finding space(s) for faith

yesterday one my colleagues asked me what i thought of obama's visit to china. after expressing my disappointment, i asked what her impressions were. she said that she hadn't paid much attention to the particulars of what the leaders of the G2 said, but she was struck by her personal experiences as a christian leading up to his arrival. she is a member of one of beijing's many "home churches". these are unregistered congregations that seek to worshio free from government interference or control. as she explained, they don't want to be registered and her small church in fact recently broke off from a larger unregistered home church so as to be less visible and therefore have greater space for their faith. faith is something that the party fears. they fear antyhing that can threaten or usurp their absolute authority. but faith is especially dangerous because it can lead to expansive thinking and spiritual awareness that can completely overwhelm the party's soulless, corporatist, nationalistic dogma and reveal it for the empty rhetoric and thinly veiled means of maintaining power that it is.

members of beijing's home churches were closely watched for two weeks prior to obama's visit. people were followed (especially pastors and church leaders), their communications monitored, and church meeting places were closed. one sunday prior to obama's arrival, the larger home church my colleague had originally been a member of was prevented from holding services in their normal location because the police had barricaded the building and informed them that they were not permitted to worship there. the congregation gathered in a nearby park instead. it was bitterly cold and snowing (thanks also to government interference, although the weather modification office was operating independently of the public security church suppression task force*). my colleague described to me how they held services in the falling snow, with the police observing them nearby. i found it so moving, and so symbolic somehow.

symbolic in the sense that faith is at once greater than the snow and the snow itself. and it is certainly stronger than the watchful public security. there occasionally rises chatter about the current struggle for the 'soul' of china. the ccp has had an iron efficient vise-grip on the country's spirit for so long. and although some say economic growth required some loosening, i think of it more as just a strategic shift. rather than clap down directly, the party carefully crafted a steel net to contain her people - allowing enough from for corporatism and greed, but controlling information and thought sufficiently to secure their power. faith slips through that net, though.

the conversation with my colleague inevitably turned to the falungong. no conversation about religous freedom in china is complete without at lease some mention of this most curious collection of spiritual practitioners. i confessed that i find some of their beliefs quite strange, but said that doesn't make them a cult. the chinese government's brutal response to this group demonstrates their fear of faith. or at least faith that involves worship of anything other than china, getting rich, and the communist party.

my colleague wondered why she hadn't heard mention of obama bringing up the suppression of christians or religious freedom. i suggested that it would be part of february's us-china human rights dialogue as it has been in past dialogues. she noted without surpirse that the suppression of beijing's home churches in advance of the president's visit was not reported in the local press. i assured her that it received some foreign coverage. i also told her that the pastor who leads the home church alliance was detained in advance of the visit. she didn't believe that though. maybe faith can only provide so much perspective. :).

faith is most miraculous and, much to the ccp's dismay, cannot easily be contained. and yet, in our pathetic way, we are always trying to conain it or measure it or squeeze it into a frame of reference we can readily understand. i found myself thinking about this morning as i read an article about competitive yoga tournaments and a movement to have yoga added as an olympic sport. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/19/fashion/19fitness.html?pagewanted=1) the promoters acknowledge that the competitions only judge the physical aspect of yoga, not spirituality. indeed, how to you measure inner growth, wholeness, goodness? while running this morning, i was thinking about those subjects and whether i am able to cultivate the same sense of spaciousness through running as i can through asana. once again i resolved to practice daily. though i yearn for a teacher (and thus far have had no luck finding one in beijing), that is not an excuse.

there are always ready excuses to avoiding true spiritual growth. but doing so i believe eventually comes back to haunt you. i hope that one day the ccp learns this lesson the hard way.


*the former (weather modification office) is real, the latter (public security church suppression task force) is a term i made up but it very well may exist!