I’m LOVING procrastinating from study by reading a ‘relevant novel’. Tents Against the Sky is written by an academic who, in his scholarly missives, doesn’t address the question which I am asking in my own studies. The author, Robert B. Ekvall, has also written a number of novels and our library had one of them … there just may be clues in there that will help me in my own musings about cross-cultural missions. (Or maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to enjoy a good story.)
The following paragraph from the book I am reading describes a child monk waiting for his mother to come to the monastery in which he lives. It is set in the 1940s.
“Dorje Renchen wriggled his impatient, rebel toes. All his excitement could find expression and release only in their frantic motion. They were hidden as he sat cross-legged in the proper attitude, demure as any one of the little bronze Buddhas that filled the image cupboard at the far end of the room. Presently all ten toes played an irregular tattoo on his bare thighs as he watched, through the latticed window, a line of moving figures cross the distant pass…. Among them … he felt sure, was his mother.”
Robert B. Ekvall, ‘Tents Against the Sky’, p.10 (Good News Publisher – second edition – 1978)
That scene has lodged itself in my imagination. As a somewhat maternal spinster, my heart aches for the little boy who had been separated from his mother. As a woman who has travelled in the part of the world in which the story is set, I enjoy ‘visiting’ there again in my mind. As an amateur writer, I appreciate Ekvall’s use of imagery and the way he ‘shows, not tells’.
The author of the novel
Who wrote this story? How did he set the scene so beautifully? Surely he had lived there at some point. If the truth be told, I am probably following another rabbit trail of enquiry that keeps me from getting on with the job at hand.
Whatever the reason, today I investigated who this Robert B. Ekvall actually was. As I read a little of his story, I found a man that I could identify with, despite the decades and distance between us. An American missionary, a secular translator, writer and academic, he died an old man while I was still choosing a career. (Born before the turn of the last century, he died in 1983, when I was in my mid-teens.)
A true biography
As I child, I LOVED missionary biographies – and still do. Those stories no doubt impacted my own choices in life. Ekvall, however, left no missionary biography … not one that was published, anyhow. But he did write stories – stories that could have been true – stories similar to some of the little tales I have told too, but much longer and beautifully written.
Not only did he leave no missionary biography, but he formally finished ‘missionary work’ halfway through his working career. That’s what his supporters may have thought anyhow.
In fact, perhaps his most strategic work in a rapidly changing world came later. As an older man, he was intensely involved with supporting the Tibetan diaspora who were scattered around the world. As an academic, an ethnographer, he also worked with them to record information about their lives while it was still their lived reality.
His own life story would have made for a rather depressing book, actually. The poor man suffered tragedy after tragedy. As a child in China (where he was born to American parents), his father suddenly died, after which he was uprooted and taken to his passport country of the USA. Years later, back in China, his dearly loved wife also died. He and his only son were then imprisoned for a time in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. That boy went on to become a soldier and was killed in the Korean war. (The book I’m reading is dedicated “To the memory of Dave, my son, who was with me – all interest and help – when this was being written.”) He remarried, had two more children, then that wife died while the children were still young. An old man, he married a third time but the two went their separate ways.
Shaped but not defined by tragedy
Those tragedies may have shaped him but they didn’t define him. What did define him was his insatiable desire to listen to and learn about the peoples of Tibet. The publisher of the edition of the book I’m reading (the second publisher – it was republished 24 years after its first printing) describes Ekvall in this way:
“Robert B. Ekvall (was) a pioneer student of foreign cultures, a poet and a novelist with an unseen spirit ready to listen to both the inner voice of God and the cultural voices of men and women, especially the Tibetan people whom he knew so well.”
Victor L. Oliver, 1978, foreword to ‘Tents Against the Sky’
Plans thwarted again and again
I wonder if the author somewhat identified with the little boy who is described in the quote at the start of this blog post … sitting still, but wriggling impatient ‘rebel toes’. Events outside of Ekvall’s control brought life as he knew it to a screeching halt, and not just once but several times. In each instance, he was unable to control things let alone ‘fix’ anything. Survival was his only option.
Later in life, he yearned to return to China but couldn’t because of policies of the government of the time. Although he had an official invitation from the Tibetan community to visit India, where the Tibetan diaspora had established their headquarters, he was refused an Indian visa. (That was because he had served as an intelligence officer – a translator – for the US military during the war.) He was, however, allowed to spend time in Switzerland which had welcomed thousands of Tibetan refugees in the early 1960s.
Rebel Toes
The main character in the book I am reading, the boy monk with the impatient rebel toes, goes on to live an interesting life – one with many twists and turns. (Yes, I am bad … I have already skimmed the book just to see what happens.) That boy’s story ends with a horse, a tent, a wife and a Saviour.
Life is rarely straightforward. Some of us know what it feels like in this day and age to sit and wait as our world spins out of control. (Okay – that’s a gross oversimplification – the ubiquitous internet makes working from home well and truly possible.) Others are straining through various intense pressures – overwhelming work, illness, fear, financial stress and more during these strange times. Life may never be the same again.
I take encouragement from the story of Robert B. Ekvall, who lived through times as intense as any of us and more – the Sino-Japanese war, imprisonment, a world war (serving in intelligence on the front lines in Burma, no less), and personal tragedy several times over. His life’s direction changed dramatically each time as a direct result of what was going on around him. But just as some parts of life finished up forever, so other opportunities presented themselves.
There is no nice neat moral to wrap up this tale of an author I admire. All I can say in conclusion is this — the times in which we currently live will pass, life may never be the same again, but as long as we draw breath, there is still purpose and meaning in life.
Even if it isn’t what WE had planned.
(And now I really should get back to the many and varied tasks from which I am procrastinating by reading this excellent novel.)
For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10 NIV