Comfort food, Burmese style

Earlier this evening, just after I got home from work and was boiling water for a cup of tea, two of the Burmese boys next door showed up at my back door with food their mother made: rice noodles, salty fish soup, and a hardboiled egg.  All gone quickly, like the two boys.

Very business-like little souls.  Holding up the plastic containers of food, one said, “We have to take these back.”  I found a bowl and a small pot to put things in, washed the plastic containers while my guests discreetly explored what was in the kitchen, handed the containers back, and zip!  They were out the door, but not before they told me their names again.  They sounded like Angway and Atayu.

A quick look around the Internet tells me there is a Burmese dish called mohinga: rice noodles and fish soup and garnishes, most often eaten for breakfast.  On a really cold day, a hot dish of what I had would be great for breakfast.

Another Dividing Line

Just a little while ago this morning, I heard an interview with Philip Pullman on NPR about his current book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ. Jesus apparently is a decent guy who tells people decent things;  Christ apparently is the smarmy twin brother who, for various rasons, embellishes what Jesus says and turns it into a religion.

Oh, boy.  Another opportunity for religious and non-religious people to have at it and (after whacking each other with various arguments) come away still not willing to LISTEN to what the “other side” has to say.

Another opportunity for religious and non-religious people to insist that this is evidence that human culture is either about to fall into an abyss or begin the dawning of some new utopian dream.

Meanwhile, I think that for people of faith who are truly concerned about how to respond, the best way to counter Pullman’s latest effort is to do much more walking of their walk and as little talking of their talk as possible.  Oh, and buying a copy of his current book and actually reading it with a desire to understand . . . that wouldn’t hurt either.

Dividing Line

Yesterday: failed car bomb in Times Square.  Tomorrow, and for a number of days after: endless chatter in the media and elsewhere that does nothing to solve the problem but a lot to distract people from having to honestly deal with it.

How did this happen?

It’s the government doing too much of the wrong things or not enough of the right things because of the left or because of the right or because of the independents.

It’s those Christians (whatever the term means);  it’s those Muslims (ditto); it’s those Jews (double ditto); it’s those Hindus (triple ditto); it’s those Buddhists (Buddhists? Really?)

It’s those gay people; it’s those straight people.

It’s whatever.  It’s them, not us; it’s you, not me.

Whenever I hear the babble begin, I think of the quote by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from The Gulag Archipelago:

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

Strangers

I have finally met my neighbors.  Neighbors I have seen and smiled at for more than a year.  From all indications, they are Burmese.

Yesterday morning, I was out raking up leaves from the flower bed.  I said hello to three little boys, ages about four to six, who were riding bikes on the sidewalk.  They asked what I was doing; I told them; the youngest asked if he could come in my house; I said I need to talk to your mom to see if it’s okay; next thing I know, it’s supper time, and five small boys and one mom are sitting around the dining room table, eating veggie pizza (from Salvatore’s–fantastic).

Dinner was over in half an hour, and everyone left with a piece of pizza, including the little boy who said he didn’t like it.

A small start.  Now if I could expand that to other neighbors.  I have been saying hello-how-are-you to various folks for quite a while.  I guess the problem is that there have been very few of those spontaneous moments where people mutually recognize: hey, you aren’t going to hurt me, are you?