, except I will die for sure. Yet, I can live every moment in a way to forge a living and loving truth that is compatible with change. I try hard to live my life through love and compassion, tolerance and understanding, but fail often as I cling onto my life - to my body for vanity, to my mind for its clarity.

So, we live amidst this war of hatred and violence, but try to make sense of it and try our best to instill in our children and people around us the values of respect for life, tolerance and understanding. In the meantime, we as parents are held accountable by our very children: 'Dad, remember you told us to control our anger, so why are you screaming at the bus driver?' The bus happened to be on my side of the road, so tolerance and understanding is not easy when we live in a mad world, but I try. Metta and Karuna to all.