Star Light Ministries

October 30, 2007

Several teams have visited their clubs in the last two weeks. Here is a report from a team member:

As we entered the club and began to walk through the dance floor/bar area on our way to the dressing room, a dancer called out to us. We stopped and gave her a hug. She said, “I was visiting at a church the other night at dinner. I got to thinking about beautiful people — not “pretty” people but beautiful people. I thought of ya’ll. You’re beautiful: you don’t judge us, you are just nice to us.” We felt really privileged to hear that.

We went upstairs and met the new House Mother, who has been a dancer off and on for 10 years. She was extremely open to us and easy to talk to. She shared her experiences as a dancer and how she feels now that she is transitioning away from dancing to more management positions. She said that, since she has stopped dancing, she really misses the attention she got as a dancer.

It was a very positive night. I felt like our “reputation” as caring people has been established in the club, and all of the dancers are responding positively to us. I realize not all club visits are like this, but it was wonderful to experience it last night. Thank you, Lia, for starting this ministry! It truly touches people’s lives.

Thank you, volunteers, for bringing acceptance into the lives of the women you meet at the clubs!

October 24, 2007

One of the hardest questions you’ll ever have to answer is, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And many people find that they’re asking that question time and time again… Sometimes, you’ve been in a career for ages. Sometimes, you’ve been in school studying for a career. Sometimes, you’ve just started out in life, and you’re asking that question. “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

There are so many blocks to making that decision. It can be too many choices. It can be training. It can be that there just isn’t a job out there that fits your needs.

We’re all called to something. And in different points in our lives, we may be called to different things. Life and calling seems to change with the times, and change with our circumstances. Figuring out those things can be hard.

So here’s what you do… Pray. Pray hard that it will become clear to you. Act. Act, even when you aren’t sure exactly what it is you want to do. Move. Move, even if it’s in the not-so-perfect direction. Dream. Dream big. You CAN do your calling. You CAN be your calling.

I believe in you. God believes in you.

October 22, 2007

I was talking with a friend just the other day. He was worried about his youngest child. Just normal worries that most parents have about their early 20’s children: will my child EVER move out? Will my child EVER get a job? Will my child EVER be able to make it on his or her own?

My friend, the parent, said to me, “I know that my youngest child will never listen to me, never really be encouraged by my pushing. All I can do is hope that someone will come along and help my youngest child to find what the things he needs.”

The thing is, those people come along. Remember the people that you met, who encouraged you, cared about you, guided you? It only takes one person to change the course of your life.

Who was that person for you?

The first person I remember changing my life was a waitress in a bar I worked. She was older than me, wiser, funnier, and smarter. Her name was Jan. She taught me how to budget money, and for the first time in my life, I had savings. She taught me how to have balance in my life–she would explain to me how silly it was to go out every evening, and how I could have fun doing other things. Jan was awesome.

The second one was my preaching professor, Dr. Smith. For our first preaching assignment, Dr. Smith had us choose a “difficult” Biblical text from a fishbowl, and we had to reach our first sermon on this text. My text was Nahum 1:2-3:

2 The LORD is a jealous and avenging God;
the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath.
The LORD takes vengeance on his foes
and maintains his wrath against his enemies.

3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power;
the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.
His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,
and clouds are the dust of his feet.

Now, if you know me at all, you know that this is one of the worst Scripture verses I could ever have to preach on. It gives me the willies just thinking about it! We had two tries to preach the sermon. We preached once, then revisited it, preaching again. The first time I preached it, it was AWFUL! The second time I preached it, Dr. Smith came up to me and said, “How does it feel to be a preacher?” I stood stunned. It was not what I expected; I never wanted to be a preacher. But the moment he said it, I thought, “Pretty good.”

Dr. Smith changed my life right then. Proving yet again, it takes just one person to change a life.

Are you helping someone change their life?

October 18, 2007

I might be a mother. I might be a student. I’m definitely a friend, a daughter, a cousin, and I may be a sister. I love chocolate. I love red meat, but sometimes I’m a vegetarian. I like to talk on the phone, think email is stoopid, and use it a lot. I love Facebook and MySpace. I laugh, I cry. I sometimes drink too much, and sometimes I even snort my drink out of my nose.

I have piercings, maybe just two in my ears, but perhaps there’s several in other places. I might have a tattoo, and I might let you see it, if you’re really nice. I love movies, books, and television, but I find that I don’t always have time for it all the time. I like to drive, sometimes really fast, and sometimes really slow. I like peanut butter and bananas, and I love rock-n-roll, although sometimes I like country.

So who am I? Which of these things defines me?

What if I told you that I’m a stripper? Would that define me?

October 12, 2007

I got involved with Star Light after I interviewed founder Lia Scholl for an article on human trafficking. Exotic dancers and clubs kept popping up in my research, controversially so. After all most women at clubs in the US are there by choice, right? Well, yes. Except for those who are increasingly trafficked in on the coasts. As for the rest, asked Lia, “How do you define choice?”

Lia and I will be the first to say that exotic dancing does not mean and should not be interchangeable with trafficking. Women (and it is mostly women), dance for many reasons, from paying bills to finding pleasure. Although it does make you wonder when so many women in the world’s wealthiest country find their most viable career opportunity in disrobing before strangers.

However the fact is that we now live in a much smaller world where its that much easier to traffic people into situations over which they have no control – increasingly clubs. Exhibit A: An entire set of scenes from the recent film, “Eastern Promises” where dancing for the UK’s Russian mob is the least objectionable thing in store for trafficked Slavic women.

This probably isn’t true for all the clubs you see advertised off highways between the coasts. But if you find yourself at a club in a major US urban area and a dancer has a foreign accent or “isn’t from here,” ask yourself – where did she come from? How did she get here? Where does she go at the end of her shift?

I’m a suburban mom with a toddler. Needless to say I’m not much of a club-goer. But you don’t have to be one to know or notice that clubs aren’t always in a red-light district with harsh neon-lit X-rated marquees. Many are discreetly tucked away around “respectable” neighborhoods, including the nice one I live in just outside Washington DC, also a major destination and transit point for traffickers.

So I’ve always wondered. About the people who go to clubs and the women they pay to strip. The lives both these (generally) law-abiding, tax-paying citizens lead. The families and friends the customers aren’t with. The childcare arrangements the dancers must need to figure out if they’re going to be home after last call. And how dancers make ends meet, especially if they’re paying all the FICA taxes you and I do, in addition to the cut the manager and the club takes. (What? You thought dancers get to keep all the singles tucked in their garters? Not so much.)

More than anything else, I wonder about the choices everyone’s made to get to this point, and the choices they’re left with if they want to stop dancing.

Partly it’s because of where I’m from, India – a major trafficking destination and transit point. And partly it’s because I grew up some in the Middle East – where choice, as we understand it from a Western perspective, is sometimes non-existent for both sexes. Both are places where “fallen” women have no way out of disgrace. There is no leaving the past behind, no fresh start. And what you do shames the whole family, sometimes for generations.

It’s different in the US, or at least it’s supposed to be. I lived in Los Angeles for ten years, the city of Angels, where there is less judgment for missteps and world arrives to reinvent itself, endlessly. Where you’re always a lucky break away from being the irrefutable next big thing. Where the legal, American-born dancers – unlike Slavic and Asian dancers in Hollywood and Koreatown – can always walk away, start over, leave their past behind.

Except, as former dancers will tell you, we now live in the age of the Internet, where the past is never behind you. And if you’re illegal, leaving the club is a whole other ball of wax.

Let’s say you do leave. Because there comes a point when you’re too sick, or too old, and no longer able to spend hours on end in insanely high heels. Where do you go? What do you put on your resume? How are you going to transition from one life to the other?

Let’s say you’re okay with the choices you made, at peace with the outcome, are you ready for what comes from those who aren’t? From those who might have been customers? Do you have what it takes to keep from going back to clubs simply because they’re known territory? Because you know that even if its not what you want, at least it’s a somewhat reliable paycheck?

Lia had asked me, “How do you define choices.” Sure makes you think twice about the word, doesn’t it?

October 9, 2007

Upon the recommendation of A. Butler, pastor extraordinaire and blogger of what's what, I picked up the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Reverend Butler blogged on it here. I really, really, really loved this book. Is that enough reallys? I’m excerpting a bit of my favorite.

My prayers are becoming more deliberate and specific. It has occurred to me that it’s not much use to send prayers out to the universe that are lazy. Every morning before meditation, I kneel in the temple and talk for a few minutes to God. I found during the beginning of my stay here at the Ashram that I was often dull-witted during those divine conversatons. Tired, confused and bored, my prayers sounded the same. I remember kneeling down one morning, touching my forehead to the floor and muttering to my creator, “Oh, I dunno what I need… but you must have some ideas… so just do something about it, would you?”

Similar to the way I have oftentimes spoken to my hairdresser.

And, I’m sorry, but that’s a little lame. You can imagine God regarding that prayer with an arched eyebrow, and sending back this message: “Call me again when you decide to get serious about this.”

Of course God already knows what I need. The question is-do I know? Casting yourself at God’s feet in helpless desperation is all well and good-heaven knows, I’ve done it myself plenty of times-but ultimately you’re likely to get more out of the experience if you can take some action on your end. There’s a wonderful old Italian joke aobut a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint, begging, “Dear saint-please, please, please… give me the grace to win the lottery.” This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue comes to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust, “My son-please, please, please… buy a ticket.”

Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If I want transformation, but can’t even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I’m aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. If you don’t have this, all your pleas and desires are boneless, floppy, inert; they swirl at your feet in a cold fog and never lift. So now I take the time every morning to search myself for specificity on what I am truly asking for. I kneel there in the temple with my face on that cold marble for as long as it takes me to formulate an authentic prayer. If I don’t feel sincere, then I will stay there on the floor until I do. What worked yestereday doesn’t always work today. Prayers can become stale and drone ino the boring and familiar if you let your attention stagnate. In making an effort to stay alert, I am assuming custodial responsibility for the maintenance of my own soul.

Whew! I couldn’t have said it better myself!

October 7, 2007

I went to First Friday in Richmond a few days ago. It’s an art walk with live music, art installations, and tons of people. And on one corner on the street, there was a young man standing on a footstool, with a bullhorn nearby.

He spent the evening spewing evil words at the people walking by, telling them that they are despicable, warmongers, adulterers, and lots of other really flattering words. As I listened, because, yes, I was drawn to him like a magnet to a refrigerator, I found that his words made me really angry and really sad.

Who is this God that this young man described? He is a god (I can’t even bear to capitalize it, because it’s not really God) that despises us, can’t bear to look at us, is even reviled by us. This young man’s god loathes us so much that he can only bear to love us if we jump through a few hoops, and never, ever screw up again.

That’s not the God I know. I know a God that loves us, likes us, adores us, digs us, and even craves being with us. That same God loves us so much that he gave a Son to give us a path.

This is not the same God that the young man spewed. And that made me angry. It made me angry because that young man personifies the kind of Christianity that turns people away. It made me angry because the people I care for, minister to, and love hear his message and believe that NO ONE can love them. Because love isn’t hate. And hate is what that young man was vomiting on the crowd.

And it made me sad. I am so sad for that young man, that he only knows a god who is unable to look upon him, unable to see all of his good parts, unable to truly KNOW him and LOVE him. And without a God that loves us, it’s hard to love ourselves.

I’m grateful to know that God that loves me unconditionally.

October 4, 2007

This is from one of our team members:

I wanted to share some reflections from our latest visit. Despite going there with all of us being tired and worn down, with some of us fighting illness, we forged ahead and visited our club. We were glad we did. Unlike past visits, when most of the time we have just dropped off gifts and haven’t gotten to talk much with the dancers, we were able to this time. It’s because we had a plan!

Three of us visited, brought gifts, and sat at the bar for a soda. This gave us an opportunity to talk with the bartender and a few dancers who walked up. It felt much more relaxed this way. We had a place to hang, and more importantly, a role. We were not standing around with people looking at us and wondering why we were there. It was much more natural. We had good conversations.

The bartender was curious about our group, wondering if we would proselytize or beat them over the head with how “evil” they are because they are dancers. Sadly, it would be natural for a club employee to assume and wonder this. They have had groups that stand outside the club, like a picket line, screaming at them, “You are going to hell.” So crazy! How could anyone believe that approach would be effective?

One woman we met told us about the degree she is working on in history with an emphasis in religion. She learned Hebrew to translate the Bible for herself, and help her understand the origins of religion. Our whole team was made up of seminary graduates, and we were all very impressed. It was neat to see some of the passions these women have and what might be fueling their dancing career–providing them the means and money for other dreams…

We tried to sit where they danced, for a few minutes, then realized this wouldn’t work in this club. Without staring, we talked after about how it was cool to watch them pole dance. A couple ladies were very good and it was fascinating to watch!

For this next month we plan to go near Halloween, using that as a theme & something fun to play with, perhaps going in costumes….