Desert Rat

2011-07-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

I don't understand my life at all. I don't get the big picture, or even the micro one.
But I think I need to become like, in Jesus' words, a child.
And not just any child but a teeny tiny one floating in amniotic fluid.
A baby in the womb doesn't feel jostled because it is in a watery cushion. They don't feel every bump in the road.
I need to be like an unborn child and be content to be in the cocoon of my maker's belly. That way, it doesn't matter if I do not know how things will turn out. Trusting God means letting things unfold and develop as a fetus does unquestioningly.
I don't recognize my life.
It has only been a little over a month that we have known about my husband's cancer, so sudden and devestating. One.
Anaplastic cancer, the very worst! And the man has barely had a headache in the last 37 years. Nothing has prepared me for his new vulnerability, or the monkey wrench in my plans.
I've never done anything medical, and now I have to learn how to give shots in the belly, and clean the inside of trachs.
Maybe my idea of a good time isn't suctioning up snot by the bucketful, but I've been thinking about the Good Samaritan who bound up a stranger's wounds, and not just any stranger, but someone from a group of people he wasn't supposed to even like! This is our template for love.
I am doing my darnest to help my husband live. He deserves it. There is so much courage going on in room 851. Battling fever. Not being able to speak. Not being able to swallow; needing a feeding tube. Pain. Pokes from IVs and shots. Wracking coughs. So much is out of my hands, but I can be foursquare in his corner. 100 % hopeful he will make it. Praying everyday...

2011-07-04T13:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like I am on the Titanic, and all I can do is scurry around trying to obey orders while the ship takes on more and more water and cracks in two.
I suppose this is the exact same storm-tossed sort of circumstance in which Jesus felt comfortable enough to fall asleep, or decided to venture out upon the waves.
Where do all those sunken treasures come from, but shipwrecks. Today's tragedies are tomorrows treasures. It just doesn't feel like it right now because I am going down, down, down to Davy Jone's Locker.

2011-06-22T04:15:00.000-07:00

Best part of yesterday- using the punchingbag in the gym. Pow. Take that. And that. And that!
Such ineffective punches the bag doesn't even move a micro inch.
I had a prizefighting grandpa who was lightweight army champ and boxed his way through Europe; wish I could channel him and he could teach me how to slug.
That same grandpa got mustard gassed in France in WWI and lost all but half of one lung. He could have taught my husband how to cope if Steve has to get surgery for lung cancer.
Brought the water bottle in the apt instead of leaving it in the car. Bam.
Went to one pharmacy window instead of the other a few feet away. Slam.
Put the trach bag next to my purse to take to the gym when I looked like he forgot it. Boom. Said he was going to the office, and I thought he meant the work office, but it was the apt. office Bang.
Went to the driveway in front of the apt. office to pick him up, but he was waiting at another exit . Knock out punch.
And I am down for the count.
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2...wait a minute. It's a brand new day and time to go another round.
She staggers to her feet sleep deprived and wondering what new and exciting flub ups she will find herself unwittingly committing. And reminds herself that efficient would be nice, but factory made is very efficient while hand hewn is flawed and probably better. It's all just a value judgment anyway.
Tough times. Not his fault. Not mine. Just a bad situation and lots of tension putting our nerves on edge. If it wasn't for the cancer, it would be a comedy. Actually we love each other.

2011-06-20T08:00:00.000-07:00

Mostly I tear up what I write after looking at it once or twice. However, my inner voice says: Write. Letters on a pg. is a conduit. Through them flow understanding and compassion. Flow love, warmth, wit, and laughter. Flow truth, insight, and the Oracle of Delphi. (the rest of that notebook pg. is censored- don't worry, it wouldn't mean much to anyone but me.)
New pg. New thoughts. Sort of gory though. It's about amputation beginning at the crown of my head and slicing downwards through my heart cutting me in two. (more censored stuff; lots more)
Okay, this seems mild enough. So mild I labeled it lame and dorky. But on second reading, it seems okay. And more positive than normal:
The breath of live involves in and out. In and out. Life isn't static, is often erratic. And you feel about to loose your moorings, and drift into the abyss. But the abyss isn't nothingness; it is somethingness. Where dreams congeal and gain a heartbeat. Where infants dwell before birthed live and squalling. Where fantasy and reality collide.

2007-09-30T02:24:00.000-07:00

I had a thought provoking 30 second conversation with a friend when I mentioned in passing, "What do you think about all the millennium stuff?"
I don't know what I expected they would say, but I got a slight shock when they responded that it sounded like a fairytale. That was the extent of the conversation, so I don't know if they thought every scenario was too fanciful, or just a particular view like post millenialism was too much to swallow.
Actually in America people seem to fall into 2 camps; eschatology preoccupies their brain, or they blow off the idea. But I didn't think an Asian would be so left- brained and concrete.
I guess with all the problems it does seem like there will never be a "happily ever after"for planet earth.
And yet, once upon a time there was no universe, and now there is. So why can't the same hand that made everything fix it up, correcting every mistake so that things are the way they are supposed to be. Our God is up to the task.
But that does not let us off the hook. If we get caught up in the idea only God can make a difference, then we will walk by a lot of problems that are right within our sphere of influence instead of reaching out a hand like the good Samaritan. Our good intentions might flop, but we are obligated to try.

2007-09-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

Woody Allen said something like, “I don’t mind death it’s dieing I’m afraid of.” Dieing does sound scary. No wonder the rapture theory sounds so appealing; you can skip the dieing part.
Sometimes my brushes with death were frightening; other times it happened too fast to be scared. Once I was electrocuted when a live current went through a gate and I grabbled onto the gate handle; if no one rescued me, it would have been a terrible way to go. When I was in intensive care after my first baby was born; I suppose I could have died but it felt a lot better than being electrocuted. A robber tried to steal something belonging to my husband, and I chased him through the desert by myself on foot; I didn’t stop to think it might be dangerous, but later learned he shot a police officer through the kneecap. In Jakarta, our car was surrounded and rocked from side to side during a huge riot; people were dying around us. Then in Yellowstone, a mother grizzly reared up on her hind legs when my daughter and I accidentally came upon her with a cub- we did everything wrong; screamed and ran. Worst of all was when my kids all got cerebral malaria, the variety of malaria that is 100% fatal without treatment. The anopheles mosquito bit my kids while we camping on a remote beach; it skipped over me, but I could have lost all of my children at once because they were sick for a whole month before the doctors figured out what was the matter with them…
We can’t control how we end up dieing, only how we live. I guess that’s why the bible doesn’t say much about death; it is not our concern for the moment. I watched the 300, and when the Spartans wanted to curse someone they said, “May you live forever.” Christians consider death as an enemy, and yet Christians should have at least the same fearlessness about death as the Spartans- not because we want glory on the battlefield, but because Jesus is waiting for us on the other side.

2007-09-07T00:50:00.000-07:00

I am doing research on death for my theology paper,and I think that I am sort of morbid for choosing that topic. From the time I had to bury my pet turtle at age five, I was sort of curious about death and wondered about it. Mostly I am a bit scared of death even though I was a hospice worker and know that sometimes death is God's cure for what someone is going through.

Having said all that, I am not convinced we should dwell on death too much. Maybe it is good to have some pat answers about death so we can put the topic on a shelf and just know God is taking care of us now and always. I think it is a dangerous topic because it nurishes suicidal tendencies that maybe should be starved out.

And I also know people who are involved in spiritualism which I think is like drawing blood, then jumping into a shark tank. They are out of their league, and I don't think we are meant to peer into "the other side". I think people are like fish. Saltwater fish can't live in fresh water, and fresh water fish can't live in saltwater. The dead can't be here and the living can't be there, and we need to be content with that arrangement.

2007-08-30T02:22:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm not a blogger by nature because first of all nobody is out there reading what I write; except for my teacher who has to when it is course related.

I guess I am not thick skinned enough to let everything bounce off me... I doubt there will be an American Independence Day worship service in the US where a Malaysian will have to listen to a lot of anti Malaysian stuff- not because we are tactful, but because we don't have a common history.

So I feel a bit ambushed when I have to listen to it at STM. Americans have never had a war against Malaysia, or been her colonial master. I guess Al Gore insulted Malaysia several years ago; we aren't as polite as Asians in general. So I apologize for that. But I disagree the message he was trying to convey was wrong. Unfair situations in the US have been changed by people caring enough to conduct a civil rights movement at great personal danger. But you have to think real freedom and equality is worth it.

As I see it, what is wrong with the Iraq war is the same thing wrong with the status quo in Malaysia. Not enough Americans are bearing the brunt of the war. If it was painful enough, the war would stop pronto. When things hurt enough for enough people, then there is incentive to make changes. But if you can coast along bearing a bit of pain, the situation is perpetuated.

My country isn't perfect; but neither is anybody's. So, why not just say horay, happy birthday Malaysia without criticizing my country from the pulpit.

2007-08-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

Blog, blog, oh blog...

It's good to keep in mind both the private reality spoken about by Bultman and the public reality talked about by Moltmann since they both influence each other. There can't be a public reality unless there is a collection of private realities... and what the public thinks impacts what the individual is exposed to, so they are very entwined.
Of course, what individuals and the public accept can be very off base; case in point is the rapture theory. One person postulates something, and another and another believes it until the theory snowballs.
Our warped perception shouldn't be taken as the Truth, and to do that causes us personal pain. For instance if someone tells you something negative like you are stupid, it is their perception. If you believe them, their perception becomes your perception. Despite the fact you might be Einstein. Additionally, circumstances can change- you might be uneducated, but have the potential to develop into a great thinker if that is trait is nourished, which it won't be if you don't think you have what it takes and nobody else does either.
That's why it's important not to get too existential about things. Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life for a reason; people are always equating what they think wih what is the ultimate truth. And we must quest after His truth, or we will always be a little or a lot off target.

2007-08-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

I think about ants as having a collective soul, as opposed to individual souls. Maybe they don't have any soul at all, but I think they do. It distressed me to swallow a bunch of ants that had crawled into my coffee cup a few nights ago. I thought the milk had gotten scum, but really there must have been a bunch of those "little guys" who drown in there when they decided to dive into my coffee. Anyway, do I feel guilt; that western thing? Yes. I do not go out of my way to kill creatures, but you have to take that sort of thing in stride literally, or you couldn't take a step.
At the time, I considered the ants as individualized pieces of a whole, and unless the entire colony is wiped out along with the queen, I don't think of it as a true death. So their soul is made up of thousands of components, thousands of eyes and antenea and legs to form one consciousness. This sure looks like the case if you have ever seen an ant colony on the move, carrying their eggs to a new location. It is one machine.
I don't see it the same way for a duck or a mouse. They live in communities, but have personalities of their own. Which is why I would rather swallow ants by mistake than a mouse. Of course, many people think of the animal kingdom as souless droids altogether.
People are not ants. Collectivity is good until it stamps out individuality, freedom of thought and action, and creativity. Conformity is okay to a point, but after that people suffer. This can led tyrany of the majority. Unless there is great tolerance for a wide variation of ideas and behavior, I am wary of an extreem collective approach. What I see of a collective approach in churches is not really that happy- new ideas are not encouraged and people are stifled. But the selfishness of individualism is irksome too. It is a trick to get it right.

2007-08-06T20:03:00.000-07:00

I think the real value of having Veronica come was not so much in what she said, but that she was invited to our class to say it. She was important for Rajan’s sake alone; he really perked up and became engaged talking about issues with her after class. It’s important to see everyone worthy of respect on campus, because there doesn’t seem to be much respect in the community at large. And if that worthy person is a woman, so much the better because there needs to be more Tamil women around STM; about the only ones seen around campus are maids. I always say hi to them, but it ends there with the language barrier. Sometimes I give them old clothes or little odds and ends because I doubt they earn much. My maid in KL is an Indian; she is about my age. Her life has been pretty rough. For one thing, she can’t read or write. She can’t even recognize her name in print- which is such a shame because she is really smart with so much practical know how.
It’s funny how we chose to sit in class; it’s pretty much along ethnic lines. I don’t sit with the girls for instance, even though I really like every girl in that class. Leeyng is so talented, funny and smart. Pheung is so good- quiet and sweet the way I wish I was… Sharon is so cultured and intellectual. Yet I sit with Jeremy, Sharon sits with Rajan and Oliver, and Pheung sits with Leeyng. I am trying to remember who I sat with in the US… no particular pattern comes to mind; I think I just slunk in and sat in the back somewherer, never with my best friend at SMU- the father of one of my students, who is black. For lunch, the black girls went to one restaurant, while the white girls went to another. The white guys went off by themselves and so did the black guys. It is strange to me that it shook out like that because I didn’t think the color barrier was a big deal in Houston; my best friend from my old neighborhood friend was from Jamaica. But I guess in class we acted on it unconsciously.

2007-08-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

I appreciated the last lecture a lot because I never thought of the Holy Spirit as the guardian of Tradition. So in a sense, He shores up the banks of the river through which Christianity flows. This is such an important role; now more than ever when the temptation is so great to go off on a tangent- which we might justify under the influence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit... However, seeing the Holy Spirit in this role as defender of Tradition makes this an impossibly; deviance that defies Tradition could not be the leading of the Holy Spirit! Of course, this does not mean the Holy Spirit is interested in conformaty to the "t's" of tradition. Or else nothing could ever be contextualized and the gospel could not speak to our age and varing situations. As far as "t" is concerned, the Holy Spirit is on the move, like blood through the smallest veins to reach people where they are at so the body of Christ doesn't develop gangrene due to lack of contextualization.

2007-07-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

It's really a good idea to have a check list to go through as a "fail safe" mechanism when determining matters of faith- Church Fathers, Councils, Apostles, and Scripture. When we preempt those 4 criteria and do our own thing, we get into all kinds of messes. I think that check list would have stopped Mormonism and Islam for one thing. For me, Mormonism is like Taoism, Hinduism or Buddhism is here; it calls to me only because my mother's side of the family is Mormon/ has a LDS mindset. I have a soft spot for Mormon people, but even as a teenager couldn't believe in the Book of Mormon; now I know why. It would never make it past one of the checkpoints and is no way Christian. I read yesterday that there are now 135 million Pentecostals and Charismatics in Asia out of a total 313 million Christians, meanwhile there are only about 7 million (I can't really remember this exact total)Mormons outside the US.
I only hope all those Pentecostals and Charismatics are using some sort of a check list to keep their faith Christian. It's easy to see if they don't, with so many of them out there, each thinking the Holy Spirit is talking to them, what we are going to wind up with is a whole lot of churches that are sort of Christian, but aren't at all (like the Mormon Church).

2007-07-17T01:11:00.000-07:00

I was talking with someone from class who said they couldn't support certain stances we had discussed. But I don't think the important thing is agreeing. Sometimes difficult ideas need to peculate in our brains until they make sense. That means we have to sit with uncomfortable ideas awhile before we decide they are incorrect or correct. For me it is important in the long run to say that an idea logically makes sense; that is the westerner in me. I just don't think that seeing the logic is instantaneous. Of course, if the guy who said something is a bozo, I would probably not bother to process what they say. But if the person who said something disturbing is someone you respect, then you owe it to yourself to explore what they think until you come to terms with it one way or another. So maybe I start with an Asian approach as a screening method, but ultimately end up with a western one.

Sometimes it is easy for me to forget the cultural divide because in Malaysia there are a number of common reference points. Maybe Asian Americans identify for good or ill with American culture, but Malaysians are "truely Asian". Every now and then I am jolted back into reality. Like what I think about marriage is so different. I was talking to Alex from Burma last year, and he was saying his mom was picking out a wife for him. I was shocked, but tried not to act like it. For me love is important, and I hate to think who my mom would have picked out for me. Charles in our class also went to a matchmaker. And I have friends in KL who had arranged marriages that seem really happy. But then I have a friend from Burma so unhappily wed- really. And the funny thing is, she says in all seriousness that if they had not gone to all the trouble to go to an astrologer and a matchmaker, just think how bad her marriage would be! I kept thinking, lady they are the ones who messed you up sticking you with your impossible husband.

2007-07-08T00:17:00.000-07:00

I looked up Moravians, and they are Protestant with, "...an emphasis on Ancient unity as well as Renewed unity." This is their motto: "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; and in all things, love." This fits into the class discussion on Tradition (fundamental basics) vs traditionns (whatis not crucial to observe) So they are not Orthodox, but their hearts are in the right place.

Bultman makes me sad; I think he is wrong about creeds; he is honoring the outer form of a creed but not the reality it represents. He doesn't believe them, only believes them because he needs hope. That is a very half hearted approach to faith. He might as well leave offerings at all sorts of pagan statues, if he needs hope so much. That's a shotgun approach to faith, that one of those pellets might hit home.

2007-07-01T03:03:00.000-07:00

I never realized the definition of "church" would so contentious.
Webster's Dictionary has several definitions: 1) a building set apart or consecrated for worship 2) religius service or public worship among Christians 3) all Christians considered as a single body 4) the ecclesiastical government of a particular religious, or its power as opposed to secular government 5) the profession of the clergy 6) a group of worshipers; congregation

Then of course there are the Protestant , Catholic and the Orthodox definitions. The Catholics and Orthodox definitely make the rest of us look bad because they have given the issue so much thought and we look shallow in comparison.

Jesus said that whenever 2 or 3 are gathered in his name, he will be in their midst. So this is my most basic conception of "church"- people coming together in the name of Jesus, which envokes his presence. I'm not really sure why we have to make things more complicated than that.

The image of the church being like a container of cookies that have gotten spilled onto the floor, then dusted off and put back into the container- It is something I will remember; like Forest Gump saying that life is like a box of chocolates.

2007-06-27T03:36:00.000-07:00

I think the Roman Catholics and the Protestants are both right in their positions on church unity. It's an issue we have to have double vision on. On one hand, unity isn't unity unless it is a fact; otherwise we are deluding ourselves and in denal. I think the Catholics work harder to achieve it since they think it must be tangible to be actual. But Protestants are right in thinking that we are unified in the Spirit and through Christ.
But aren't we supposed to worship in Spirit and Truth! Not one at the expense of the other. Right now, I think there is too much at stake- autonomy that the head honchos of churches fear they will lose if there is unification. But all this spliting has to stop somewhere doesn't it? And like King Solomon deduced, isn't the real caring Christian, like the real mom in the story, the one who is willing to keep the church intact, rather than divide it?

2007-05-04T02:56:00.000-07:00

I think I finally get the analogy of the Holy Spirit in the movie (what was it's title?)... The Holy Spirit wasn't any particular brother, but was the bond of love existing between them. Each brother in his own way risked everything for the other one. Even if they were momentarily angry with the other guy, when the chips were down, they still really cared.

Maybe because I have western eyes/outlook, I didn't think it was so great that the youngest brother had all the emphasis- the whole family backed him and protected him, and everyone was suck in a particular role. Of course, that was a survival technique that probably went with the territory of having limited resources. I have never been in such a difficult situation, where only one person could possibly succeed, so they had to be backed at the expense of the rest of the family. It's a very communal way to view success. So I was very distracted by the unjustice...just like, in the old days, if only one child could get educated, it probably would be the boy- even if the girl was really smart.

I think I have gotten past that to see that the Holy Spirit was the glue that held them together, and each brother gave meaning to the other.

2007-04-29T07:24:00.000-07:00

If I ever get through school, to the point where I could get ordained, I wouldn't have any problem with question of perfection because I do believe it is not only possible, but nearly always the case with everybody. Why? Because everyone is perfectly themselves.
And what we think is perfect probably isn't anyway. For instance, hanging out with the brilliant, the beautiful and rich only makes you feel dumb, homely and poor by comparison- what is so perfect about that? On the other hand, after a steady dose of underachievers and misfits, it might be refreshing to be with someone that stretches you and makes you believe it is possible to do more and be more. I have a friend who is an oil millionaire who fantasizes abut being homeless, and wants to try it for awhile just to prove to himself he could do it. Weird huh?
So what seems good can be bad, and what seems bad can be good at any given point in time by any particular person.
Having said that, I think we are getting "perfecter" all the time. Sometimes by bouncing around from one extreem position to another just for the soul to gain perspective. This explains the Convergence Movement I think. The minute we think we have arrived the pendulum begins to swing the other way, but anywhere along the path is perfect.

2007-04-20T03:42:00.000-07:00

To think, or not to think, that is the question.
It seems like a real divide; the biblical interpretation that comes out in sermons is so intellectual and dry. I wish there were more “touchy- feely” sermons. But then again, in the women’s bible study that I participate in, the ladies who know a lot about the bible are anti intellectual as if it is wrong to study the bible and wrong to study theology. They think you shouldn’t read bible commentaries for instance, but just read the words of the bible without any interpretive aids.
There is a misperception that bible study/theological study equals bible bashing, bible hating. I suggested that actually people study the bible and what the church has discovered and maintained throughout the centuries because they love the bible and love God.
I’m not sure why people are anti intellectual in Malaysia. But in America we have an anti intellectual heritage because once we were a country with a huge frontier. Our pioneers were very religious, often migrating to the US for religious reasons. But there were no universities around and therefore few educated pastors. Churches didn’t equate learning with religion.
When I do bible study, or any study, I do read what the books have to say, but then I take a walk or something and see if the Holy Spirit will help me understand- he speaks my language, or at least I think he does, so I understand him better than a textbook. But I wouldn’t throw away my textbooks.

2007-04-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

By virtue of being alive, we are chosen because God made us when he didn’t have to. I am trying to understand what chosen is all about; maybe not so much a one time event, but a series of events. It seems like we choose some things, and other things choose us. We are chosen to be beings with free will, so everyday we are choosing all sorts of things- like our attitudes and reactions. And today, since I just ate a big candy bar and had 2 pieces of pizza, I think I am choosing to be fat. Then there are the things big or small that we don’t seek out, but happen anyway- we can be chosen to be the one who rescues someone from a burning building, because we are the one walking down a particular street at a particular time, or the one chosen to smile at someone because they smiled at us (same street, different time/same time, different street). In the scheme of things, maybe the smile was the most critical assignment.
I don’t know how much is under our control, how much our prayers or wishes affect things. If things are going my way, the thought I had input isn’t so bad. But if things aren’t working out, who wants to think that you have chosen the wrong path with every step? Hopefully God will always trump our poor decisions with better ones when we need him to.

2007-04-04T02:38:00.000-07:00

We won't have class Friday, so I'll write about the movie, the Island. It reminds me of the story of Frankenstien.
The sad truth is that everyday science marches closer to making sciencefiction reality. We can't even deal with the knowledge level we already have; morality doesn't keep pace. We are playing with dynamite and think we are gods while we don't even think others are human.
I don't know what it is about science-people look up to it as so pure, just a quest for knowledge. And yet no one can beat the medical experiments of the Nazis for premeditatied cruelety. Then there were the tropical disease experiments of the Japanese and the sysphillis experiments conducted on prison inmates by my government.
They say serial killers get started by inflicting pain or death on animals, then they graduate to peope. Maybe by reversing the order we can reform society by revolutionizing how we treat the animals. Maybe if we work for animal rights, we will create human beings with a consciousness of respect who learn to see all other humans as worthy to have access to all the good things in life. All along, people do the sorts of bad things to animals that the movie the Island depicts happening to clones. And besides PETA, no one seems to care.

2007-03-30T07:34:00.000-07:00

We stereotype like crazy when it comes to who or what is spiritual.

Once my mom left a particular church because the minister said he smoked a cigar on vacation. She just couldn't believe anyone who smoked could have anything to say about God- it's part of the ex Mormon in her I guess. I hate cigar smoke, but I don't really care if a minister smokes, or see it as any sort of gauge of spirituality. I'm sure that minister wouldn't have mentioned the cigar if he knew ahead of time that he would lose a member of his congregation because of it. There is an element of being a role model when you are a member of the clergy, but how can you predict just what will hit someone the wrong way?

I am sort of nervous about preaching at our church which is very small and friendly, except for one guy who sits in the front row who is soooooo formal. I know one of his employees really well, and she says he is always calling her in about her clothes- for instance, she wore a black dress and he told her black was only for evening wear. She also got in trouble for wearing brown. So now I'm afraid I'll get raked over the coals for breaking some sort of fashion taboo out of ignorance because we really don't have a lot of fussy rules in the Southwestern. (Back East, my daughter says people won't wear white until after Easter and before Labor Day.)Actually, the big truth is, I'm afraid he is very old school and probably objects to a woman in the pulpit.

It's really hard to be yourself- I love the way Jesus did his own thing and let the chips fall where they may. I don't want to be tip toeing around somebody else's expectations but do it all the time.

I hardly ever want to mention I'm a vegetarian because I'm afraid people won't want to invite me to dinner; it feels like a giant character flaw. And I never want to tell my neighborhood friends that I am studying for the ministry. I'm afraid they will think I'm a no fun sort of geek and will harangue them until they convert... Of course the truth is I AM actually boring and, I would love to talk to them about Jesus but nearly always bite my tongue. Mostly, I want to blend in, but it is really hard for me to do that in Malaysia.

2007-03-23T19:55:00.000-07:00

One reason I don’t get excited about living on campus is my home in KL is so breathtaking. The actual house is sort of old, but the yard is stunning. And usually I do my schoolwork sitting outside at a picnic table. Being outside even makes what would otherwise seem like drudgey, fun.

I looked all over town for a place my dogs could have a blast running around in, and was resigned to living with at a house with only a small patch of grass because the realtor wasn’t coming up with much else. Then one day, while looking at another house, I saw the house of my dreams. It was on a mountainside with a huge yard and nature everywhere you look. The trouble was, the house wasn’t for rent so I didn’t think too much about it- just tucked the thought away that given a choice, that is where I would live.

Looking back, I forget what a miracle it is that the very next week, that particular house went on the market, and we could rent it for a price within our allowance, beating out other potential renters who had a bigger budget.

Anyway, this is an email I sent my friends yesterday:

This afternoon I discovered wild orchids in one of our trees. The flowers are white on delicate branches. So I cut a few of the stalks and put the flowers in a vase. Then after that, I just walked around our big yard to see whatever else I have overlooked all this time. Oh my gosh, it is such a tropically beautiful yard. One weird creeper goes all the way up a tree trunk. But the heart shaped leaves, about the size of my palm, just look like they are glued flat to the trunk; they're really strange.

Of course we have mini waterfalls dripping down the rock cliffs (unless it rains hard, and then they're big), and itsy-bitsy springs the dogs like to drink from. I think you'd have to be a millionaire to have a yard like this anywhere in the US.

Once one of my gardeners raked up a brown hand blown glass bead that has a hand drilled hole through it. I wear it around my neck sometimes on a leather strap and think about who could have made it, or traded for it, and how wild and exotic this very spot must have been long ago.

It's still sort of wild.

When Steve walked up the hill behind our house a bit ago, the dogs chased jungle pigs who were playing in the mud. And our maintenance man tells me that it's a good thing my koi hides since civet cats that live in our jungle like to fish for them.

Eagles screech overhead every now and then too.

If it weren't for the sand fleas and the leeches, I would just live in our yard.
Cindy (End of email)

I really love nature. How could heaven be better; God doesn’t have to go to the trouble of making another place, this is good enough for me.

2007-03-10T17:06:00.000-08:00

I'm glad school is out for awhile because I want to rest and just deal with the thoughts in my head before I take on any more. What I'm trying to do this week is talk to the Holy Spirit. I never did before; I talked to Jesus or the Father. Maybe the Holy Spirit was what talked back in whatever way the Spirit spoke, but I didn't think he was a real conversation partner.

I actually have an Orthodox prayerbook for Holy Communion and funeral services etc... and I have read some of it. Nothing much jumped out at me about the H. Spirit, but I will keep at it because it might take a while for something to jive. Sort of like, I had to do a walking meditation through a maze for a class once. I thought it sounded unhelpful. I didn't want to do it since it was a winter night and dark and cold. But an assignment was an assignment, so I did it, and I actually still remember some of the insights I recieved while walking in the maze, so it wasn't as pointless as it sounded.

It's only been a couple of days since Friday, and I hope the H. S. will reveal who he is to me... if he is a person or not. But so far when I pray, this is what I've seen: a beating heart, a pipeline and gravity. Gravity- he holds the souls together. Pipeline- he sends us what we need. Heart- you can live braindead, but not without a heart.

Right now, I have decided not to change my thinking about the H. S. unless the H. S. tells me to. Because, although I am (hopefully) flexible, there is a point at which you just say your religion is up for grabs to whoever is most convincing if you are too willing to change your mind. I don't think anyone wants me to change my mind; I don't feel that kind of pressure; I put that on myself because I don't want to be the lone oddball- I want to think what everybody else does. But only if I can with integrity.

2007-02-27T00:29:00.000-08:00

My favorite part about class on Monday was hearing about the angel that appeared to Sherman when he was a child. In a movie, there would be dramatic music, special lighting or some sort of fanfare to signal it was a mystical moment. Real moments don't have the theatrics so I think maybe we miss it sometimes when the supernatural intersects our lives. The instance might be so fleeting, so unexpected and here, then gone, that we put the whole thing out of our minds and it is as if it never happened.

I haven't seen an angel that I am aware of, and yet I bet one has shown himself and I didn't catch it. I do think I have heard them whisper however; call it intuition or whatever, but sometimes I think they speak in almost words- more like ideas and images. Once I had the urge to go to the mailbox, even though it was the wrong time of day and the mailbox was a walk down the street. When I got there, a girl was in a tree trying to catch her birds. I got a ladder and helped her. And her mom gave those birds and the birdcage to me (I had been wanting some birds!) because she thought her daughter wasn't responsible enough to care for them. After that, the girl came to our house to play with her birds.

Sometimes I wonder where particular thoughts come from, and I don't think it's from an angel. But something trying to trip me up. A few years ago, I would have bought the angel part, but not the other voices- the ones that slyly try to convince me that something less than positive is really okay, or that it is only normal to hold a grudge under the circumstances... But I think it is important to acknowledge the good and the bad because the first step in sidestepping evil is to notice it coming at you. A think it becomes a zen sort of thing, like the way Keanu Reeves dodges bullets in Matrix, which is entirely different from focusing on the darkside so much, that the light has a hard time getting your attention.

2007-02-10T23:20:00.000-08:00

The fact that Lutherans and Roman Catholics came to an agreement over the issue of grace is a work of grace in itself. I mean, the Christian community has been divided and subdivided over the centuries and for everything gained, something is lost... I wish the schisms had never happened and we could be one people following Jesus and not letting the details get in the way. Of course people have taken their positions very seriously, have drawn lines in the sand and said if you cross this line, you are no longer one of us. But I wonder with a God's eye view of the things we get so worked up over, if the differences are worth arguing about.

I say this as a very argumentative person. I definitely feel guilty of pursuing points when, who cares really and I end up just making the other person mad. Of course then other times I let things slide, when I wish I would have spoken up- it's so hard to get it right. Sort of like Job's buddies that hurt more than they helped. It's hard to know how to approach another person, if you should approach another person, and then what to say or do.

I am glad there is a Methodist predilection towards prevenient grace. I can get on board the idea of a trail blazing sort of grace that goes before us. It makes a lot of sense, since we are probably too goofy to be counted on to seek Christ entirely on our own. And it does take the heat off so to speak, to think that grace is at work and that if you muff it with someone and they don't get the beauty of the Christian message the way you are portraying it, that somehow, grace will put the situation right- the right person with the right message will appear at the right time to help.
After all, we have the mental image of devils laying in wait for us; wouldn't it make sense that an omnipotent God would take our vulnerability and lostness into to account. I surely think so.

Back to the reconciliation of Lutherans and Roman Catholics. I've been thinking that because we don't generally condone a wide range of beliefs in one denomination, that doesn't mean they are not there. The ordinary man in the pew might not be aware of the actual denominational differences, but if they get too uncomfortable in one church, they might hop the denominational fence or drop out all together. Which is why, I wish we could adopt a more Asian stance and just say we follow Jesus, and not get too attached to details that are subject to interpretation and in 1,000 years perhaps a particular church might not have the same take on the situation that it does today.

2007-02-01T23:55:00.000-08:00

At first I thought Pelagius held a more humane view of humanity than Augustine did, even though he was a heretic... after all, he said people were not inherently sinful but good by nature. I thought I would prefer a philosophy that took such a positive stance. Also, people are influenced by self-fulfilling prophecies. If nobody believes you are capable, then it's hard to rise above the predictions.
But after the discussion and thinking about it, that line of reasons places sole responsibility for our mistakes on us, no excuses and there is no real grace. In the end, I see it is gentler to think there are mitigating circumstances that result in us getting off the straight and narrow. If perfection were possible, then we should take ourselves and others to task for every little mistake and foible. After a single day of messing up, it would be hard to keep up our morale since by rights we should have preformed in a better, wiser, smarter, kinder etc. manner. Eventually we would quit trying what we were not naturally gifted at since out of our comfort zones we would be bound to make mistakes. These mistakes would snowball in magnitude because as R. Neibuhr observed, when we don't live up to our own lofty expectations, it results in sin.
I guess, I appreciate it when the reality of a difficult situation is acknowledged, but another person remains optimistic and encouraging:
Sometimes I get annoyed when people make a blanket statement like Greek or whatever, shouldn't be so hard for me... that I have an edge. Saying this makes me feel stupider since they are not acknowledging my reality. If I am struggling, spending untold hours on something that everyone else thinks ought to be a piece of cake for me, then what choice do I have other than think I am brain dead or defective? If something is hard and I find it hard, then it's par for the course, but if it is supposed to be easy and it isn't, the logical conclusion is something is wrong with me.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want people saying, "Poor Cindy, she'll never, ever make it." I might work hard to prove them wrong, but their lack of confidence in me would hurt too.
This is all my long way of saying, I'm glad Augustine comes out saying the scales are tilted in favor of us botching life, so relax and depend on Grace; yet a pinch of Pelagius' attitude that we can and should suceed, might not hurt. Hummmmm, maybe grades would be an appropriate illustration. I always strive for an "A" in every subject- maybe I will get one, or maybe I won't, the thing is, if I don't try for the loftiest goal, I might not even pass a course. An Augustine-like voice might say, relax, STM is so hard, you won't get all A's- that would take the pressure off, but the danger is you could relax too much. Then a Pelagius sort might say, better get all A's or else, which would be unrealistic and stressful.

2007-01-27T16:16:00.000-08:00

The idea of imago Dei gives me hope.
I have a table back in America that means a lot to me... we got a verbal agreement on the price for it from the shopkeeper who was in the air on a flight to Paris. Then back at the store, which was all locked up because the owner was moving, the guy with the key to let us in wanted a percentage of the deal, which we thought was nuts because we already paid for the table. Anyway we had to haggle again with this middleman.
Once we got in the door, the really hard part began. My son and his girlfriend, and my husband and I, all had to somehow get this table that was a solid 6" thick and super heavy out to the car, and get it strapped upside down onto the roof. If you saw this table, you would have thought it was too heavy to be supported by the roof of the car. Anyway, we eventually did the impossible and got it up there, and drove all the way through the nutty downtown Houston traffic to the suburbs without the table falling off, the roof to caving in, or having the car tilt over and crash. Next we got it off the roof, and into the house.
Well, now that table has been moved again, this time by professionals, but over time in the new location, it's gotten really, really warped. Where it's been joined and used to be flush now looks like an earthquake slip fault line; one side is higher than the other. A furniture doctor got called in, and he said wood has a memory and wants to go back to the way it was before to its old shape, and he doubted there was any way to stop it from happening .
I love the table even if it's warped because looking at it takes me back to the fun of acquiring it and the fun we've had sitting around it with others. I don't want to replace it even though there are other tables out there. And maybe God who made us, has nostalgia because he been with us through thick and thin, even though we might look like a Picasso portrait of ourselves instead of our intended appearance.
Hopefully like my wooden table, we might have an inner longing to go back to our original shape and are moving in that direction somehow by unseen forces. But instead of looking warped and out of whack like the wood on my table, our original shape is a beautiful one, the image and likeness of God.

2007-01-21T01:11:00.000-08:00

Crash, another one bites the dust... Once again one of my beliefs has been challenged at seminary, and consequently I'm still trying to get my bearings. I've felt disoriented ever since class when we were having a discussion on the origin of the soul. I didn't realize that I was operating with an obsolete mental framework, and changing it would be such hard work.
Sherman was saying that most contemporary theologians believe that we inherit our soul from our parents the same way we aquire our bodies; it's a package deal because there's a basic unity to man. You wouldn't think that simple statement would shake me so, but I am having a hard time coming to terms with that. Somewhere along the way, I got the notion souls were created and waited about in heaven for a chance to come to the earth. It isn't in the Bible anywhere, but I thought God had a conference with us before we were born and it was a joint decision who we were born to and under what circumstances we would grow up. I envisioned it sort of like Mission Impossible; we would get a little run down of the situation and you decide to take it or keep waiting for something else to come along.
It just seemed like a more fair system to think that a baby born into a miserable environment might have once said okay to such a bum deal, that they knew the challenges but thought they could handle it, and God did too. Now with that whole little senerio out the window; life doesn't seem so friendly. You just get what you get at birth and have to deal with it, no advance decisions involved, only choices beginning here and now.
This really is a paradigm shift for me, but the chance to examin our beliefs is what seminary is supposed to be about...

2006-09-27T06:40:00.000-07:00

I saw a UFO once. Really.
My son was attending a basketball camp on a college campus and I was driving to pick him up at about 8:30 P.M. The last thing on my mind was that I would look out my windshield and see a huge glowing triangle hovering over downtown Tucson. It must have been many city blocks long, and it was stationary in the air like it was just parked there.
I made a split second decision to continue to drive straight under it whether that was the smart thing to do or not because I had to go pick up (maybe rescue) my son... Anyway, poof, the triangle disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
At the university, I asked everyone in the gym if they saw the UFO. Nobody had. I could tell they didn't believe my story, because no one even walked outside to look into the sky and see if anything weird was out there.
And when I got to my parents house, I told them all about it, and I could tell my dad was jealous that he hadn't seen it to, so he hardly wanted to talk about it.
The next day, the headline on the front page of the Tucson Daily Star was about the UFO, thousands of people saw it, and in the article it said the UFO was probably exhaust from the test missiles the navy was launching from the coast of California out over the Pacific. Impossible. California is 10 hours away down the highway, and the lines of the triangle were so crisp.
I still have no idea what I saw that night, but it wasn't a vapor trail. And it wasn't an air force Stealth either; those things are freaky to see flying around, but the triangle was bigger, and really really bright. Plus Stealths can slowly maneuver around the air, but they don't just come out of nowhere and vanish out of sight again.
After this experience, I feel empathy for anyone who saw the Ressurected Lord. You can see the most incredible sight of your life and people either don't want to listen to you, don't care, don't believe you, or come up with lame explainations for what you saw. I think they did an awesome job of conveying the miraculous sight of Jesus risen from the dead because even today we catch their excitment in the gospels. Nobody convinced anybody that they were just imagining the whole thing, or we wouldn't have a church today. People wouldn't live and die for a mirage; they knew what they knew- Jesus rose from the dead just like he said he would.

2006-09-20T04:16:00.000-07:00

The movie was really inspired and inspiring.
I don't go for the ransom theory in a big way but after seeing the movie, it makes much more sense. It portrayed a lot of nobility and courage.
But, I wanted to shake the Lion and say don't bargain with the witch; sort of the way a nation declares it won't deal with terrorists. I don't see why good guys have to satisfy bad guys as long as the good guys have the upper hand;why should Jesus be a bargaining chip in a high stakes game with Satan? That doesn't compute to me. God could just refuse to play. God makes the rules. And if the devil doesn't like it, too bad. He is lucky to exist.

I was glad, especially for Edward's sake that the lion resurrected. Because even though he was forgiven, I doubt he would have forgiven himself if the lion just died and stayed dead. And the poor lion, even though all's well that ends well, ouch- he still went through the ugly death even if he eventually got resurrected. I think the same end could have been achieved without giving the witch her kicks.

2006-09-13T08:38:00.000-07:00

I wish there was some way you could look into our hearts and heads to see a "before" and "after" and measure all the growth we have made since joining your class. We are on track and learning a lot about theology, but as assessment devices, quizzes wouldn't necessarily show that. And they would suck the life out of the subject.

I can't wait to take my theology books on the plane with me and read them for fun during the break- why, because our class is interesting. And I want to learn. My theology teacher at SMU was very encouraging to me and I got an A- in the class, but I didn't enjoy the class with the midterm, final and preceptorials, and certainly wasn't ever was motivated to read theology until now.

I wish every agnostic I know could sit in on the class too because then they could see Christians aren't afraid of ideas, that we look at all sorts of opinions and debates. Most agnostics I know think Christians are too narrow minded to allow real discussions on controversial topics. I think I am definitely the oldest person in the class, but I probably need discussion the most because I am still hammering out the details of what I believe.

When my oldest child was a senior in high school and headed for college, I panicked that I didn't teach her enough about God, so in the mornings before breakfast we would read the bible together. It was very unpopular with my kids who would rather sleep in... so I think I understand about feeling so responsible for what the class gets or doesn't get. In the end, more than what you say, or what we read,what will make a lasting impression is how much you care about the subject and try to find ways to reach us, and how hard you work to make it clear. I think we will catch that spirit, and eventually with time we will understand the hard stuff because we want to.

2006-09-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

The wierdest things turn out true.
I remember all sorts of things other kids would tell me growing up, about the birds and the bees, etc., etc. and I always thought they were making it all up because it wasn't believable to my 8 or 9 year old mind. That's a theological lesson for me, a reminder that just because I don't think something make much sense, doesn't mean it is wrong or inaccurate. Stop and think about all the things that shouldn't happen that happen-Who would have put money on the Crocodile Hunter being stung by a sting ray and dieing, 1 1/2 weeks ago?
We have such finite vision. God can sees the whole picture- the beauty in the ugliness, the ugliness in the beauty. And he knows the all the "whys" and "therefores".
I have always wondered about the crucifixion; if there were other possible endings to Jesus' story, why pick that one? I just don't buy the idea Jesus' death was to satisfy either God or Satan. God would not have been so cruel, and why give so much power to Satan?
I do believe in the subjective theory because good examples are hard to come by; I can't imagine Pres. Bush volunteering to be crucified for the good of the nation. Would any other religious leader besides Jesus die so horribly if they could avoid it? Would Muhammad have done that? Or Moses? Would I?
There must be more to it than modeling behavior, because Jesus' death did change things on a cosmic level, but I will leave it to better minds than mine to discover.

2006-09-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Aztecs used to cut beating hearts out of sacrificial victims, and the priests would wear the skins of their victims, and they called it religion. The Aztecs were smart; how could they be so fooled?
Some people think medicine is no good unless it tastes bad, and maybe people think religion isn't effective unless it physically hurts something or someone. MaybeGod only asked for blood in the Hebrew Temple because that is the imagery people understood in that day and time. I guess it is possible He enjoyed all those animal sacrifices, but I don't see how taking the life of a helpness animal could make Him smile.
I have a cousin very involved in efforts to try and restore the Temple in Jerusalem. I told her once that it might take the form of a space station or something. Hopefully if a Temple is ever built again, God would ask us to put Hondas on the altar, or someother material sacrifice that doesn't bleed.
I really hope at the end of the lectures I understand why the crucifixion of Jesus was necessary because other than the fact that contemplating it can help people deal with their own pain, I don't see why God allowed didn't honor Jesus' hope that the cup would be removed from him.

Lastly, the Word Faith Movement sounds like Christian voodoo.

2006-08-17T06:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's lecture that touched on "person" vs "identity" and "work" vs "mission" makes me a little melancholy when I stop to think about it because our terminology does reveal our thought processes to an extent. And the way we have talked about Jesus has objectified him; but what came first, the chicken or the egg. We reduced Jesus to a product that churches sell, as Sherman said, a sort of antidote to sin, so no wonder we have talked about him in terms of his work.
Sometimes people get ridiculously touchythough, about using politically correct speech. I was in a lecture once in the States where a lady started hissing and booing the professor for reading something out of the bible that didn't jive with her ultra feminist ideology. Her behavior was rude and embarrassingly out of place because the guy reading was really an above board, sweet person, and I wished she saved her hostility for a situation or someone that might have deserved it.
The heart of the terminology issue might be how to change a mindset, and I guess using "identity" and "mission" might help turn the tide, but it will take more than that because I think we like religion to be very utilitarian. How can we be a friend to Jesus when we are obsessed with the bottom line of getting eternal life out of the relationship? This is where other religions might conceivably help us out by providing Christians with a model for following a leader without trying to get something out of him. I don't know really, but I don't think Buddhists exploit Buddha the way we do Jesus in order to get to heaven. I wonder how many Christians would still follow Jesus if salvation wasn't a promise. Maybe a non Christian who does the right thing because it is the right thing is more spiritual than a card carrying Christian who does the right thing because they are afraid not to.
The whole idea of the atonement seems to work against genuine friendship because there is so much riding on the outcome. Maybe that is part of the reason Jesus kept his identity under his hat for so long, he wanted to hang out with guys who not conniving or phony, just real people talking about everyday stuff. Maybe that is why he blew off the guy asking how he could get eternal life... I bet he didn't want everyone around him constantly worried about that topic when maybe he would rather talk about the equivalent of soccer for a change.

2006-08-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

When Titanic came out, fans went to the theater and watched it over and over a crazy amount of times, like twenty or thirty. Sometimes they had all the dialogue memorized, but still couldn't wait to see it again. It sounds a little bit like adversion therapy gone wrong, but sometimes you just want to get lost in another world, even if it is a cartoon one.
I've seen Lion King a whole bunch of times, and I know I will see it lots more in the future. But from now on, I will process the plot more thoughtfully as opposed to being just swept away by the wonder of Africa.

Like Simba, we are all just growing into ourselves and figuring out who we are; everyone has so much potential. It's really a question, how to invest ourselves. You really have to ask God. Reaching our potential shouldn't be equated with sucess, that's the easy standard. Like Br. Lawrence, you could be called to practice the presence of God in the ordinary, then again, you could be called to put your life on the line like Su Kai or Dr. Martin Luther King.

There is a slogan in American associated with an advertising campaign for African American scholarships, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste." But there are so many casualties, people who are wasted due to circumstances beyond their control. Then again there are people who shoot themselves in the foot time and time again, getting distracted and diverted who end up frittering their life away. The Buddha almost did that, ditto St. Augustine. Thank goodness Jesus did not; and scripture tells us he was really tempted by worldly greatness. The thing about Jesus that we are not told, so I'm just guessing, is that he probably was most tempted by the thought of being just like everyone else- working at his trade, raising a family and hanging out with his friends and using just enough of his divinity to pull out a handy miracle when someone he loved needed it. He could have lived a happy, long life that way. Simba had it better than Jesus in that respect, he had responsibilities, but his valor and strength saved his life and he went on to live the life of a lion.

Finally, what is a blog without getting wierd, but how much of a role does the "watcher" have... if Jesus had been killed as a "cub" (and he almost was by Herod) before anyone outside of his family or the wise men knew he was the son of God, what effect would that have had on salvation etc.? Did God have a Plan B up his sleeve just in case? Or would we have had all the benefits of grace without knowing any of the story? Maybe God had already been onto Plan Z with us, but because we kept putting monkey wrenches into the works.

2006-08-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

I am sort of overdosing on theology at the moment since I am working night and day on a new presentation, but I guess there are some brain cells left to think about our last class.

I think it is a little sad that Barth and Brunner became such enemies over the virgin birth, because the friendship they dropped was probably more important than their points of view. Obviously they could not just, "agree to disagree" about such a nebulous subject that nobody can prove one way or the other.
Keeping a little mystery surrounding Jesus' birth sounds like a good thing- sort of the way having a swimsuit on is supposed to be sexier than nothing at all. (Of course in my case, neither option is very sexy!) American culture insists on swimsuits, but it would be dumb to go to war with the Europeans over the fact they don't wear swimsuits (My country needs all the friends it can get!) Two theologians who won't speak to each other over the virgin birth missed out on all the fun they could have had arguing together about the issue!

We over analyze issues. Some people would rather go to a lecture on heaven rather than go to heaven because, "inquiring minds have to know". I think Jesus incarnate in a pre mass media age so he wouldn't have to answer reporters' questions like, "Tell us now, how were you conceived?" Even if he answered such a nosy question, the people who didn't want to believe in the virgin birth would discount whatever he said, thinking he was protecting the family honor.

Personally, I think it would be trickier for God to make a bright star shine out over the spot where Jesus was born than to instigate a pregnancy. But I haven't heard of anyone getting all worked up over whether the star was there or not.

2006-07-26T03:51:00.000-07:00

So many sermons are boring and there is no reason they have to be; What Sherman said about needing to recover the art of storytelling deserves lots of attention at every seminary. ("Theology is in the story and the story is theology.") Because pastors are responsible for the theology people are absorbing at church, then they better make their sermons less stiff, irrelevant and boring because the congregation will just tune out and won't absorb anything. Sad to say, I fell asleep every time Howard Marshal opened his mouth; I didn't want to, it just happened. He is a gifted scholar, but as fall as I am concerned, he should stick to writing because he wasn't a gifted oral communicator. The Christian message would fall flat if it was always presented like that because you need to captivate an audience unless you have a captive audience. I don't think people need their pastor to put on a show, but being real and speaking from the heart captivates people.
Someone told me that in the Middle East, people think a rabbi is really smart and holy if they can't understand a word they say, and that it is a big compliment if you tell a speaker that they made things too complex for you. But I think the opposite is true; because that is not what Jesus did.

I'm grappling with the issue of heresy. I think it is insidious and needs to be confronted every step of the way, but if we can overlook out of brotherly concern the relgious differences of other faiths, how can we take uncompromising stands with our own people when their conclusions don't jive with tradition / our own interpretations? I mean, can we respect them, and strongly disagree while basically treating them like someone from another religious tradition, or should you be much more strict and confrontational with people from your own religion to safegaurd the faith? I am not sure. My tendency is to be more lenient with an outsider... but I'm not sure that is fair. I guess I expect more from fellow Christians, and get more easily disappointed.

2006-07-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

No wonder that the Jews and Romans didn’t know what to do with Jesus. His message was so uncomfortable, so radical, and so unlike how we usually live our lives. I know the message makes me uncomfortable because there are plenty of times I don’t feel like letting other people into my world- sometimes I just want my space. Then after a bit, I feel lonely and want to mix with other people again.

I’m reading a book called Three Came Home written by a prisoner in a Japanese prison camp near Kuching during WWII. The kids who grew up in the camp were so unselfish and generous. They shared every little thing, especially food whenever they got an extra bit. You would think the opposite would be true, that because they had so little, they would hoard what they had since an additional egg could mean the matter of life and death. But they had such close bonds they really prefered sharing; they didn’t even know any other way to be. The kids in the Kuching POW camp had no choice but to live in community; it was imposed on them; they lived in one large unpartitioned room and couldn't leave the camp. But it shaped them into caring, giving human beings.

Giving for the sake of giving ought to feel good, while hoarding should make you sad because it definitely impoverishes the soul. But what is it about giving that makes it so hard to trust the process? Usually the more we have, the less willing we are to share. I think I am that way often enough; it’s like I think something might be too good to give away. Other times I feel in competition, like if someone gives something, I have to match it somehow. That’s no good either. You have to give for the right reasons.
As I mentioned in class, it makes me sad and fusterated to know there are so many problems out there in the big world. It is really hard to know how to help. This disturbs me now more than ever because I am not generating any income at the moment, and when that is the case, I don't have much voice in how our family money should be spent. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't go back to teaching just to have the money to donate.

We touched on Jesus as a woman last night. Of course God had a choice, but why make the least effective one? Even today, if I really want to get something done, I have my husband make a phone call or write a letter. People will listen to him, when I could have been saying the same thing and been ignored over and over again. That's just the way it is. Instead of thinking, why didn't God have the messiah be a woman, we should continue to be amazed that God showed up at all. He was already very marginalized as a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, in country under Roman occupation.

2006-07-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

I really enjoyed hearing the presentations... What Charles said will really stick with me- that the apostles put their lives on the line so that we could hear the gospel, as opposed to modern authors who would never write a thing if they didn't think they would get paid.

Skipping to the lecture, Sherman quoted Augustine who said, "God is one, and three are God." That thought is enough to keep my brain busy for a very long time. Of course, that's the Trinity in a nutshell. But the Trinity is so hard for me to get a really good conception of... I have sung, "...God in 3 persons, blessed Trinity," since I was a child, but somehow one God with 3 personalities makes God sound like Siamese twins/triplets.
I'm wondering very blasphomously if Jesus is somewhere out in the universe on other planets, helping those cultures along- appearing to those "people" in the "flesh", helping them progress and getting them back into relationship with God. We can't be the only fallen world forever and ever in all space and throughout all time. I guess my mind is thinking about Jesus' task, or job description as part of God- the part that has to help three dimentional creation get to know their Father. Who knows, we might have been the millionth planet Jesus was born into and nasty creation may have failed to recognize each and every time. Poor Jesus, if we are the only world He incarnated into, we were mean enough to him for ten planets put together.
Ugh, I am way out there, just imagining... it's enough to think about what we do actually know; that 2000 years ago, God cared enough to spend time with us, as us. It blows my mind that Josephus and Philo have historical documentation of the Ressurection. Okay, so that in and of itself might not prove Jesus was God; but it goes along way towards proving the Christian message! It's too bad churches aren't "talking up" Josephus and Philo's reports-- Some people don't actually think the Ressurection happenned, but they want to believe it did. When talking to agnostics, I have said (maybe wrongly!), that they didn't have to believe in the Ressurection if they just couldn't... but they still could believe in Jesus as the Messiah, our Savior and Son of God.

2006-07-05T05:19:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking of the big beautiful world of blogs I didn't know existed... the first time I heard the expression was when some guys were busted in Singapore for blogging and stirring up racial disharmony. Anyway, I read about it in the newspaper, and thought it was a funny word and guessed it might just be something for computer geeks. Bloging it looks like it might be the wave of the future- because I know from being a teacher, that if you want a child to get excited about written work, there needs to be an audience of some sort. I used to give my students the chance to read their work to either a buddy or the whole class everyday. And for a real treat they could go to the office and read to the principal. They put so much more of themselves into assignments because what they did was no longer done in isolation. We really are social creatures that need to be connected.

Random things that stood out in the lecture:

It always seemed like a misnomer to call Jesus the "Son of Man" when he was the Son of God! So it clarifies things a bit to think of "Son of Man" as a type of prophetic address/contrasting our human nature with God/an escatological term, associated with suffering, judgment and vindication.
And I found it interesting to that the Jews had such a hard time calling Caesar "Lord". The poor Jews, what a bind to be in- prisoners of conscious when everyone else could just say to themselves, "hey, I'll call Caesar whatever he wants as long as he leaves me alone." I'm curious about what Jesus would say about that, where he would stand on the issue. On one hand, He didn't even want anyone calling Him 'Good" because that was reserved for the Father in Heaven... but on the other hand, would he want His people persecuted for not giving in on this issue? I really don't think I would advise anyone I love to say or not say something to someone if it meant they could get killed. I'm sure Jesus would forgive anyone that crumbled under that kind of pressure, but I doubt that crumbling would make Him proud.

About glimpses of Truth in other cultures/religions, it makes sense to me. Isn't God at work contextually all over creation so that no one is left out? He has to talk to us in ways we understand, or what good will it do? However, if He's using baby-talk with us when we are infants (metaphorically), that doesn't mean he won't quote Shakesphere to us one day when we are ready for it. I guess I think he takes us where we currently are and helps turn us to the direction we need to go. For myself, as a lifelong Christian, the more education I am exposed to, the more I know I don't know. Maybe as individuals and entire cultures, we are only responsible for what we know, but God is in charge of our learning process and the judge of how we are progressing. Finally, Jesus said whoever did the will of His Father were his brothers. Surely people like Gandhi are kin to Jesus no matter what their official religion is.

2006-06-29T15:35:00.000-07:00

So many times I am confronted with a very western, lineral perspective among certain scientifically inclined aquaintances of mine. This ultra lineral perspective is whelded like a light sabor, intent on chopping to bits my faith. It's a sort of game; a one-ups-manship contest that I don't want to participate in, and yet at the same time I do... I want to be able to fend off such attacks and give as good as I get. The reason is, I think deep down, even hard core scientist types really want to believe in something, and like a naughty child are trying to get attention for their attitudes and beliefs, half hoping you will correct them.
The Asian approach seems to have less potential for confrontation because more than one idea can occupy a position. To engage in a dialogue with someone who is wired to understand parallel logic and not discount your opinion right off the bat because it doesn't jive with their own, would be refreshing. It also seems a gentler notion to understand yourself and others as a follower of Jesus without necessarily understanding everything He did and said, or everything society has said we have to think to be an authentic Christian.
Sadly to me, some Asians seem to be losing their Asianess, and are as intent on making people toe an ideological line as anyone else. As a Westener, I implore Asians to stay true to their souls and not just copy the West. We need your orientation to give us back our souls as well, otherwise it can be so very tiring to always have to "best" someone and be right, and babies get thrown out with the bathwater.