Love is ...

Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng is a novel that is set against the backdrop of the Chinese cultural revolution. It tells the story of the struggles of a Chinese couple in their marriage, in their own culture, and also in the American culture. I enjoyed the novel. It is easy to read although at certain points, I got lost with some of the characters but it also wasn't hard to get back on track. I like stories that have some historical cultural background details and they make the story come to life!

There are two quotes from the book that made me pause, ponder, and appreciate. The first one is "To love someone is to figure out how to tell yourself their story." To be able to tell someone's story, one has to know their story well before one can "connect the dots" of their life and to tell their story well. It is really the biblical injunction that love is patient, love is kind, etc. in 1 Cor. 13. One can only develop patience, kindness, etc. by knowing the other person well so one may be able to understand what triggers the other person to act the way they do. Instead of reacting towards what the other says or does, one can go beyond their surface behaviors and continue to engage with them. And often times, that is still not enough but one needs the empowerment by the Holy Spirit to love as Christ does. 

I would even extend the quote to read "To love someone is to figure out how to tell them your story." Love rejoices in truth, even truth of exposing oneself to another. Often times, it is not easy to be vulnerable to expose oneself so the other person can truly know us and love us.

The second quote I like from the book is "Love is a wound that closes and opens, all our lives". Often times, it is easy to dwell more on the open wounds than closed (but not fully healed) wounds between two people. Unfortunately, these wounds will open and close all our lives. Love that endures these opening, closing, re-opening, and re-closing of these wounds and learn from them will surely strengthen the bond between two people. But this kind of love is hard to sustain. We will most likely fail at times and hurt the ones that we love most. This is why the Eucharist is such a powerful reminder that Christ has overcome all our shortcomings! Only He can redeem and perfect our love for others!

Turn The Other Cheek

What I find very interesting about the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once is that there are so many biblical messages in it. Of course, some of the languages and images are not quite suitable for a general audience, but culturally speaking, if we can only see beyond the surface, the underlying messages can be so relevant to our world!

One of the messages I appreciate much from the movie is on how one ought to respond in face of evil. The Scripture is very clear on this ... turn the other cheek, love your enemies (Matt. 5:38-44), do good to those who hate you (Luke 6:27-36). But how does it really get lived out? What do you do when you are in a high conflict divorce situation? What does one do when you witness your family being tortured? Do these verses only apply when evil is done to oneself but not on others? The movie gives me an insight on how to interpret these biblical passages especially in the fight scene towards the end of the movie

when Evelyn was fighting Dierdre at the stairway. Evelyn was probably wrestling with Waymond's earlier advice to stop fighting and be kind to one another, but what does it mean when Dierdre was about to hit her with a deadly blow from? With one foot, Evelyn blocks the blow and, in the next moment, she follows up with the amazing quote to remind Dierdre that she is not unlovable. 

I don't think we are called to be a doormat that in the presence of imminent danger to our lives, we are to simply standby and just passively take the blow. At the least we need to defend ourselves to preserve the dignity that God has given us our physical body. The word "resist" in Matt. 5:38 is problematic. The word is in aorist infinitive tense. This means the word is often translated in the past tense so definitely should not be translated as "do not keep on resisting". However, it can denote something that will be accomplished in the future. (See ref.) How does one not resist the evil one even in the form of basic self defence? I think the practical answer is that the immediate reaction to defend is always going to be there but what follows is even more important. There is no innate fibre that is not going to react against violence done to us or to others especially close to us. We will always fight, resist, and even retaliate. But once that initial reaction of resistance is over, we need to think about how to turn evil into good and help others to do the same. That's what Evelyn eventually did in that fight scene ... helping Dierdre to "get good with our feet" no longer for violence, even defence, but for playing piano, turn fights into hugs, bullets into googly eyes, bomb into perfume, etc. The process is not simple but it does take creativity and imagination. There is always something to love even in the face of evil. We will no longer need to resist, and can even help our enemies to turn to good.

What is right?

I have always been fascinated by the question: What is the right thing to do? Who or what defines "rightness"? How can we know? Is there a "rightness" for all situations? Of course, there is a huge area of study concerning ethics but practically speaking, what does it mean to do the right thing in our day to day existence? 

Ian Provan wrote a book titled Seeking What is Right - The Old Testament and the Good Life. In biblical faith, Ian writes, "good" means "being like God in character and action"; its synonym is "holy". Doing what is right is often tied to our desire to a good life. However, when we think of "good", we imagine material wealth, physical health, justice and peace, etc. But that is not the biblical view of a good life. Life is also too complicated and unpredictable that doing the right thing often has little or no correlation even with a secular worldview of a good life here on earth. As Christians, we must hold on to the promises that there will be blessings and rewards, but for here and now, we may need to adjust our expectations!

The movie Everything Everywhere All at Once offers another perspective of what being right means. "Right is a small box invented by people who are afraid." When we are so concerned about doing the right thing, we can feel like being squeezed into a small box or walking on eggshells. We all have our own "Jobu Tupaki" although sometimes we can't even name it properly! (When Evelyn in the movie eventually can name it properly, she can then fight it!) We can let rules and let the "should" voices in our head dictate our lives. This can be taxing because doing rightly often involves struggles, assertions of our rights, and fights which are some of the running motifs in the movie and perhaps why Michelle was chosen to show off her Kung Fu skills!

But how long can one endure in our struggles and fights? In the movie, one can jump from one universe to another to acquire the best skills to keep fighting. But like Alpha Waymond, it is exhausting and he eventually dies! So, what is a better strategy? "I just talked to her." We fight because we are scared and confused. "When I choose to see the good side of things, I'm not being naïve. It is strategic and necessary", says CEO Waymond. Perhaps sometimes we need to look at the good side of things even in the face of evil. The movie does not tell us how to live rightly. The Scripture provides a much more comprehensive answer although the movie speaks powerfully about the futility of eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth, about being kind to one another, turning the other cheek, returning good for evil, etc.

Isaiah 11:6-9

I can't wait for the day that Isaiah has prophesied many years ago will finally come!  I love this painting by Reubens and Brueghe (1615).  The title of the painting is Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man. It depicts the state of affairs just before the original sin (when Eve was giving the fruit to Adam).  It is a taste of what is yet to come.  Come Emmanuel!  


⁶ The wolf will live with the lamb,
   the leopard will lie down with the goat,
   the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
   and a little child will lead them.
⁷ The cow will feed with the bear,
   their young will lie down together,
   and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
⁸ The infant will play near the cobra’s den,
   and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s
   nest.
⁹ They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy
   mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD
   as the waters cover the sea.

Thinking in Tongues

James Smith spoke at Regent College tonight on his new book, Thinking in Tongues, which just came out this Monday.  James is a Pentecostal and a philosopher so I was naturally drawn to his talk when I read the description of his talk "Pentecostal contributions to Christian philosophy".  What excites me most about his work is that he provides a framework for me to understand Pentecostalism, and perhaps really embracing it.  Up to this point in my life, having been attending Pentecostal churches for almost 10 years, everything I hear and experience seem to be just great ideas with not much of an anchor.  Without an anchor, and when questions and doubts kick in, it is easy to throw the baby out with the bath water.  How can I really know that the Pentecostal way of approaching God is sound?  How can I trust what the Pentecostal hears from the Lord is indeed God's word?  How do healing, experiences, spontaneity, Charismatic worship, etc. fit in with Christian doctrines?  Well James unpacks the elements of the Pentecostal practices in light of ontology, epistemology, aesthetics, language, science, and philosophy of religion.  He does this by developing a "program of philosophy" that is autonomous and true to Pentecostal commitments, and at the same time rich enough for thoughtful and deep engagement with philosophical questions. Suddenly, Pentecostalism is not just a bunch of great ideas floating in the air, nor simply ecstatic emotional experiences, but grounded in a paradigm of inquiry that allows much further and deeper discussions of important questions that are relevant to not just Pentecostals, but for all Christians.

More on this after I read the book!

Danger of Duplicity

I was just thinking how dangerous it is for Christians to pay only lip service in the confession of their faith. If we say we believe in Christ, but continue to live in sins without any remorse or conviction of our sins, we are basically believing in a God that we create ourselves. It will be a God that is totally different from the God in the Scripture. It will be a God of our imagination, and thus it will be a God who has no power, a God who cannot save. There is really no assurance of our salvation since this God is not real.

Is the world getting better or worse?

For Christians, the answer has to be positive one. The reason is that the Bible gives us a vision of what it is going to be like in the future, and if the future looks bright, there must be a progression towards it. It doesn't make sense to become progressively worse and then all of a sudden, everything turns around. The good news is that the future does indeed look bright, very, very bright.

Revelation is undoubtedly the place to go to in the Bible if we want to find out about what is in store for us in the future. Darrel Johnson notices that there are seven things that are missing in Revelation 21: no sea (i.e. no chaos), no tear, no coward / liar, no temple (the whole city is the temple), no sun or moon because God dwells in the city, no closed gate because this city is not a jail and there is no need to separate one from another, and no more curse. But there are seven things we find in this glorious future: God shall dwell among us, glory, creatureness / things / trees/ river / material where all things are redeemed, people (all God's peoples), creativity where all things are new, life where access to the tree of life is restored, and face of God which we shall all see.

We need to keep these visions in mind. This is our hope, our destiny, our future. The world is getting better, even though it is marred by small setbacks from time to time. There is good that is happening in politics, education, family, society, culture, technology, etc. There are obvious negatives in every facet of life, but if we can train ourselves to see God working through, redeeming all of creation, we can live with hope, certainty, and a new sense of engagement to participate with what God is doing in creating this bright future that He promises.