“There is truth here.”

“There is truth here”

As I sat on the tile floor on my knees, the air fragrant and soaring with the smell of incense and the echoing voices of the children chanting, the intricately folded pink lotus flower in my hand held my gaze as the words reverberated through my body…

“There is truth here”

As I shifted my softened gaze across the outdoor space darkened by night and lit by jasmine candles, I saw Kru Nam seated on an outer bench, hands held together in prayer, watching her mouth speak the same prayers the children were chanting loudly. Her eyes were closed. Her heart was being poured out on full display; her heart for the kids in the home she cares for, her heart for the child who recently passed just months before, her heart for her faith. It was a beautiful stoic, faith-filled expression and moment that felt so real and honest and raw— how beautiful to bear witness. 

When we gather in Thailand with Live Different to support the work of the Baan Kru Nam Foundation, we are so beautifully, without inhibition, welcomed into their lives and routines. We integrate in, invited to experience what they experience— from meals to sports, to games and even visiting the temple together for Visakha Bucha.

Visakha Bucha, also known as Vesek, is one of the holiest days in Buddhism. It marks three major events in the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha: his birth, enlightenment, and death. According to Buddhist scripture, these three events are said to have occurred on the same day of different years. While events take place all throughout the day, in the evening, people join a circumambulation procession; this involves walking clockwise around the temple three times, carrying candles, incense, and flowers. The three rounds symbolize the Three Jewels of Buddhism: the Buddha, the Dharma (teachings), and the Sangha (monastic order). *all information from Thailand Now

As we held hands with the children and walked in those three clockwise circles, watching them run around to light each other's candles as they blew out from the quick pace of our walk, we then placed the lit candles, burning incense, and folded flowers in the set offering spaces before we gathered for a closing meditation. Returning to our hotel for the night, the phrase ‘There’s truth here’ still sang out in my heart.

I didn’t have a chance to reflect on it until arriving home. On the final day of May, in the liminal space between finishing the 19th annotation and beginning a devotional, this experience was fresh in my mind and the pages of my journal read:

‘God, bless Kru Nam and her work and the kids…

When we so flippantly talk about being “the hands and feet of Jesus” as a cliche we’ve spoken about for years and hear over and over, we forget the importance of the call. Seeing Kru Nam do her work— so intentional, full of play and joy with the kids, yet so meticulous and regimented as a provider and one who runs the foundation— she is Your hands and feet— and heart— for these kids, and all kids, who are caught in unimaginable circumstances. I think of us volunteers— showing up and showing love. Literally telling kids we love them after they tell us, fulfilling their desire to feel that love returned. Our presence being the hands and feet, but more the heart and open arms of embrace and quiet snuggle moments that you, God, have for Your children. 

“Be the hands and feet” we are told time and time again…

Let us remember that we can be the heart, the arms, the smile, the play, the physically present one that Jesus was to the ones often left behind or forgotten about.

Truth is everywhere…

In Kru Nam’s faith.

In the monk who declared “the good, the bad, the ugly” with ugly being when he served in the Navy, acknowledging that war was not, and is still not, the answer… violence isn’t the answer, it never is.

Truth is in the quiet, wild spaces nature begins to reclaim, in the energy of temples that are off the beaten path where the bricks are crumbling and the scent of trees and earth fill your deep inhales and invite that sacred pause.

Truth is found in the little hands that reach for yours and embrace you with a hug. In applying the Disney rule; to not be the first one to let go of that hug.

The truth that is found is that Love is sacred, that Love speaks of our interconnectedness with all of creation, and Love binds us, makes us responsible to one another, makes us honour each other and makes us aware of how this life is lived most fully when we show up and care for others.

God, thank you for the truth that permeates all space and time. What a gift to glimpse awareness of what you teach through all books of nature and presence.’

I’m well aware of how my experience of being inspired by the Spirit to notice beautiful, God-filled truth while taking part in a Buddhist ceremony can come across so very ‘un-Christian’. Cue the concerns for my own salvation, for the concerns that I should have been convincing others how their belief as different than mine makes them wrong (because Christians like to do that a lot), or how just being there and taking part makes me complicit in some eternal, cosmic play out of good vs evil. Perhaps it’s in these very spaces that those who claim the title Christian are invited step into— to realize our closeness as humans, to recognize our shared desires and dreams, and to remember that God is not confined to pages of scripture, or a claim of faith one makes, but that God, Creator of All, permeates time and space and creation itself. That it is in these moments of allowing ourselves to step into another culture, another experience, allows us to meet God in new places, shaping our faith in new ways, and making our faith richer and deeper because of it.