This year, I decide to stay local. I visit my buddy in Luang Prabang, and it's mayhem on the streets. People are rubbing cornstarch and powdered charcoal on each others' faces. Throwing bags of dyed water: green, red, purple, yellow. Stains your shirt. Girls dancing outside. For a culture that's normally very conservative, in terms of dress and social relations...it's a bizarre turnound. All high school and college-aged girls wear long traditional skirts to school. Today, though, it's like girls gone wild out there, stripped half naked, baring their midriffs, shaking and humping like it's a hip-pop music video. Normally, girls don't look at guys in the eyes, or even say much to them. The sexes aren't supposed to interact. Now, they're throwing water on each other, flirting, hunger and desire coming unbridled in a 4-day affair. I go to a party, and people are trying to get me to dance with them, forcing beer down my throat. Teenagers are getting wasted, jumping on top of cars, screaming and dancing and hollering.
The foreigners and the kids are going wild. But at the temples, the parents are in a serious spiritual state. Dousing water on the buddha, asking for luck this year, lots of rain for the farmers, money and health and propserity. 7, 9, 11, or 13 temples, any of those are lucky numbers. My neighbor is carrying a bucket of water with flowers. It smells like potpourri. I want to touch it but she yells. You can't touch it, it's special water! Her daughter asks for permission to splash water on me. Sure, I say, as I put my cell phone away. Then she puts the hose over my head, wishing me luck in the new year. She's smiling as she's doing it, but it's not playful. it's a serious spiritual ritual.
It's Sabbath today. The last day of the festivities. People are hungover and won't be coming out til the afternoon. I don't want to be out there in all the madness. It reminds me of being in a club. Foam parties, high school girls shaking their stuff, my neighbors are inviting me out again, want to drive around on the back of a truck and have a waterfight. I'm cooped up in my house. But i'm not sure if i should be in my house either. I can already hear the music bumping outside.
I used to think I knew the answers, back home...telling people to do radical street ministry. But today, sitting here in my room, I realize that I don't know a thing. I have no idea what i should do. When you realize the great spiritual need out there...you can't help but join the waterfight. When you realize your own sinfulness...you can't help but stay at home and pray.
It's my battle and yours. When we're in this situation, we're forced on our knees. All we can do is pray. Maybe you want to go out and get soaked, but He wants you to stay at home and pray. Maybe you want to stay at home and pray, but He wants you to go out and get soaked.
