How Are You? {and why we should keep asking it}

Yes, I do want to know.

I get that you doubt me. Experience has taught me to skim this question and offer up the expected responses:

“Good, and you?”, “Couldn’t be better!” and the more local one, “Ok la, coping”.

I did once attempt to actually answer the question, and started launching into some detail about what I was going through. The poor person looked at once flummoxed and frustrated.

Right now, everyone seems to be going through the same thing  in a billion variations, and we can well be too tired to ask.

Historically, this question has been asked for more than three hundred years, its earliest use traced to Anglo-Saxon origin and often related to an inquiry about one’s state of health and had variants including:

How is it with you?

How do you today?

How goes the world with you?

Mockery becomes humans, so we have this record of an exchange between a man and his dog from a 1748 translation of Terrance’s Comedies:

Gnat[ho]. Gnatho greets his dearest dear Friend Parmeno with his best Wishes: how are you?

Par[meno]. On my Legs.

Gnat[ho]. Pshaw, I know that : — — but dost thou see Nothing here that thou dost not like ?

Par[meno]. Yes, you.

Understandably, you and I have both thought and heard it said that this question should be tossed. Really, why bother asking if we aren’t interested.

I disagree.

We have to keep asking this question.

Here’s why.

The person asking it gets a chance to interrupt the typical self-absorbed heart-brain circuitry. Sure it is a fetch to claim this will develop the needed quality of empathy, but it does help force us to focus, even if only so momentarily briefly, on another person.

Secondly, homo sapiens need meaningful emotional connection. While this question may be posed as one is passing another along the corridor, and probably won’t lead to a lengthy discourse and disclosure, it is far better than an icy non-recognition of a fellow human being.

As an Asian where words aren’t the currency of interest, where affection is more often expressed in acts of service, I remember feeling so good the first time I traveled to Australia and was greeting everywhere by total strangers.

But yes, we have reasons to be cynical.

Why expect anyone to ask since everyone is fighting some battle?

Why get asked if the asker isn’t really going to wait around for a proper answer?

Why ask If i am not genuinely interested?

These are all valid.

But rather than toss out a good thing which we haven’t learnt to do well, perhaps we can learn to do it better?

Today, I asked this question of several persons I cared about — via text — this way:

“How are you? I know it’s not an easy one to answer. So why not give me a one-word response that comes most promptly to mind?”

I got replies.

And — I got asked back!

If you actually know the person some, and have figured out how not to live your life at blur-speed, then variants of this question can be employed:

“How is {something specific} lately?”

“How is your health?”

“How are you with working from home?”

“How are the kids/dog/cat/plants/parents?”

Every bit of connection with another living, breathing being touches Life. It may be in our time where there is so much noise and people engage in shouting matches, this question, softly posed, could be a harbinger of better days.

I go to my journal often and ask myself this Q. After all, the greatest discovery I am responsible for, is the knowledge of myself.

As I rant and ramble, spilling ink on paper, sense and nonsense jostle for space. Me, a convoluted summation of feelings, sensations, thoughts and ideals, pains and regrets, prayers with and without words…

How am I?

I guess it does depend on which part of me you would like to know for each bit is a story of its own.

The stories interlace and sometimes the plot gets stuck. At other times, one story seems to runaway and all I am catching my breath trying to make sense of it. Most times though, the stories make me feel like I am living multiple lives.

So perhaps, my answer depends on whether there’s a dominant story playing and whether I can find the words to explain it to you. Or perhaps, it’s mostly a flimsy answer that says, “I am trying to live my stories out”, and since I am alive, yea, ‘I’m good’ will be an accurate answer.

What about you?

How are you?

(share a one-word answer in the comment, and let’s see the responses)

Re-Opening: but are our souls ready?

I guess we are all trying to find our way and make it out alive.

Missy Fant | Unsplash

We are re-opening.

Here in Singapore, we are doing it in Phases, hoping to avoid a dreaded second-wave of infection.

And we are going about this at surface level. This is the level of "how" - and we are incredibly good at it. There is a rumour that Singaporeans are renowned for our "gunghow". The joke goes that when the Singapore delegation enters an international pow-wow meeting, everyone cheers because now finally things are going to happen.

I love the rumour but also not.

We all know the "how" of things while important can in fact be the enemy of the "why". When things run efficiently, we reach a state of satisfaction that lulls us into thinking all is well. It works, doesn't it?

The "it works" argument is in fact a very weak one. We can make many things work. But to what ends?

Because we did not have the painful conversations in the past, we had a massive crisis recently with the migrant workers. We were not wise or mature enough to dig into the "why", and settled for the "how" by building these large dormitories which on hindsight, were easy to abuse and open to degradation.

A good number of us actually feel ambivalent about the end of our circuit breaker. But I am guessing, we have not had the time to access our deep emotions and convictions about it. 

With everyone so excited about re-opening, and having missed our previous habits, the much needed exercise in asking "why" may once again be the one we tossed in the KIV bin.

But friends, we have just gone through months of:

watching our organised-just-so world unravel, each day bringing new information about a tremendous losses and looming uncertainty

fears, falsehoods and frenzied efforts pile and tumble as we try to explain and expunge disease and death

finding ourselves stuck with the same landscape and experiencing life as ‘zoombies’

Our souls are struggling to breathe as its roots reach for water where the regular streams of religious habits have run dry, its petals curling and drying out as fatigue overcomes us and emotions choke the xylem and phloem of things-once-managed just so.

My body has had to stay home, but my soul reached and strained — for comfort, for truth, for love.

When I read the rare piece of good news, of neighbourliness and a decline in infections, when I could treat myself to world class ballet for free online, when funny memes and so many gratuitous videos put out distracted me, my soul felt consoled.

But swiftly, came the bad news, and too often. The finger-pointing and the fire-fighting at every corner… my soul convulsed.

What have you noticed about your soul?

It is all well and good should we resume our activities and restore our economy.

But surely you admit that the real currency of life is love, and that all our tactics to restore normalcy faces the formidable enemy of division should our souls pull away from each other in fear, suspicion and strife?

So how are our souls re-opening?

This Pandemic revealed for me a privilege I did not enjoy deeply before.

Like most, my work and income was impacted and life changed as we all worked from home. But my family life is largely peaceable even though my Enneagram Four self will always be a little edgy. I have savings and my children do not have expensive consumer habits. I live in a nation where our government can draw down reserves to help us. Finally, I have a contemplative side that makes me able to delight in my living space and not struggle with boredom or cabin fever.

So unlike many, staying home has not at all been a strain for me. The only sign that this isn’t completely normal for me is how my extroverted self behaved in a recent time when I left the house to do an on-site recording, where I talked to every human in sight!

In fact, the re-opening troubles me a little.

This Pandemic Pause has created a unique time in our history to reconsider many things, indeed life itself. I worry that this important work has only barely begun.

It is like when you go on a vacation, and find that it takes some time to leave it all behind, for your body to relax, for your emotions to calm and for your soul to begin to feel free to explore. In fact, many of us don’t know what it means to reach this point of rest and being present, which explains why we return from vacations feeling like we need a break to recover from the break!

Like most every one else, I am not sure where everything is headed.

But I noticed that my soul felt safe, stable and generative in certain moments. Those moments yielded a calm, courage and creativity that I needed to love, pray and work. It gave me a sense of certitude despite the looming reality of uncertainty.

As I recount those times, I realised that my soul sought Solitude, Solace and Solidarity.

Solitude

In modern life, most of us dread being by ourselves. The Pandemic enforced solitude on many of us. But in truth, solitude needs to be chosen. To fail to choose it is to default to what seems a similar state, but is vastly different: aloneness.

Aloneness churns a sense of loneliness and with it, many doubts and fears.

But solitude is a state of desiring and delighting in one’s own company.

It is soul-space. It is where we can become curious about our complex selves. It is where we can challenge our complacent selves. It is where we can comfort our contentious selves.

Solace

What we find out about ourselves don’t always feel positive. What we discover about our journeys don’t always feel productive.

We have this self-sabotaging habit called ‘exceptionalism’, where we believe that no one in the wide world understands or has experienced what we are undergoing.

There is a kernel of truth in this in that we are each truly unique beings. Yet this habit has led many to a degree of isolation that is psychically risky.

The soul needs solace.

To be comforted by another that is Stronger and more stable.

Many during this Pandemic have noticed the needs of the poor and at risk. But most of us have not considered that our very own souls need care too.

Solidarity

Since my late teens, more than two decades ago, I have dreamt of a peace-loving community that would serve society. It was at best a vague notion, and I sounded like an existentially-angst teen seeking utopia.

But this Pandemic has revealed how our systems are overwrought and encumbered, narrow and near-sighted.

With industry halted, the fresh air becomes a metaphor for what our souls want: to breathe well so as to thrive.

There is no way we can reinvent, renew and restore our world unless we find creative and generative ways to collaborate, redesign and work out new ways to produce, consumer, shape and steer.

Family, education, politics, economy, industry, and art — every arena can be re-imagined, if we dare to.

You and I have to find our way and make it out alive.

I recommend your tools include: solitude, solace and solidarity.

See you on the other side.

You are the Best Parents For Your Child(ren): even when they are as tall as you and more!

Life has been reduced to our starting places: the home, where life begins for all of us. Good homes, struggling homes, rich homes, suffering homes...

Each of our lives is a story of home.

Boo at age 2+

Being at home so much, with my newly minted Young Adult Daughter, I thought we could do a series of videos - because it dawned on me: talking to a YA child isn't always easy.

Actually in my case, I found it hard to talk to her when she hit her teen years.

So I thought that some honest videos of us talking may be helpful and fun.

Here is the first one. We call it MaBoo (Boo is my term of endearment for her after we watched Monsters' Inc, yup).

Conversations with your YA child video #1


All the videos go up on my Facebook ;D


Feel free to watch, share & comment with your thoughts and Qs.

Running Into the shadow of death: Holy Saturday reflections

We are all avoiding the plague of our times: the Covid-19.

But what if the entire purpose of this pandemic is to force us to face up to things we have avoided, ignored, neglected, feared -- so that we may all truly live?

***

This Holy Saturday, we can learn from the experience of the disciples as we consider their journey, and find courage to run into the shadow of death.

Jesus began sharing about his impending death with his disciples months before the dreadful event came to pass. It is understandable that they neither expect nor want to face that reality. Perhaps they chose to hear it as a parable, one that did not seem to directly impact them as yet.

In the final week, these disciples would both enjoy and endure a complex of emotions and thoughts beginning with the raucous welcome of the crowds as they entered Jerusalem, a positivity that would soon be become an alchemy of confusion, anger, cowardice and despair.

Eventually, as the inevitable reality hit them that their beloved Teacher and Friend was overcome by the political machinery of the day and had died, the only thing they could do was flee for their lives, huddling together in fearful trepidation. They had chosen to follow this Rabbi and were expecting a bright future, but what they were left with was complete vulnerability and uncertainty.

***

We too plan our lives and choose to follow bright light and great ideas we expect would lead to good outcomes: that promotion, that expansion, that success, that accolade.

Along the way, our overriding passion invariably run roughshod over lesser matters, like relationships, the environment, the next generation, our faith.

As millions of us live this way, we create ecosystems of illusions where we focus on our bubble of security and success, consumption and comparison.

Covid-19 has burst our bubbles.
Covid-19-19 has shown up the cracks of our ecosystems.
Clovis-19 has revealed the hearts of leaders and followers alike.

This virus with a crown, like the Saviour with His crown, forces us to confront our illusions and realities.

For the longest time, those who are able and privileged, educated and trained, knew about the cracks.

The disciples were taught to be humble, serve, trust, and live in missional faith. But there were deeper issues they need to face up to. There were clues when they jostled for favour and when they continued to speak before they truly heard.

But they were the chosen.
We were the middle-class and rich who lived comfortable (even if stressful) lives.

But they had the Master who calmed seas and feed thousands.
Our crazed chase for the next Instagrammable moment, fancy meal and exotic destination (and these can be ‘spiritual’), gave us an invincibility cloak of sorts.

God let it all come apart at the seams, forcing us to look at how weak our stitching of rationale, practice and soul are.

All the issues that this created world and its poorest inhabitants face as an ongoing reality now confronts us: food security, freedom, choices, mortality.

You see, the poorest in our world live literally moment by moment. They won’t know when cholera, measles, an auto accident, a work accident, or a fist fight can change their lives forever.

This level of human vulnerability is foreign to most of us.
Even with this pandemic, some of us have governments that nanny us so well, that things are mitigated.

What if you did not have healthcare?
What if a lockdown is activated in a few hours and your home is 300 kilometres away?
What if social distance isn’t quite possible because you share a dormitory with fifteen others?

***

Holy Saturday is the day the Bible has no record of. Nothing happened — it seems - except for a lot of soul search.

Did the disciples accuse each other?
Did they look back and try to trace for clues to make sense of things?
Did they confess their sins to each other and seek forgiveness?

In all probability, they did all of that and more.

For one thing, each of them decided to remain with the others.

Who are the people who have been in your journey?
How can you take the conversation deeper - to the level of your soul?
What traveling companions will you pick for your onward journey?


The prophet Isaiah helped us see this -

But the LORD was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief…. (54v10)

For God, there is a necessary pain He allows because of the greater good that can come out of it.

From climate crisis to corruption to mental health issues, God sees a greater good coming out of this Pandemic.

Do we?

Let us not merely hope for things to go back to the way things were. That is going back. No, we need to go forward.

To do so, we have to search our souls, rend our hearts, change our minds.
To do so, we have to relinquish our ‘rights’ to a way of life we designed for our maximum comfort and minimum cost.
To do so, we have join with others to create new ecosystems and continue to reimagine life so that others may flourish too.

***

It is Holy Saturday.

We are awashed with a complex of emotions.

Personally, my WhatsApp is filled with a array of messages filled with memes, anger about the government, information about where to get help etc etc.

My own life has taken a jolt. Even as I already work from home, there are nonetheless adjustments with the loss of income, the limitation of movement and of course, home-based learning. Life goes on too, with one parent hospitalised and my own health being investigated.

I have to deal with these. But more importantly, I have to grief for our world - that God loves and gave His Son for - and search my own soul, for how things should be. 


The future is being built in the present, and real change comes when we are desperate enough for it.


May this Holy Saturday find us desperate enough for a whole new world.

***

Eventually, the women decided to visit the tomb. Once the Sabbath was over and movement was allowed, these women headed towards the site of death. It is a surprising move that they had the courage to face the soldiers guarding it. It is a strange development for women to want to bring their emotional wreckage to a closure. Or perhaps, used to the earthy tasks of preparation, they simply did what they would normally have done…

But O what awaited them!

This pandemic is giving us an extended Holy Saturday. God knows our soul search needs to be extensive and intensive.

Will we brave it and walk right into the shadow of death?
The death of our old ways?
The death of our cherished habits?
The death of our values?

This kind of courageous soul-searching requires solitude: set times to reflect, think and pray.

Head over to  Quiet Morning  {click here} where I provide a resource for us to learn to do that.


May we be desperate, brave and intentional — — so as to be surprised by the Resurrection!

[this was first written and published on Medium]

Turn your Isolation into a Gift: Quiet Morning

Isolation is hard.

While some joke about how this time of distancing and staying home suits Introverts, the truth is we all need meaningful connection.

And possibly the most meaningful connection to have is with oneself and with God.

Too many people are strangers to themselves - what makes them tick, why some things perturb them so much, what can help them move forward, how to stop the endless loops...

Too many who claim faith struggle to trust God - the Unseen One.

This is why (and thanks to friends who egged me on) I am making

Quiet Morning 

more widely available.

I realise that the simple decision to set aside time, to lean towards Being rather than Doing, to slow down and open our entire selves before God and to relish a morsel of truth is so transformative.

I hope many will join this and experience something we do desperately need in this world: peace within ourselves, peace with God... which enables us to become peacemakers - and this Pandemic has shown us how far from peace: creation damage, discrimination, weak healthcare systems, mangled political realities that hurt the poor and weak...

In God's mercy, He has sent Light so we also do see good being done by many during this Pandemic. But overall and understandably, this has also aroused a sense of PAN(dem)IC.

I would admit that it has not been easy. Different ones of us find different parts of it hard. From work to family life, to developing fastidious hygiene habits and ensuring that there are groceries... it is easy to go overboard with the news, go under the sense of helplessness, go round and round with all that needs to be done! Even as one who has worked from home for so long, I find this prolonged season of unfolding bad news wearisome.

This made me believe that all the more, we have to seek out space to calm our fears, understand what is going on and sow into a way of life that can bear much fruit both now and in the future.

I believe in a Life-giving God, who painfully allows this to awaken us to what Life is truly about, and is drawing us towards a way of life that will be more peaceful, truthful and bountiful.



As I started this post, I saw a picture of a seed.

Photo by Artur Łuczka on Unsplash

Unless we stop to think of it, it's easy to forget that a seed is so full of promise and potential. In each seed is the possibility of an Orchard!

But the seed must endure isolation, loneliness, and apparent death, to all it has known. It needs to be broken open, risk, to allow it's generative ability to play out as it lets go, endures a change and stretches towards the sun.

Yes, this feels like a season of great loss, and I do not diminish the real loss of jobs and security  that many do face. But it can be a good and necessary loss, one that if we are willing to endure may lead us to a way to both empathise and act on behalf of those who are at the brink of losing everything.



It is also a season of wilderness. All our highways are empty and streets and squares are quiet*...and we feel collectively sent out into the wilderness where things are stripped down to a sense of survival.

But again, this imagery and experience holds another dimension. The wilderness in Scripture is a very special, appointed place for divine exchange. It is where Abraham encounters God the Promise Maker,  Moses gets his commission and experiences God as the Deliverer, where countless battles are fought and won... and where Jesus drew the line of his ultimate loyalty to God his Father.

Down through the ages, the wilderness is sought by those who are spiritually serious. We have to learn to welcome it as God brings it. For He is there waiting, for us to show up,

If you dare get up and go forth to meet God, you will find that His Word is true, powerful and even accurate, and you will also meet and know yourself much better.

And my dear friend, we need you in our world.


I have much more to share, but for now, this should suffice.

Here, would you take a look at this:

Facebook Video

Then, I hope you will hop over to this page to get started: Quiet Morning Details



*Empty now: a 5 min video of major cities today

Toilet Paper Run: is there more than fear at work?

It began in Hong Kong. Then it happened in Singapore. The story then darkened when armed gangs resorted to thievery, no doubt believing that the once humble toilet paper will soon fetch a handsome sum.

Most recently, as the incidence of the Coronavirus infection begin to spot more places in the world, we see the same behaviour. Apocalyptic purchasing has existed for a while in the once CHristian United States, where the Christian narrative of the End Time is woven into the cultural narrative in thick and thin strands.

But Japan surprised us. Orderly, organised, lawful Japan.

Kentaro Takahashi, Bloomberg

Not only did their shelves empty, measures such as this had to be taken even:

https://soranews24.com/2020/03/02/people-in-japan-are-now-stealing-toilet-paper-in-midst-of-coronavirus-crisis/

Everyone wants to know: WHY‌ toilet paper?

The virus’ effects do not include diarrhoea. This prompted Youtuber NileRed to release this
'scientific video', funnily suggesting that it was for moonshine!


What's your theory?

My puzzlement led me back to a theory I read a few years back: Rene Girard’s Mimetic Theory. It isn’t too huge a stretch to say that it is the theory that explains everything – psycho-social. Girard's astounding observation is that human behaviour is mostly us copying each other.

Here is a brief video that explains it: The Mimetic Theory in brief

The question is why? At the heart of it ---


We are beings of Desire. But we inevitably get our cues for what is desirable by watching and aping us. Remember the Joneses and the commandment given by smoke and thunder to ‘not covet’? Both the idiom and the command cuts right at the heart of how we desire and what it can drive us to do.

Why toilet paper? Because if someone else is doing it with zeal, we are safer off doing it too, just in case. Yes, herd mentality. But more than herd mentality, it is our desire, to be safe, to be right. So, just -in-case.

For all our loud prognostications about progress and enlightenment, access to information and advancements in technological abilities, we are still basically lost little creatures hoping to get something right.

That’s our pulse. The fear of losing, losing out, and being lost.

Girard is right. I see it in my own life and countless others I observe. We have a deep inward drive to reach for something to slake the thirst of Desire, but we don’t really know how to, because the Desire is lost under layers of parental training, folk wisdom, modern science, personality preferences, and favourable as well as unfavourable life experiences. Our feelings, brains, and circumstances conspire to point us in certain directions. Our agency is severely compromised.

So yes, there is a virus of fear, but its host is our restless, aimless hearts.


The profundity in this little phrase is often missed:

Perfect love casts out all fear*

Fear is resident, it dwells, stalks, lingers… and has to be cast out. The only force strong enough isn’t information - “we assure you there is enough". To cure this primordial, existential fear requires something far stronger. It takes Love.

But O how our views and experiences of Love are so broken, inadequate and tainted.

Who really loves me, we ask in quiet desperation when we are stark honest. Is there a way to be loved without the burden of guilt - that sense that we aren't really measuring up, or worth it?

Is it possible to know such a Love that we can rest and believe that we will make it through another day, even sans toilet paper?

Such a Love cannot be rooted in emotion. It cannot rise from the soil of accomplishments. It certainly isn't found in our wanting it, no matter how mighty we fantasize.

We get glimpses of it in kindness, faithfulness, affirmation, support, and understanding. These are important signposts that such a Love exists, but in the long road of life, we long to walk towards what these signposts point towards: a Being of Love.

So really, the fear is a symptom, of our Desire.

We desire to find out and be found by this Being of Love. 

But who has time to seek, search and scour? So despite the needle of our heart's compass pointing true north, it flings wildly as we throw ourselves into work, relationships, causes and a thousand lesser lodes of magnetism.

What if this Being of Love not only waits for us at journey's end, but is present and involved in our lives now?

Yes, right now, in the middle of it all, of the mess, of the mistakes, of the morose reality of our times.

We need to encounter this Being of Love, and we need an experience that creates a way for us as mimetic beings to fashion our lives after a worthy model.

We need a Whole Love and a Wholesome model.

Perhaps this is why God had to send his son Jesus to live as a fully human being, to suffer hunger, deprivation, disappointment, loneliness, opposition and even betrayal. Even a cursory look at what he lived through leads to an inescapable conclusion: this guy is relatable (even as a woman, I can say that).

More than that, we find Jesus desirable. He is the One we want to be like.

The way he stands his ground, speaks with authority, and act with compassion. The way he can relate to children, authority figures, the old and marginalised. His confidence, composure and convictions. His sense of purpose and passion. The light in his eyes as he tells another parable laced with humour. His gentleness.

The perfect human.


So the great Christian truths that God has made a way to set us free, to restore our agency, to start us on a homeward journey towards Desire is the answer to the toilet paper run, or rather to stop running after metaphorical toilet paper.

And if you are willing, Jesus has made it all possible.



*1 John 4v18

This phrase is found in a larger text:

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

In the contemporary Message version :

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.

We, though, are going to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

If anyone boasts, “I love God,” and goes right on hating his brother or sister, thinking nothing of it, he is a liar. If he won’t love the person he can see, how can he love the God he can’t see? The command we have from Christ is blunt: Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both.

And this powerful song, which I learnt when I lost my beloved brother, reminds me that my worst fears are swallowed up in Love:

Blessings


Note:
Mimetic Theory has another important dimension: the Scapegoat theory. Again, we find this happening - the blame game. The Chinese, the government, the neighbour - are all convenient scapegoats for us because agency is painful and hard for us who are wandering and wondering. A good summary article: https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2018/11/16/evolution-rene-girard

There's a Question knocking on your door. Mine today: what to do about kids and phones?

Questions

I live with questions all the time. I suspect you do too. The kind we know cannot really be answered by Google.

These sorts of questions come knocking, and we have to decide if we will open the door and let them in. It’s a real risk because they may look shabby and smell worse. It’s a real hassle because sometimes they come with minors in tow - questions that beget questions.

But until we open the door, pull out a chair, offer a cup, take a seat, and listen, really listen, they never go away.

And by going away, it does not mean new ones won’t arrive. It means that our homestead, our soul has grown larger to accommodate and even enjoy their presence. For in time, we realise that these questions originated from us, and the need to come back home to us, where they are welcomed and integrated into our lives.

***

I woke early today while it was dark. It’s a practice I like to began a little more than a year ago but have had trouble keeping this year. This morning I was very surprised to find how fresh and even happy I felt to be sitting, waiting for the day to arrive.

As we know, each day is packaged by us in time slots and events and do-items. But this scaffold is hardly what the day is really about. It’s the messages, impressions, interactions and questions they pose that really make our day, because these are the things that actually shape us.

Annie Dillard famously said they how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.

She is of course referring to what we fill our days with. What goes into the blocks of moments and hours. What preoccupies us and more.

But what is this life we have that we are able to spend? Or expend? What do we lose as we spend it, what do we gain as we expend it?

Julian Alden Neer

I stood by the window, focusing on the bird calls to block out all the ubiquitous construction noises (welcome to Singapore - the island that every builds).

***

Like many parents, I struggle with how children adore their devices and spend inordinate amounts of time on it. We have done all the talking, structuring, threatening, rewarding and more… mine are not addicted by any stretch, but there is a pain in my heart to see that it’s such a default mode for them.

I admit that not being a fan of tech (and having severe worries about its effects, having being a student of philosophical positions of Ellul and Muggeridge) did propel towards a offensive-defensive game about it, with me mostly being sent to the bleaches in time out. Yes, it’s hard to win. You end up being the loser parent, who’s stuck in ‘her time’, unreal about things as they presently are… especially when your kids are plugged into a system that forms them for most of their waking hours, which uses tech with little careful thought.

Children bored after exams? Show them a movie or funny videos.

Hard to explain that concept? The entertaining explanatory Youtube vid to the rescue.

Too much to juggle? Update them via whatsapp.

Keep up with the times! Let every kid use a laptop (necessitating an entire IT‌ dept to police their use)

I tried to understand that these are ‘digital natives’. Machine learning is fine. At one time, it’s as if all kinds of craft and trade were enhanced - when the hairdresser or the architect can simulate, calculate, postulate.

But so much is plain mindlessness now.

So this morning, a question bubbled to my consciousness: are we losing entire generations to a soul numbing, mind dulling, relationship-starving way of life?

I realise this is what bothers me about it all.

Life is such a precious gift and we squander it, spend it, expend it so foolishly.

I ask my son, “don’t you want to explore anything? how about build something” go someplace?“

The answer is invariably no.

This is a kid I took to museums, maker faires, baked with, had long conversations, read poetry and made videos with. Where did he go?

Then something else hit me.

The phone and all it promises is way too easy, and our kids are way too tired.

So there is something corroborating here: adults, who build systems.

Parents who build systems in the home usually described in two words: busy and functional.

Educators who build systems our kids embed in: competitive and crowded.

The larger societal systems our kids whiff: dangerous and difficult.

Don’t you want to hide too?


My son will say I over-psychologise. I can and do. But almost always, I am also on to something. My questions are trying to serve me.

At this point, I wonder then if my children are really media literate? What am I modeling with my use of tech? How else can I build a family culture that really serves the generation entrusted to me? Is there a rallying call here for parents to arise to intercede and take back lost ground? Should we push back and get schools to really examine their methodologies?

It’s a big question. I just made a cup of coffee.



What question is knocking on your door?



notes:

Annie Dillard - American author, famous for her powerful nature prose. Quotable: "A schedule defends from chaos and whim."

Jacques Ellul - French philosopher and aly theologian, Quotable: "The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief."

Malcolm Muggeridge - British journalist and social critic. Quotable: "Every happening, great and small, is a parable whereby God speaks to us, and the art of life is to get the message."

Discipleship: today, yesterday, forever

It feels like this.

Emma Frances Logan

Let’s see. It’s 2020. This means that I have known about, know and still continue to know Jesus … for more than forty years. Nearly all those years I have been a leader of sorts. I started standing in front of the rest of the children to lead songs, tell stories…then I was in committees, task force teams, ministry teams.

All this time, one word never ever went away, out of fashion, or became redundant.

Discipleship.

Justin Kauffman

Gary Butterfield

Massimo Satirana

We took it apart, looked at its nuts and bolts, studied, argued, wrote papers, tried programs, saw some ‘success’ and almost an equal amounts (it feels*) of ‘failure’.

We got frustrated, distracted, impatient, and reached impasse at times. We then set it aside…but soon, the word invariably found it way to lips, conversations, pulpit and meeting minutes.

In all of this, our human tendency to seek a silver bullet did not serve us well. 

Such marvelous fare we tried (and so important we did) -

TNet | NewLife | SonLife | 2:7 | Roots and Wings | Willow | Saddleback

We Navigated, Crusaded, Rallied, 'Seminared'  ad nauseam.

We used:

Small groups 
Cell groups
Affinity groups
Mission groups
Age Groups (kidschurch, youthchurch etc.)
Online
Offline


And still, the haze persists.


So I hid myself indoors more, and hope to offer something to clear the air.

Here are 2 thoughts to help us forward.


1. Forget Trying To Be Successful At Discipleship, Instead Urge The Next Right Step

(a) the uniqueness of each life

Each person is a story, journey and unfolding. Each life is layered, complexed, nuanced.

This means that discipleship will be hard and hardly successful, if we take a cookie-cutter approach.

When I look back at my own development, and as I hear stories of others, there is never a simple, straight trajectory. I started out Presbyterian. We had an Pentecostal preacher who filled the pulpit frequently. Then I encountered the Charismatics, as well as the Bible-Presbyterian. In Bible college, I met Catholic theologians, went to retreats led by Catholic sisters…and the story continues to unfold..

The Gospel is deep. The church is wide. God is finally, incomprehensible.

Our hearts have alleyways and backroads that cannot be educated, inspired, equipped into Christlike fullness. All our best efforts to fill up with Bible, sharing, service are like set-ups for the real deal.

Discipleship is each unique human life being yielded, one day and one moment at a time, so that the life becomes Cruciform. It is shepherding heartaches, distilling values, training willpower, championing obedience.

And -we have to learn to do this in our own lives first.

Then, as Jesus said to Peter, “turn around and strengthen your brothers”.

It is a lifelong journey of ongoing ‘yes’ to God being God, who knows better and cares more intimately then we dare dream.

This also means that –

Children can be discipled

Youths can be discipled

Adults, married, single, old, aging, ill, dying - we can all be discipled, for what we are is not yet clear to us, but it exists, and is real, and God wants to lead us homeward (1 Cor 1312)

I think God is really serious about diversity.

So, leaders, by all means use all means. Dream. Design. Deliberate. Definitely model it. But don’t fret overly over the outcomes. Chill and Christ both start with the letter ‘C’, see?



(b) the reality of social context

I let out a small moan even as my mind veered in my exasperation and let slip the words “when I was your age…”. Sharing our life story is one thing, but this stupid diatribe is totally futile.

The generation after us did not ask to be raised in their context. My daughter insightfully pointed out that my generation may well be the most privileged. We did not experience the war and we are not inheriting a time bomb. We have to stop wishful thinking and put our brains to better use.

At the heart of human existence and flourishing is our similar need to feel secure, have an identity and derive satisfaction from our contribution.

Think: what is trying to give our kids a sense of security, identity and satisfaction?

If we believe that God is the true and only lasting answer to the three primal needs of our lives, then how do we model and communicate that? What is garbling the signals, causing static, confusing them?

For as long as I can remember, we work really hard at ‘adapting to our culture’ - and we over-adapted, losing our bearings over time…. such as when we did age-group services and were left with a huge issue of transiting people from youth service to adult service.

We should wake up and realise that by focusing on the ‘spiritual’ and becoming ‘experts’ isn’t the best way. God designed life around truth and we have to learn to find God in all of life. 

We have to ask tough questions such as: how do people learn, encounter truth, experience change? We ought to hear from educators, sociologists and counsellors.

Yet,

there will always be fundamentals that we never ought to neglect.

The spiritual life is life - thus there must be Input, Interaction and Output. 


(i) What Inputs do we have available today?

Netflix is so ahead in its game that its CEO recently said that it’s only real competitor is sleep (yes, people sacrifice sleep to catch the stuff they purvey).

We need to create and convey good content.

(ii) What sorts of interaction is happening?

In homes and in churches? Is there safety for real exchange? Is there support for stragglers? The threat of death (not just bodily) lurks close by in the forms of distraction and distress today. Relationships are becoming strained and many feel unsafe.

We need to teach life skills that are being quickly lost today: listening, manners, disagreeing or questioning with respect.

(iii) Output.
What ways are there for people to exercise and express their faith? We need to crucify our culture’s absorption with ‘success’ so that the fear of failure is disempowered and in doing so, unleash all that time and resource (a billion dollars in the tuition industry!).


At the centre of it is the Cross, and Jesus.

My own prayer is that Jesus would be so dazzling, attractive, powerful, engaging, complete in my estimate and experience - so that those around me can catch a glimpse of it and desire it too.

Leaders -

-if the gospel becomes too familiar, tired and lack lustre, revisit it until it becomes the pearl of great price for you. Or you will sell short. 

-make friends with a broad range of people who can provide insight into the human condition and the social contexts of our flock 

-watch that you are not capitulating to popular culture. 

-go deep and gather a few for life-on-life, the way Jesus did. Trust me, you cannot do better than Jesus.

2. Focus On The Irreducible Minimum

Some churches have a lot of moolah and can do fancy parties. Most are rather basic. If God said we can make disciples of all nations, the approach has to something that can be transplanted into all cultural contexts. This is called the Irreducible Minimum.

The following will not make the list:

Starbucks coffee
Music that is branded
Certain versions of the Bible
And whole barrels of programs we have tried in the first world, middle class church.

But here is what will work:

Genuine welcome

Spiritual hunger 

Prayer 

Practical love 

Scripture - taught, discussed, meditated, memorised, applied 

The Sacraments of Baptism and Communion 

Sacrificial Familial love

Just look at this amazing list that isn’t exclusive to the rich, educated or even seminary-trained!

So maybe, just maybe, we ought to start growing in these things and see where the marvelous Holy Spirit takes us!



Finally,  a confession is in order, one I prayed many times:

O God, you offer humanity goodwill and Good News of Great Joy. 
I am so sorry I lose sight of it, prefer to get sated on other lesser pleasures, and often busy myself with things that are far removed from Your Holy Will.

Forgive the way I preach, teach, counsel, lead and on and on… often more marked by an anxiety to live up to expectations or worse, ambition - than out of a fear of You and a love for the ones You entrusted to me.

If there is any way, undo the damage where your shepherds and leaders have cause more hurt, confusion and been an overall bad witness.

Do a work in my life that cannot be explained except for the mighty Grace and Mercy of God, and in turn, let me lead others to this same stream to drink fully of it.

Whether I lead a few or a few thousand, let me never get beyond the adventure, excitement and dream that is your Kingdom - of lives touched, transforming and true.
For Christ’s sake, Amen.

*the brain remembers this stuff more readily, possibly a preservation instinct - an instinct I posit is post-Fall.

You, beloved, are an answer (in this dark, bad world), but not the usual way you think.

"Bad news sells".
"You need an arc, with a rising tension.."
"The hero must meet a challenge so great, he must risk death..."

It turns out, these are true, in news reporting, in movie-making, in our experiences.

homeless Koala

Still, we dream, yearn and often naively imagine life can be smooth-sailing. Which explains why prosperity gospel succeeds, why disciples hike off, why so much continues to break around us - from friendships to partnerships, marriage to parenting. We refuse to be heroic. We reject our villainy.

Yes - we are both heroes and villains. Light and Dark. Life and Death.

And the typical advice given is to grow the light, starve the dark (yes that tale about the old man with two dogs, one good, the other bad)... focus on the good, do more good....


Jesus tells us plainly:

No one is good—except God alone. {Mark 10v18}

You know, Jesus gets pretty absolute about things. We, prefer to hedge and fuzz.

Goodness is a God quality. We aspire, pretend, and at times achieve some good. Sometimes, even astounding good. But, our good acts aren't the same as us being good in essence. Because, honestly, our motives are rarely a hundred percent without self-interest.

God, on the other hand, is Goodness - because he really, does not need us or anything from us - but he considers our needs and cares for us.

PhyoMoe Agora Images

So I am going to suggest Another Way Altogether that will take the strife, comparison and hard edge off doing good. A way that enables us to honestly acknowledge our villainy and at the same time, arouse our heroism.

It is called Blessedness.

Blessedness is not an intrinsic or earned quality. It is bestowed, given, offered - and there is great power when we realise our blessedness.

Blessedness is not about avoiding pain, skirting hardship, being protected from loss, confusion, regrets or even recurring struggles.

It has very little in fact, to with the externals of your life: from relationships to possessions, realities to potentialities. Rather, is is a depth-experience of being wanted, being a great idea, fearfully and wonderfully crafted. It's the truth of your life as being valid, precious, unique...of you being sensed, felt, loved...

It is a truth that gets infused into the sinews and molecules of your being when ordinary life is touched by the Transcendent, when the temporal shimmers with the eternal, when the wind from angelic wings whiff close..., what Paul described as "being seated in the heavenly realms {Ephesians 1v3} --- a Position, a Posture, and a Potential that you cannot bargain for, access by force or sneak by scheming.

Instead, you are led to such a place, with royalty, with God, because you dared to follow...and you find yourself coming...Home. The one Home you have been searching for all you life!

 In this Home-space, feel safe, it's bounteous, and full of Life -- even though not a bit of your circumstances may have changed...  yet.. --

From here, you regard everything with a strange sense...like invincibility: 'how can anything ever really hurt you, again?'.  At the same time, you have a ready vulnerability, where you are no longer afraid and feel the need to hide your darker shades of your story.

Both the Light and the Dark become stark and real, and you know a Greater Truth embraces and encompasses both.

Your power of choice is pressed upon your soul and you find yourself choosing again, and again, for the Light.


At Home, in God's courts, which are held by the pillars of righteousness and faithfulness, there's no falsification, pretense or role-play. Rather, there's an inverted sense of abandonment. Whereas life in general reinforces our loneliness and weaknesses, often causing us feelings of rejection and abandonment, here, we can release our efforts and masks and rest in a security and safety that makes -no - demands of us, yet gently compels us to be the best versions of ourselves.

Home is where we belong, where we are beloved and come to see our Blessedness. Home is being with God in complete honesty and surrender.

And so, we can do the most good because we have come Home to Goodness.


The way home is a mixture of large, determined, upward strides, as well as small, consistent steps. These involve three trails.

(1) Detachment - to free us

This is not to become some unfeeling glob please! Rather, it's about refusing to be fooled into thinking that our identity and worth depend on people, possessions and pains. We can define ourselves in so many ways. Some choose family, others choose achievements, yet other still, frame themselves in their pains.

Things that are a part of our lives shape us, and may even confine us. But they don't have to define us.

Yes, every day, something, someone, your past or your future can threaten to cloud over the truth of your Blessed Belovedness.

But, if you step away from it all for a bit, and sit with the deeper truth that you are Blessed and Beloved, that in the midst of the hard and nasty, God is with you and offers you Life and Light.... in time, the veil is torn and you find that you are Home.

Try it and see.

Cry when you need.
Rant when you need.
Then, silence your rancour and let Scripture's cleansing and renewing power do its work.


(2) Contentment- to anchor us

Life cannot be savored in retirement. It has to savored now. (In fact, if you cannot taste life's goodness now, you may not later, and..what about.. heaven!).

Money loses its charm after a time, and can turn around to be a mean and demanding master.

Jesus used very graphic language:

the pagans run after these things... {Matt 6v33}

Running is a strenuous activity. It demands a lot, engages a lot, and leaves us winded. Running can also be rather addictive and during a second wind, you can feel rather powerful. But you cannot run forever.

When do you stop running? When you wisely consider and realise that there isn't even a race. Or when you are finally exhausted? Which state would you rather be in?

The practical way to develop contentment is of course, to practise gratitude*, which is well supported by health and brain science to have enormous benefits to our overall well-being.

When we are not busy asking -
"where is the good deal?"
"how come he has more?"
"when can I have ...?"

We can slow our pace to anchor.

A ship cannot anchor while sailing at twenty-give knots. It has to slow. Modern consumerism's evil is that we are being 'eaten' alive while we think we are 'happily consuming'. We have eschew the insatiable needs consumerism generates in us, slow down, and anchor.

We have to face the dark of our fears that we won't be noticed, known or celebrated. We need to soak up the Light that we are noticed, known and celebrated -- and by One who doesn't change His view of us because He is in a funk!

It is only when we anchor that we can be ready to be an answer to the many cries and questions that are churning all around us.

- Stock-take your consumer habits (turn off notifications perhaps)
- Design and live within a budget (it's a thing that works and is great for training kids)
- Make giving a regular habit (for eg. if you plan that each time you buy an item, you will buy a second to give away)


(3) Attentiveness - to liven us

Most of us live in the past (stewing over what went wrong or what could be better) or in the future (imagining what could be). Often, in the present, we are fretting about our responses and how others view us.

Where are we actually? Rather absent.

Attentiveness opens our eyes to notice and marvel at Life and Light. It makes complaining harder. Striving feels like such a waste of the moment. The wonder and giftedness of so much begins to dawn on us. Details present themselves to us and creates bold relief for us to recognise that we are hidden glory.

We take ourselves both lightly and seriously at the same time, knowing when to do which.


So friends,

Continue to bend towards the Light
Do all the good you can

But - follow the Spirit's call to walk into your Belovedness, where you touch the shimmering Goodness of God, and let it find its expression in and through you.

We can change the world we are a part of - through this deep, total revolution with us.

When we are attentive, we may be better listeners (and that will heal so many broken hearts and even help in the restoration of those who are suffering mentally) 

When we are anchored, we may be better givers (and how much inequality and injustice needs addressing) 

When we are freed, we may be better lovers (and how that will save so many relationships)

The Dark is real. It lodges in hearts. It connects on and off-line. It embeds in systems. The news, movies and our experiences magnify it. It can intimidate us. It can overwhelm us. It can unsettle us. But you know, systems are after all, practical frameworks and protocols established according to values we uphold.

Every heart
Every mind
Every life

that begins to sense, believe and live in the Truth of being Beloved and Blessed -- also connects and embeds and can be magnified, to the praise of His Glory.

So, our world needs -

goodness
serious answers
you.

*How To Be Grateful

How To Grow Up Spiritually

How To Press Past Setbacks


[I chose animal photography for this post, because animals are impacted by whether we are good or selfish... And birds of course, were used by Jesus to remind us to trust in our Belovedness and Blessedness].