Searching for my peers + observations of the generations + a call for In-Betweeners

I miss my peers. That's you if you were born in the region of 1965s.

I don't mean they have all been abducted by aliens; and yes, I can name those I do see and are good friends with. It's just so few.

When you think about it, it seems we always have peers with us. Certainly if we go through the paces of school - we are organised along age lines and march merrily (or not) with the flow until...

suddenly,
somehow,
somewhere,
all our paths diverge.


This sensation first struck me when I made a mental note of people I am spending time with, talking to, facebook following or being followed. They are all older or younger than me. It felt like such a surreal discovery, I was going to keep it to myself until in a casual conversation, someone else mentioned that he seemed to have lost his peers. I sat up. Well, I was not alone in my existential corner after all.

Perhaps I have neglected my friends I moaned. ("What? Friends since kindergarten?" - my actual words to an actual person). So I embarked on trying to find them. Facebook was very helpful here. Soon enough, I had an assortment of them like so many different kinds of chocolates in a box: old school friends, former church mates, groupies...  We even sometimes talked about getting a class reunion, an alumni gathering, a back to the past blast...but very little would happen. "O move on" someone said. I admit I have always had this nostalgic twinge to me. But is there more to it?

In fact, I did meet up with a group of old friends from youth days in church and it was very heartwarming and of course a lot of labour to figure out the nearly twenty years of life done! Thankfully we shared a tacit understanding that this meet ups will occur slowly over a long time.


But in real life, the everyday, I find that most of the women I relate with are older than me or else, younger.

The older women are in structured groups inevitably, mentoring group, exercise class and work-related relationships. The younger ones are discovered and cultivated through interest groups, activities and life mentoring.

There is something else. In both cases, though I am comfortable and enjoy them; I also find it takes quite a bit of effort to connect at times. You know, the humour, the language, the hidden codes in communication. I feel young with one, and old with the other. Both a privilege and a puzzle.

Maybe this is the more. There is this beautiful exhortation to women:

"...older women...teach what is good...train the younger women.."  ~Titus 2v25

I love the way this connects the generations, generating a community, a continuity, an interdependence, a sense of honour for the older and a compassionate concern for the younger. The text does have cultural elements (love husbands for example, which won't apply to single women) but the overall theme is one of an older generation investing in the younger one.

Alas, this is a huge difficulty. As I look at both sides I see a huge divide. Younger women today are so different from their older sisters! The access, opportunity, self-determination, knowledge base, even values are so different. I feel intimidated and wonderfully overwhelmed at what the younger set can get up to. I wonder if they need me at all. 

It's not unusual to find one generation flustered over the other; and mothers, aunts and older women in general cannot find successors for work and ministry. 

But this isn't in the end about fashion, language and technological changes. We can learn the LOLs and who doesn't love emojis:

This is about something deeper. We have a bent away from each other. Reaching out, trusting, risking a relationship has always been difficult. No one wants to feel foolish, or worse, get rejected. The air we breathe today breeds individualism and narcissism. 

It will take a lot of humility on both sides to look up and gaze across until our we sense that in the older/younger woman is a heart beating much like ours; and perhaps women who can --

enjoy both kopi-see and Latte
eat chee-cheong fun today and eggs benedict tomorrow
read 150 Psalms as well as Fifty Shades (or about it)
articulate her core values and listen to new ones
hold on to her faith and hold on to a doubter
release her children to adolescence yet go ga-ga over new borns

The in-betweeners.

These women can remind us all that while some strain will always exist between the generations; there is equally, if not more true; a precious bond in sisterhood that becomes bold and holds us all together if we tend to it. 

I hope to do so; and if you are my peer, join me. Just this: please let me know so I know you are real!


Your story and your scars are important for the next generation if you share it out of love for them.

Do you sometimes miss your peers?
How can you reach someone older, or someone younger?

Sisters all, we need the 3 S's !

My own journey to my feminine self, speaking to many and walking with individuals over the last decade – deepened my conviction that we need 3 S’s; each one of us.

But these 3 S’s cannot be bought or earned. Instead, they become ours when we are able to receive. And this-is-hard for most of us.

We are natural care-givers, community builders, romantics at heart. We bring beauty, colour and energy to homes, relationships, tasks.  But precisely so, we often find it hard to receive. After all, who gives? Everyone takes.

Plus if we scrub harder; we find that all our giving is a seeking – we want attention, approval, affection, affirmation.

She’s so thoughtful

What a gorgeous dress

 So gifted

How do you do it?

We want the 3 S/s: self-worth, security, significance.

Self-worth is of course now a famous make-up tagline: because you’re worth it! But they get it wrong. A hundred dollar bill will not cease to be worth a hundred dollar even if it got wet, wrinkled and lightly torn. This is the nature of worth. But we live in presentation culture. Recently, the world found its largest gem. It was discovered by a little African girl. The gem however is not hers though she found it. L' Incomparable the diamond  is now worth a whopping 55mil -- because of the process of clarity it underwent and the bejeweling to set it for presentation + all the marketing it generated. I wonder if anyone rewarded that little girl anything decent. In our market culture then, even if we are worth anything, we must showcase this worth with skincare and make up.

A short line from a Taiwanese drama I saw as a little girl has somehow stayed with me. In it two girlfriends were talking – about men. One of them was explaining her choice of man: “he can give me security” (he was the richer option).  But can he, truly? Security is elusive as long as we are counting on fallible humans to supply us with it.  People change, economies crash, love turns cold.

Some 980 million women and children live below the poverty line. Their dreams are basic. If they want to be noticed; it’s because they don’t want to miss any handouts. But for many of us who never ever really worry about staying alive; we who have clambered up Maslow’s pyramid; we crave the attention that will proclaim, “she’s really something!”.

Worth.Security.Significance.

We simply cannot live without them. So we will find them – somehow.

Unless ~

There is a way that they come to us – as whispers from beyond, gifts that turn up at our door....

The birthday surprise {I am worth celebrating}

The words that reassure {I am supported and defended}

The way we fight for our children {I make a difference}

Life offers us moments when we can choose to believe afresh that we have worth, are secure and have significance. But life also throws us all about and all of it can become gnarled and shredded.

So I dig deeper and track further to find a more steady spring of wellness… to that ~

“spring of living water, the cistern that holds water”  

Jeremiah 2v13

Birthday (B)log!

 A strenuous dream stirred me awake..in the wee hours of 31st December. Thankfully, I was tired enough to fall back asleep. I next opened my eyes to a brightened room and my mind began to fill fast with thoughts of things undone, tasks to do, and ideas loving to consider. But soon, a sense of weariness crept in. ‘Happy birth-day’ should be about my being, not my do-ing!

Forty-six years ago, Love ushered me into this world...why?

For years it has been my habit to spend some part of my birthday looking back to trace Grace-prints, mark the pits and my folly that helped me stumble into them...and then to listen for the Wind's blowing for the new year.

I was sick last year after a busy Christmas season, and trundled clumsily into January...feeling totally awful and unprepared for 2012. But I felt a relief ...a reminding; that even my good habits must not overtake God and His Grace. I sensed the Wind late; it wasn't until January 14th that my new journal was ready. Epiphany.

After settling the kids’ breakfast, I sat to write in my journal. A plain recording of the moments up to that point...I had no appetite for breakfast, ideas or plans..so I wrote the last line: "today I shall drift". I  texted a few girlfriends. One of them replied, " sounds like a good 'plan'!".

Well, even drifting was challenging since I had to co-ordinate with hubby about kids...some one as always lays a way. How does one negotiate drifting?

The time came for me to hop on the train into town. Two of my older sisters are meeting me for tea. We went to a small shop filled with ornamental angels, chests, and posters, and clusters of chairs around tables. We sit in a corner and begin to examine the menu. I love trying stuff, but we settle for two pre-designed tea sets of bruschetta, cakes and scones.

 Being intentional and pastoral, I often ponder about our conversations. But today my mind gets to rest- I am drifting! The conversation was true and fast...hearts were bared through long diatribes about stubborn daughters and 'individuating' sons. Life is. Sisters are special- we can keep up the talking since most of the drama of our lives revolve around people we all know. My sisters agree at the end it maybe a good idea to invite my nieces and nephew to a new series on Love. The sister with the persistent cough may go off chicken on my suggestion...stuff of life.

The kids were excited dad got the Two Towers (I keep calling the them the Twin Towers) DVD. I slipped out to share some cake with a neighbor then came back to finish the movie and settle them for bed - a whole  hour later than I had instructed! My plan to be at a Watchnight service weakened. I showered and put on my flannel pjs, the rain has been falling lightly most of the night so it is now very cool for the tropics....

And I hope to drift off to sleep soon....

Every day is in itself un-repeatable; filled with details oft unplanned and perhaps even unwanted. Life has always been about this paradoxical tension of and/or: you plan, you also cannot plan. But on my birthday, planning was really low – which is a rest when you live in a busy city filled with expectations, longings and fears.