Empty Hand Revolution

Idaho Desert

“We simply can’t afford to keep two chaplains on staff.”

“And the rising inmate population?” Cosmo asked.

“It’s because of the rising inmate population.” Cosmo’s supervisor at Idaho State Correctional Institution pressed her hand against the side of her face in an effort to wipe away the weariness shown there. “I realize its counter intuitive. But with the economy in the crapper and everyone focused on terrorism abroad, there’s barely enough money to pay the bills and keep the prisoners fed.”

Cosmo nodded. He understood this was as close to an apology as his supervisor was going to give. The more he thought about it, the more he realized an apology wasn’t necessary. He had been a great chaplain, but the position did not define him. “Don’t worry about it.”

She raised a brow, puzzled by Cosmo’s statement.

“I’ve worked six good years here, much longer than I had planned. The time has given me direction. I think getting laid off is part of God’s timing. There’s been a venture I’ve wanted to start. Maybe this is the time to start it.”

His supervisor sighed. “Thank you for your understanding and your years of dedicated service.” She smiled. It was a tired expression, but a genuine one.

Cosmo stood, pushing back his chair. “Thank you. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity.”

His supervisor stood as well. She extended her hand across the desk.

Cosmo shook it and then bowed before exiting the small office for the last time.

Outside, he breathed in the country air. His office had been in Kuna, Idaho, a rural settlement south of Boise. Acquiring the job had been a blessing, considering his lack of green card until a year ago. Cosmo strode toward his GMC Sierra in the parking lot.

The supposed six-month process of obtaining the green card had taken six long years. Cosmo had assumed the moment he obtained the card, Sarah and he would cut loose from Idaho and return to Asia.

Now that travel was legal, God held them back. Perhaps it was still too dangerous for Cosmo to return to India. Now he had Sarah to protect. Maybe, Cosmo wondered, God had a lesson for him here in Idaho—a lesson he had yet to learn.

He sat in his truck with the motor running, the transmission in park. He rested his head on the steering wheel. Despite his personal longing to return home to Nagalim, he couldn’t escape the burden he felt for the young men he had met in Idaho’s correctional facilities. Often times, the inmates’ children were already repeating the mistakes of their fathers.

In hospital rooms, courtrooms and prison cells, he’d witnessed their utter aloneness. No parents, no teachers, no chance. From his work the past six years, he knew Canyon County, the neighboring county to the west, contained the highest percentage of at risk youth anywhere in Idaho. The numbers were higher than much of the Western United States.

With its depressed economy, migratory workforce and rampant gangs, the opportunities for kids to go bad abounded. The circumstances were a far cry from growing up in Cosmo’s village. Few of Idaho’s teens were in danger of starving or having their homes burned by government authorities. But Cosmo had loving parents. These kids had no one.

At a gut level, Cosmo connected with their plight. He recognized their anger and lack of trust. He understood their impulse to fight. They reminded him of himself.

For several months his gut had prompted him to do something about it—to open his own dojo, a martial arts gym for kids who had nowhere else to go. His current lack of a job would give him plenty of time. His cashed in pension would give him the money.

Still, Cosmo resisted the idea, aware that a dojo would tie him down. While the thought of living in Idaho for a short respite had been romantic, the seven-plus years Cosmo had lived there felt more like a prison sentence with no foreseeable end.

He shifted the truck into drive and headed for home. If Sarah confirmed his inclination, they’d do it together. They would do it for every individual kid taken off the streets.

Instead of trying to teach them not to fight, he’d show them the difficult path to becoming a true warrior: discipline, strength, courage, humility and surrender. Cosmo would teach them to fight for something beyond themselves.

During the thirty-minute commute from the prison to his home, Cosmo realized these five pillars constituted the lessons his father and Mark had tried to teach him. Discipline, strength, courage, humility and surrender. His whole life, God had hammered the pillars home.

Surrender had been the final pillar of his education. Only now did Cosmo recognize the truth. It had taken years of having his personal plans and ambitions thwarted—The Winning Team, his attempts to marry Sarah, his plans to bring economic reform to rural Asia. He had learned at last to honor God’s plans over his own.

Taken together, the pillars enabled Cosmo to stop grasping and scrapping and taking. From the jungle to the streets to the countryside of Idaho, it had taken Cosmo many miles and many years to learn the lessons every Naga would need to become a true warrior.

Idaho farmland slid past on both sides of the truck. The fields were not all that different from the ones of Cosmo’s youth. The crops were not the same, but the people who grew them shared much in common. Their desires were the same. 

Cosmo worshipped a God who longed to give humans the exact things they strove to take. But only open, empty hands could receive. Cosmo knew the name he would give the dojo, if he and Sarah decided to open it—Empty Hand Combat.