But that's the heart of this blog, of all I write, and this ebook experiment.
A bit of backstory about ebooks -
In 2017 I felt my writing well was rather dry so I gave myself permission to write something fun. The result was MEWSINGS - which involved three things:
(1) learning to self-publish
(2) helping an injured migrant worker with some income as he sketches from photos of Chats
(3) gifting copies to SPCA for their funders
***
2020 the year of Clarity everyone had opined, is really been forcing us to see many things we have rather ignored, distract ourselves from, swept under the carpet.
Throughout this year, and especially during the first two months as the reality of a Pandemic unfolded before a shocked world, quite unprepared for this scale of disruption, I wrote bits and bytes to make sense of it all.
The result, among other things, is this little ebook:
My hope is that it can be useful for you to take stock and make some choices that will help you to really live, free, fierce and joyously fiery into 2021.
Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matt 6v24)
At first, we follow and go ‘uhuh, that makes sense…’
But then, we begin to wonder if it really isn’t possible to have more than one affection.
Finally we are shocked that of all the things great and small, Jesus would choose to set up Mammon against God. Really, Jesus?
Over the years, my own relationship with both Jesus and Mammon has been tumultuous, mostly, not having enough of either!
I was born into a poor family and recall episodes such as my father doling out soulful advice to drink water to feel the hunger pangs less, and my mother’s excitement to come home a boil a pot of rice to eat with the packet of fried noodles that had extra lard pieces added in owing to the hawker’s generosity.
Some experience poverty’s sting and end up hoarders. Others feel it’s pain and develop empathy.
I was somewhere in the mid-stream where I feel easily for the lack others experience, but often was tardy to respond in kind. For years, I asked God to make me rich so that I could just tell the poor dejected kid cleaning tables that I would pay for his education.
Poverty, it turns out is a dimension reality embedded in systems of function (or malfunction). These systems include personal perception, familial dynamics, community support or lack thereof and larger cultural mores.
This means the the solution isn’t more money, but hey, more money can’t hurt, can it?
At university I studied Economics and Political Science. Money became even more complicated.
Keynesian or Communitarian? How mighty is the invisible hand or does it get manipulated by invisible strings?
Economic realities and systems continue to evolve, often benefiting the rich at the expense of the poor. As the adage goes: it takes money to make money (which reminds me of how my mother resourceful adapted this principle by running what is known as a collective back in the day).
Why did Jesus seemingly reduce the spiritual life to this strange either-or choice?
The line drawn here is unmistakably clear.
Before we dive into that, here’s a review of the 4 principles we found out so far regarding the spiritual life:-
1.
Spiritual truths are going to be highly uncomfortable, disruptive and demand a response.
2.
If you react and cling to a sliver of what you hear and hastily judge, you will probably turn away too soon.
3.
Lines define but don’t have to confine.
4.
Living by spiritual truths isn’t something we can do on our own.
True enough, this is uncomfortable, to say the least. After all, God does want to bless us, doesn’t He?
Perhaps we are narrowing the discussion down. Ok, step back and observe (which we are about to do).
Whatever we uncover is not meant to confine us and our ability to follow-through will need supernatural help.
With these principles operating, let’s get back to Mammon vs God.
Ready?
Mammon refers to wealth and the entire ecosystem that supports its power, centrality, influence and grip on humankind. So yes it is money. It is also greed, and profiteering, policies and people, practices and punishments.
It is the entire materialist philosophy that reduces the glory of being human to consumption and competition.
It turns us away from each other, tempts us to abuse resources, and generates strife, waste and pollution.
For the most part, our response is to claim that we exercise moderation. But moderation is easily the same space as compromise. What we need isn’t moderation, it’s self-control.
At the personal level, being aware that we do live under a materialist philosophy, we can — if we are serious about the spiritual life — exercise self-control so as not to simply go with the flow of things.
But it will take more than self-control.
According the principle 4, the spiritual life is always beyond our own ability. So while self-control is crucial to preventing one from being lulled into sharing a bed with Mammon (who is often personified as Caesar or even Beelzebub), we will need more.
We need a Saviour.
In saying then that we have to awaken to the truth that we can only afford one allegiance, Jesus calls us to our need of Him, to save us from a power too present and consuming — Mammon — so that we can truly live, and so serve God.
It’s really not hard to see how right Jesus is.
The spirit of the age, all of our training, the bright lights and neon signs all send one singular message: serve your self first, and do it in the fastest, cheapest and most convenient way. It does not help us to ever pause to think if the speed, cost and ease comes at a far larger price in the end.
I think back to my simpler days.
In our family kitchen, we had one kettle that doesn’t know how to whistle, a kwali for frying and cooking and a soup pot.
My mother and some days my father as well, cooked and fed us out of these few things, all nine of us.
Food preparation involved one knife or a cleaver. Nothing separate for garlic, tuber or leaves. One implement but a myriad skills to wield it.
The kitchen and meal preparation was part adventure part danger.
It also made cleaning up so much easier.
Our kitchens today are ridiculously cluttered.
This image says a lot doesn’t it?
Consumer Me, Daniel Garcia
I have the suspicion that if we all stepped away from the mad treadmill of consuming, we may actually live freer.
Definitely, Jesus linked it to something fundamental to our humanity. We were designed to worship and serve, as Bob Dylan sings:
“You may be a state trooper, you might be a young Turk, You may be the head of some big TV network, You may be rich or poor, you may be blind or lame, You may be living in another country under another name
You may be a preacher with your spiritual pride, You may be a city councilman taking bribes on the side, You may be in a barbershop, you may know how to cut hair, You may be somebody’s mistress, maybe somebody’s heir
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed You’re gonna have to serve somebody, Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” -Bob Dylan, from “Gotta Serve Somebody”
So Jesus split reality as we know it down this line between the materialist reduction and the full-orbed life that begins in the depths of our being. The only way to cross from death to life as he puts it another time, is to trust in His saving Grace and to live as He did.
Jesus did not just reference the materialist world here though. In at least two other places, he calls our attention to it. It’s important to look at these to fill out our understanding.
First, he expresses what we all feel: worry. Worry is of course linked to a fear of lack of threat.
To this ever-present emotion for most of us, Jesus says the antidote is to lift up our faces and look outward at the natural world. Look at the birds and observe the flowers.
Taking our eyes away from ourselves and our wants and taking time to absorb how life really operates, wild and gratuitously, is the healing we need for our aching souls.
When Jesus sends out his disciples to learn how to heal and serve, he reminds them not to take any extra clothes or shoes. No luggage really. Just what they have on their backs.
More than what they can do, Jesus is letting them experience that the spiritual life is an adventure of seeing what God does, especially in caring for those who love him.
If more of us had the courage to stop serving Mammon, perhaps it won’t be so almighty.
What Jesus really stood for is Life. Again, he said it:
I have come that you may have life, and life abundant.
Now we have a better idea of this abundant life. It is the spiritual life, made possible by Jesus himself. It is a life that continues to unfold and matures as we learn to live all over again, freed from the clutches of Mammon.
A life that serves God because it is the kind of life God breathed into us to enjoy.
Why my child, do you live as if I did not understand your life?
That you are scrambling, anxious, frantic, sleepless?
Did the sun not rise this morning?
And when you least expected it, a reprieve or a kindness came?
Or did you fail to notice how the birds sing on despite the heat and their infringements of their habitats?
As the world careens towards its implosion, the prime of my creation will suffer the most, while the rest of creation will do the best they can - hunting, mating with flair and flourish, resting and repeating it all over.
Men and women will do far worse. Some of the specimen will no doubt plod on, even doing their utmost to avert catastrophe and inject goodness into the decay. But most will be out for themselves, heaping hurt and scars on souls and all forms of terrain, physical, psychosocial and eternal.
My child, I am not at all blind to how the world is. My son, Jesus the Christ, came to live like one of you. He had a human body that was tired, hungry, stirred and tempted. He had the full range of emotions and he had plenty of expectations from all ranks and file. He lived a real life.
He also died a real death, and an excruciatingly painful one, the details of which I don’t want to repeat.
Why, is the real question.
He lived a real life because life is holy, special and precious. Your life is.
You can see in his life, how it was easy for him to be someone else, to submit to the powerful systems of the day, to play along or to turn into a coward. Those are actual options, for him, as for you.
Some of you feel you have no choice. No, you do. You always do.
You can see in his death - even in all the injustice – how you can die angry, reluctant, frightened, or at peace.
So my son came to show you life, and how to live it. and he died so you can see how to die, in a world that may demand your life and cause your death.
He came to show you that Life is more than living, that even death cannot take Life away.
So I want you my child to wake up each day, and breathe large lungfuls of Life into your being.
Look at that never-ending do-list, the unresolved conflict, the eye bags and even the lightly lined purse - and say, even so, I shall LIVE.
Then you shall no longer just know that I number your hairs and supplies your needs. You shall experience it!
I have saints whose lives showcase Life -
their diets will appall many of you in the first world.
their solitary lives will shock many of you in the connected world.
their fruitfulness will overturn your ideas of productivity and fulfilment.
Yes, you are quick to protest that you are not one of these saints.
Well, I mean you to be.
Because I am Life and that’s what I want for you.
Most of you won’t need to leave where you live or stop what you do.
Some of you won’t require major changes to your lives.
But many of you must consider if you are truly, really, living - the Life - Jesus modeled, and died so you may have…. a life of freedom -
from lust and shame
from abusing others and being abused
from fear
In considering, you will come to see that your ladder is leaning against the wrong wall.
Parents may have to give up their careers to be home with the ripening lives entrusted to them.
Professionals may have to reconfigure their work vision to notice that in the end, their work is about life: staff meetings, colleagues, products, datelines… are about actual, real lives. You may have to change your agendas, tone your expectations, extend your timelines.
Pastors may have to learn to speak up for those whose lives and work conditions reduce their humanity.
I know the future is so uncertain and feels bleak. But I am GOD and I hold the world in my hands. I especially hold my saints.
Again, if you hang on to your life (small ‘l’), my Son told you that you would lose it.
So stop building the life (small ‘l’) you want.
Start praying for a desire for Life, and if you have asked Jesus to be your Saviour and LORD, it is there already, like a seed ripening….
Protect and nourish that seed, and see Life springing up - in spite of the second law of thermodynamics and all of everything going downhill. It’s a paradox, a surprise and a mystery. Life.
In my mind, I am the one who craves collaboration. I was giving in, trying to negotiate and seeking to submit, as a wife.
But lately I realised that I may have been a tad wrong about myself and too harsh on my spouse.
Since turning fifty, I have developed this inclination to think of my parents who have gone on ahead to Paradise. I also think of my growing years with more distance and objectivity.
As a young adult, there is a certain fierce protection of who we are becoming and the stories we tell ourselves are all valour and glory.
The time we stood up to the teacher
That moment we got the grade we worked for
The dream job we missed but the other one that worked well enough
All the things we will still do and places we will go!
But now, I am more open to being wrong, even about myself. And this realisation cements for me two values I have held dear and tried to pursue:
1.The critical importance of an honest community/mentor
2.Within the marriage, the critical importance of a growth fertiliser, such as a date night.
As I grew up in a large household with parents who are busy making ends meet and siblings who are all neck-deep in their own growth and struggles, I have developed the habit of thinking things up and making my own way through life.
This self-reliance is great in so many ways. It gave me a sense of confidence and filled my life with possibilities (the range thankfully curtailed by my faith foundations).
Yet, like all youths, I needed guidance and the presence of someone older and kind who would believe in me and allow me once in a while to stand on their shoulders to gaze further into the horizon. That I did not find. My extroversion and leadership capabilities created an impression that I was always okay. In a telling moment, a slightly younger person once came up to me and asked me why I was always so cheery. I knew I wasn’t always cheery. I wrestled with whether I was being hypocritical and was satisfied that I wasn’t. I am basically positive and hopeful in my outlook.
So my need went undetected.
No one saw it. I did not feel it.
Much of my learning and mentoring happened with books. Books are great. They mentor us in the world of truths and ideas. But now I see that they are not adequate. The authors never saw me and certainly will never witness my life to be able to speak specifically into it. That is the work of a personal mentor, or friend who loves your soul and wants the best for you.
This I lacked.
Thankfully in God's Providence, the wisdom of the books shored up my intellect and my soul.
Over the years, my abilities and capacities deepened and enlarged as the opportunities continued to come. I led teams and on the whole did a good job. But one thing about leadership always bothered me: the decision making process. More often than not, opinions are sought and the decision is usually one person's prerogative. The world after all, feeds us a model of leadership that is largely the superhero zeitgeist. I have gone to enough leadership conferences to hear 'the buck stops here' and 'it's lonely at the top' repeated ad nauseam. Well, the whole subject of how decisions are made requires another post, but we get the idea. (In the church, however, we are all living stones God is putting together and we all have the same Holy Spirit within us. So the superhero model (or dream CEO model) is not a good one for us). Very few of us have the privilege of being guided lovingly in our choices and decisions. Yet how our lives turn out, rests upon key decisions we make.
Now if thinking is largely done alone and in one's head and heart, no wonder we find it tricky in marriage for decisions happen all the time over matters small and big.
This is why I puzzle over what other couples speak or write of when they use: “we decided….”. How did they arrive at their decision? Do they both believe it equally? How long did they pray and was it necessary to study the Scripture too?
Of course, there is no one way, and it is plain naivete to think that a good, godly decision agreed upon will lead to perfect, desired outcomes. Life is just far too complex for that.
But I hear too much frustration and feel it enough myself to know that for most of us, this is an area that needs some rethinking. Like me, perhaps you also have the need to be listened to, to be challenged, to collaborate, and to make decisions well with another soul.
Actually, this takes a slow cooker process of knowing our values and percolating through what consequences we are ready to live with, and what we believe is the direction God is setting us on. Alas, it is more likely, with city living, that we microwave our thoughts and pan-fry our decisions, only to be left wondering afterwards….
Seven years ago I asked my husband to begin date nights. We took a long time to get around to it. Initially our daily irritations would keep creeping into our times and take all the wind out of our sails. We were bobbing in waters and seemed to be going nowhere fun. It was easy to give up. But we returned to it. We do it more regularly now. Often, we still apply the microwave mode, hoping to have fizz, fun, romance all happen, plus spiritual substance to boot. It’s a good thing we are getting older I guess. We realise that the slow cooker mode works better. So much less stress, just keep the current going and let the things break down themselves and get all gooey and stick together and let all the wonderful nutrients seep into the broth.
There is a serious parallel here with our spiritual life too.
We want a spiritual high.
God wants us to go slow and steady and for the long haul, right into eternity (yes, I know that's not length as such).
Perhaps like me, your strength of being fiercely able and independent can work against what is truly good for you.
A strength needs to be noticed, nurtured and directed to release its true potential.
I advocate that all young people have some form of mentoring.
That community be authentic enough for us to learn to listen to each other.
This will require what we take a slow cooker approach to life a bit more.
Especially with our soul mates.
Folks, we have a desperate need to slow down, cultivate stillness and silence, and learn to listen and communicate.
We need to be slow enough to notice our souls and hear our own needs.
We need to seek out mentors, and risk being told hard stuff we need to hear.
We need to slow down to listen enough so we hear the soul of another, not just the words.
We need to communicate that we care for their needs, even if we may not be able to do anything about it.
So much is at stake with all our speed.
What is one way you can slow down in the coming month?
Dear Mother and Father, I will turn fifty at the end of this year. Considering that the earth may be 6000 years old, fifty is pretty old - just take a few zeroes away!
I so wish you both are around with me; living together in good health, mutual respect and easy love.
Of course this is an idealized state - except for the mutual respect which we clearly had - and even that required a lot out of us.
Mother and my firstborn. Every grandchild knew your love.
I remember grumbling so much about you Father: that you did not have a job title I could report to my school teachers with pride. While my classmate rattled off 'driver, manager, hawker'; I had no clue what it was you actually did. That in turn triggered off memories of times when Mother would say quietly, "just tell the teacher I will pay her next week" , I wondered if you did anything for us. What was obvious were the Toto receipts, the smoking, and the long stretches of time you weren't at home.
But of course, I was only just figuring out about life as a kid.
No one, absolutely makes pigs' tongue soup like you did. I can still taste it; clearly some fireworks went off in my brain the few times you ladled it out for us. The pasty combination of soy, onions and melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and the chewy bits of meat (I ate unquestioningly and avoided the unfamiliar looking bits with the gristly surface, but knowing it was tongue did not deter me in the slightest for I had been won over by the aroma and the taste!),
In my teens, my self-righteous indignation ruled me with a ferocity and I persuaded, scolded, debated and gave you the cold shoulder for the many imperfections I saw in you.
It would be a few years of such suffering for you before your daughter grew up more to realise that you have a personal story that may account for the person you are; and to develop a compassion and curiosity to know about it, and so treat you as a person and not just someone who owed me proper fatherhood.
Mutual respect took us a long time. But I am glad we reached that shore.
Probably out of convention, I asked you to all the most important occasions of my life: my baptism, graduation, and my first public sermon. Convention has its place for sure; because your presence normalised us - I now have regular photos with parents - and for sure, we are both glad for it.
We did grow to respect and like each other. If there is anything I feel sad about now; it is that you did not get to walk me down the aisle and blossom into the amazing Grandfather I am sure you would. My children will never get to hear you tell your lame jokes, play the accordion, and watch your favourite Hindi movies and follow every episode of whatever David Attenbrough was up to ( I was shocked one time when I heard the august commentator's voice and instantly recognised it). And of course, that soup.
I wonder if you tell stories about us in heaven.
One thing we felt sure would happen in heaven. In fact one of us dreamt about it even. It was that when Mom arrived, you were thrilled to bits but she ignored you, like she did on earth.
Mother, you are a wondrous mystery to me. You weren't perfect for sure, and you often lacked the wisdom to guide us as the world spun crazily fast in the decades of immense change. You had no words for what to study, who to date or marry, what to do for a living.
You did better than that. You showed us that learning is something we can all do. You did not get to start school because the war broke out, but you did not shrink from learning: going out to work, basic English conversation, singing, crochet, reading your Chinese Bible, swimming, using the ATM, traveling, cooking new dishes, dancing… Your life demonstrated the meaning of the word 'possibility' for us. What a precious gift. We knew we could suggest anything to you and never feel put down.
When we felt like quitting, you wouldn't let us. Opportunities don't come easy. While you never pushed us in any direction; you showed us that some things are worth every sacrifice, and that effort is what counts. Your fierce commitment to the family, your pride, your core values are the lights for a family that had little and could have turned out very differently. You took illness, nasty relatives, work injustices, hunger, lack, all in your stride. Never once did I hear you whine, complain your lot or blame others, except the glaring frustration you had with the government when you applied for public housing. If it had to be done, you saw to it that it was.
You stayed up long nights to twirl old calendar pages into beads and strung them so we could have some beauty in the home. At night, as we lay together like sardines on floor mats, you sang us the silly song about the boats at Clifford Pier that 'fell down' and ate dog shit. I never got to ask you where that came from. You did everything you knew to ensure the family would be provided for: cooking and selling fried noodles at dawn to folks making their way to work, operating a Tontine, going out to work at the hospital despite your aversion to it (just take the job that comes), joining an MLM briefly….and always, bringing whatever donation cards schools required of us to help us get it all filled out.
I dig not know it then although I certainly felt it - mothers have a way of being pervasive in their influence.
You grew up without a father, and your own Mother was a compulsive gambler. As a daughter, your future would be marriage. In the meantime, your older Brother must be cared for, and supported through school; so from an early age, your life was turned outwards to solve problems and care for others. You survived the war after being recruited to work in the soldier's mess, and your diligence sometimes paid off with a few sweet potatoes above the rice they paid you with. You figured out how to make a quick buck by selling theatre tickets at black market prices.
But when it came to your own life, you did not take charge as you had for others. Your mother took a liking to Father, in part because they were both gamblers and had good chats over their games. So despite your own conviction about the evils of gambling, you acquiesced and married Father - and stayed faithful to him all the long and hard years.
We are a bundle of contradictions aren't we?
I am not sure why, Mother and Father; but I really want you to be proud of me. I want you to know that your pain, suffering, sacrifices have meant something.
It feels unfair to me that only as a young adult, when I was beginning to take the effort to understand and truly appreciate the contours of your lives; that my life became so full of my dreams and commitments, that although our conversations and interactions could be so rich; they often stayed mundane and thin. That when the roles were reversing and I was meant to take charge, I was too absorbed with my world. I did not neglect you per se, but there is so much I want to say to you and do for you still.
And then, you left suddenly, painfully, and alone.
Some things in life just cannot be managed: the heart attack, the car accident.
Father, we could go bargain hunting together. I now see the value and fun in it.
Mother, where else did you want to travel to - for once - not in order to visit one of us?
I don't know how you two did it. In your authentic and courageous lives, I witnessed and received Providence, Grace, and Mercy. Through your refusal to give up on life, I have a legacy of resilience and optimism.
Fifty years feels a long time. You were more than half of it; and I am going to make sure you will always be a part of whatever remains….until we meet again. Then, let's read this letter together.
I go to a local market once a week or so to eat a hearty Asian breakfast of prawn or wanton noodles, topped off with a cup of kopi-si, coffee with evaporated milk (I suppose it's our version of skim). At that hour, the seats fill with two main groups of people: those grabbing a bite before heading out to work, or the elderly who are able to make their way to the market for a leisurely breakfast.
Today, I meet a lecturer at the market I recall has stepped away from her career to care for her aging and ailing father. We talked about Dementia and the elderly. It struck me how unprepared we are for every season of life, and how easily startled and prone to panic we are as a speci about changes that come with time -
We struggle as our children grow as if we were ever meant to keep them stuck to one phase.
We get all upset when the adolescents figure out their lives as they must.
We experience crazy tension and pull away when we join with another soul.
We feel the consequence of time as our bodies alert us to joint pains and our minds' filing cabinets haunt us even as we fumble to find the key to unlock them and retrieve that folder labeled 'who did I meet the other day?'.
This even though we know time and tide means we will move through these seasons, whether we like it or not. Why aren't we more prepared?
When we do prepare, why aren't we more human about it?
Astute social commentators have warned us that our modern world of machines and gadgets will strip some of our humanity away and there's plenty of proof of that: we replace people with machines, we expect people to operate like machines, we measure people the way we measure machines, by output... and studies today show that even our minds are being fundamentally changed because of how we are tethered to our machines. [a good person to read is Jacques Ellul - French, and prgamatic!].
It looks like we won't beprepared still -- because we refuse to master the changes; but let them master us instead.
family is what we have in the end, or not
Hospital talk is inevitable when we discuss the old. Her father was of robust health until an aneurysm slayed him. The medical prognosis wasn't cheerful and the hospital staff were dismissive and operated on the assumption that what she needed to do was quickly hire a live-in maid to care for the dad who will basically be dependent and subject to a diminished quality of life. But it was her father. She knew him. She knows what matters to him and she wants him to live as well, as he lived long.
There are those, the hospital tells her who are abandoned. The family becomes uncontactable.
What makes people abandon each other?
I return home to read my Scripture and I am in the Good News according to John.
Jesus was near a pool where many invalid, lame and blind were gathered, for they hoped to get a dip in the pool's healing waters. Jesus singles out a man who he knows to be crippled for 38 years and asks him, "Do you want to get well?".
The man explains his difficulty. Of course he wants to be well but he cannot get to the pool without assistance.
I have heard many reactions to this story. Some blame the man for not being pro-active enough. Others suggest that he is one of those abandoned for his sinfulness. All these may be true; but let's read on to find the focal point of the story.
Jesus immediately spoke an authoritative and life-giving word and the man; probably feeling the healing, obediently takes up his mat and walks away well!
Jesus is not lauded for this act of mercy. The man did not even take notice of Jesus' features because he was unable to tell the religious leaders who had healed him!
Instead, Jesus was told: according to the system laid down by Moses in the law, you have sinned to work and caused that man to work, carrying his mat.
Jesus obviously knows the law, he explains it extensively in the rest of the chapter; but he chose to reach out to this crippled man and offer him wholeness.
I thought back to that ancient law: remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.
'Holy' in the Bible is used on humans as an act of setting something apart; making it distinct, away from the regular, usual, typical.
Jesus chose that day to do something out of the ordinary: he refused to let the day get typical. He opposed the forces that kept that man crippled for 38 long years. He disrupted the day's order of business, social milling and religious observances to set a man free to live, and to have a chance to thrive.
Perhaps that is key to our thriving as a race. If once a week, we intentionally disrupt our self-absorbed routines at building our little empires of comfort, success and relief; and sought to really live. If we considered where we and those we know aren't well, alive or thriving; and act out of the ordinary about it.
Will families not be revolutionized by a weekly time of heart sharing, prayer and serving others?
Will our work-life not be revolutionsed by pulling away from the politics and grasping to a practice of empathy through prayer and caring actions?
Will our systems not be revolutionised if we introduce small and large ways to disrupt the usual faster, more, bigger; and choose intimate conversations, active listening, even slowly chewing our food?
A weekly habit of being slower, more intentional, more focused, can create within us a capacity that cannot be otherwise cultivated in our daily rush: the capacity to thrive as humans; full of creativity, passion and compassion.
And those of us who are children of God? Why not take a piece of his heart the way Jesus did and walk into the crowds, noticing those who are suffering, struggling, yearning - and risk a little backlash - to bring hope?
Yes, this weekly habit could bring about a deep sea change in your life and in our world.
*right click and select open in another tab/window to read this related post
You may think I overstate my case. Death? But I assure you I do not.
We have a view and experience of what it means to be alive. If you read the Word, you find what commonly passes off as 'living' doesn't make the cut of what the Original Intention was {for the whole story on this, please read my book Shed Those Leaves}.
In fact, the word 'death' occurs quite a bit in the Word though it always get trumped by Life (see Resurrection).
This one word is also used to describe three kinds of death:
physical, bodily death - when our body stops to function permanent spiritual death - when our separation from God is final and irrevocable current spiritual death - when our lives do not comply with our faith claims
Modern science confirms what the Word says: we do have some influence over our physical passing. Sinful habits that persist can lead to death. But of course, since we are not exactly tracking it, we commonly think that we have absolutely no say. Death comes unannounced for most; and even if you have years or months to wait it out; it will always still feel like a thief sneaked up on you.
The second too is tricky really. Many people obsess over this and want an iron-clad guarantee that once they are saved; they will always be saved. I suppose a very simple analogy can help here. You could be rescued from drowning, but you can choose to jump back into the churning waters. So we certainly do decide on this one; but the decision is not a sales deal or a transaction. It behooves you to think why you were drowning and help others out. Based on what Jesus tells us in Matthew 25, it sounds like there can be some surprises in the end.
The third kind is a daily reality: it's called dying to sin and self in order to truly live. This sits squarely on our shoulders; or should I say, in our hearts.
Why so moribund you may ask?
Well, I was sitting in my special chair where I regularly consider the big questions when I found my thoughts drifting towards a region of the mind-heart that belongs to what I call a dangerous place. It is one of 3 R-rated places in our hearts. I have wrestled with self and sin enough to know that these places starve us of Life and can lend us in a state of spiritual stupor, where we become pale, waterless clouds that live adrift with nary a purpose.
R-egrets
Listen, no one alive has no regrets. Yes I have them; such as this one, where I let my friends down.Or what about the job I chose not to take for some filmsy reason that isn't well-thought through? Who knows what phenomenal success I will be enjoying now if I had taken it. I once tried to comfort a friend who was unable to forgive herself for years. The regret drove her to depression and shaped her decisions after that. It is easy when we are leafing through our album of regrets for the enemy to slip alongside and say: 'where was God? Didn't He guide you? Were you so sinful?'
R-emorse
This is like the emotional part of Repentance. It's necessary. being sorry for what we have thought/said/done cannot be a cold exercise in the calculation of personal merits! Tears often accompnay genuine repentance. But some of us can be quite absorbed with this..and then the enemy suggests: 'you just won't make a very good one will you? Better not be so h-o-l-y'.
R-ecriminations
We counter-accuse when we feel accused. It's our defense mechanism. We may not say it out loud; but when we are still smarting from unkind words or licking our wounds; it is easy to begin hurling accusations at those who have hurt us or let us down. We label them, put them down, reduce them to their mistake. The enemy is more than happy to add ammo: 'and it isn't the first time is it?'.
Looking back is important in helping us move forward. But it has to be an intentional time set aside to prayerfully consider one's life. Then we visit the places prepared and armed.
But all our minds drift at times, and our emotions tag along and often quickly magnify everything with their uncanny ability to get highly detailed and sensational. At such times, it is important to know not to dawdle, but to turn around and get out quickly. Cry if you must, Rant in your journal. Take a cold shower, run in the rain, have tea and read a book, hit the gym. Beware that dangerous places exist - and you can be safe.
{this is a post I shared over at The Brave Girl Community - an online group of gals loving Jesus and learning to live freely in His fierce freedom!}
We don't just have stereotypes (and these can be useful); but we also have stereo-shapes! That's right: aren't we being told all the time what shape things ought to be, whether it is the economy, the family..and of course, our bodies {and the men are not spared these days}. But who determines these shapes?
I remember thinking about the wondrous ideals of communism and mashing it with Acts 2 'they had all things in common' only to be challenged by my Theology professor about the good that capitialism has done. I see his point; but I am not fully convinced. After all, the principle behind captialism is this to capitalise -- which gets really out of hand quickly!
Who decides when something is maxmised or capitalised? Whose benefit are we thinking about? Who defines the shape of things?
What about our individual lives? Do they too have shapes?
Some people remind me of :
Arrows - always directed at something. I respect their missional sense and drive; but wow..it's does get rather one-dimensional at times just to speak of bottom lines.
Circles - they keep going around the same issues.
Loose shapes -these are ill-defined it seems and appear to go with the flow...
The Cross is a shape. If we could pout our lives into a mould; how about the shape of the Cross?
Loving God
Loving Others
This is a shape we should explore more. The Cross is the shape formed from the meeting of two lines.
A life in Cross-shaped seeks to live upward or Godward. It is a life that reaches, stretches, grows... and it happens not as the line goes up; but also as it goes downwards; plunging the depths and abyss:
where we dig deep into the why and wherefore of things, where we examine our motives, sense the movements within our bosoms and ask probing questions so that we don't go through life like a phantom or facade.
Then there is the other reaching where we aspire, dream, hope, work towards...that moves outwards. These are the horizontal lines that can stretch out a welcome, and reach around to embrace!
The cross-shaped life is a very dynamic life that cannot be fueled by seeking to capitalise, or asking 'what's in it for me?' because it will take us to places where those sorts of questions don't make sense at all.
The Cross is a symbol of ~
Love and Life
Forgiveness and Freedom
Grace and Goodness
Power and Peace
It is a shape we must in humility lie down and soften into.
