By Kimberly Rae
Kim Thigpen’s note to me when she sent this article for ProverbWise on May 5, 2017:
Whenever I read this, I think of Uncle Joe. That note you sent me way back in 1998 about him reading it in church and tearing up, those first weeks I was in Southeast Asia, meant so much. I kept it and was encouraged by it many times. I might still have it in my “treasure chest” where I keep such things and find them every few years.
So it seems fitting to be sending it to you again. Perhaps someone else can be blessed by it now. I thank you for the years of blessing and encouragement you’ve been.
Poetry in the Rice Fields
Transfixed by curiosity I stand, fascinated by that which I have never before seen. Long and slender aside the little boat, the pole digs down deeper and deeper, searching for a moment’s landing before pushing off again. Hands, brown and callused, guide the pole; a push and the small hewn-out tree moves forward, breaking the still waters to dance rhythms at its sides. The dance continues unheeded behind the little boat until finally, as if sensing no one watches, it fades to tiny ripples.
Rice, peeking up over the water’s edge, seems to crane its long neck for a glimpse of the harvester. Flood has prepared each one for harvest, and the time draws nigh.
With skill acquired only by the toil of many years, the harvester gathers life, grain by grain. Little is turned into much in the hands of a woman who squats inside a bamboo hut over dinner. Preparation for the meal is a tradition so ingrained into her daily life that she does not notice how the ritual enthralls me as I hover in the doorway.
How often did I pour over the books on culture shock that warned me be wary, careful, assured of myself before attempted to understand others? How many fears paraded across my mind, uncategorized, yet relentless? I still watch the woman cook, but my mind travels to the opposite side of the world where once my home was. What anxious thoughts had assaulted me at times! Will I be able to adjust? Will I despite the differences; will they despite my Americanness? Will I falter, fail, give up?
Creative tenderness accompanied God’s loving answer. My child, you forget that you have been living all your life in a culture not your own. You are in the world, but not of it. Heaven is your only true home, and while you spend a few years on earth, I, the Master Teacher, will show you how to live in any place, to love any people, to find beauty’s song amidst poverty and suffering.
If I could live on earth for 33 years when used to living in Heaven, can you not adjust slightly from what you are used to for My sake?
For His sake, because He asked me, I went, and found that He was right. My American home was temporary; my new home in this new land is temporary; but at each stop I take on my journey toward my final home
I will find the beauty of the people,
The song carried by the wind,
The poetry in the rice fields.
Award-winning author and speaker Kimberly Rae lived in Bangladesh, Uganda, Kosovo and Indonesia before Addison’s disease brought her permanently back to the US. She now lives at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband and two young children, where she writes and trains on fighting human trafficking. Rae has been published over 200 times and has work in 5 languages. Her series of suspense/romance novels on international human trafficking (Stolen Woman, Stolen Child, and Stolen Future) are all Amazon bestsellers, as is her new book on trafficking in small-town North Carolina (Shredded), and several of her books on living joyfully despite chronic illness. Find out more at www.kimberlyrae.com.