Form 'other' to 'another' and the wide mercies of God our cradling Grace

My life has some pretty basic routines. One of them is going to the neighbourhood mall Junction 8. By now I know the street, the spots to park free, the stores and the short-cuts pretty well. But still, I never quite get used to all the life I will meet each time I venture out.

Even a familiar place can yield the unfamiliar. The expected can throw up a surprise.

We can walk like the dead, going about our routines, operating like the rest of kingdom animaliae; just trying to survive another day. But we get restless, we question, we mourn, we get served a notice that jolts us awake.

Today for example, in the hustle I saw this skinny man whose eyes did not seem to focus really well.

He's not really old, not more than thirty. He was in his green and yellow uniform, standing right there in the sea of humanity streaming around him scrounging for bargains and queuing to make payment. There he stood, quite oblivious, waving his arms with palms up as if to catch falling water. I looked for a leak but did not see any. He seemed consoled too that he did not catch anything, and then proceeded to pick up his broom and pan. 

At the car park, I shifted my cumbersome trolley and gave a wide swath to another cleaner who smiled appreciatively as he maneuvered his mop-bin-on-wheels across. 

"It's easy to feel good for kindness, but you aren't different from him".

 I know. 

 Like him and the other, we are all but souls with skins on. All trying to make it through.

Later, as my car perched nervously at the slope turning onto the road, I glimpsed ahead of me a van that had the words "Inspiring Hope, Enriching Lives". It was the van that brought the small party who live with muscular dystrophy for their weekly outing. 

I am rushing through my gorcery routine and I am as usual feeling thirsty; and all this Life is asking me to pay attention.

There was a time when our thoughts were 'other' - we see someone different and we thank God we are not born/bred/turned out so. We feel a twinge of sympathy and when the charity drives come along, we are moved to help with our monies. But there remains a I/they divide. What's more, we often compare and augment 'I' by classifying and categorising 'them' so that the 'I' feels stronger/better/more.


But there comes a time when we see just 'another'. It is just another life really; and very much like ours. Another life wanting to mean something, be useful, to laugh, be loved and love. The garb and language and colour and words may all be different, but it comes to the same stuff of dust seeking glory. This is why I am upset these days --

when I think how we interpret Jesus' words that he came to give us life abundant as a narrow, materialistic, self-indulgent offer that we deserve. 

when i find myself forgetting so quickly that the awkward, badly dressed teen is imago Dei as I am. 

when I push my closest ones away too quickly because my soul is out of shape and I don't know what to do with my jutting angles; and it is their fault for coming too close.

In Brennan Manning's final book, All Is Grace, he writes simply of his life without fanfare or any need to embellish. His was a life-time of struggle with alcoholism. His was a life others can only dream about: book successes and a life message about Abba Love...Yet here was a man, another, like you and me. He had his triumphs and his demons. He lived honestly as he could. His is not written to garner a book prize. It almost read like a child's re-telling of a long adventure.

The simple truth that grips your heart and changes you is this: Ordinary life shines because it is all Grace.

What would your life and mine look like if we lived like we truly believed this Grace is wrapping us safe and cradling us through the storms?

 What would our world look like if we saw each other as just another, and helped each other sip often of the sweet nectar of Grace rather than rush around thirsty?

A great song as we ponder The Love of God by Rich Mullins


There's a wideness in God's mercy
I cannot find in my own
And He keeps His fire burning
To melt this heart of stone
Keeps me aching with a yearning
Keeps me glad to have been caught
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Now I've seen no band of angels
But I've heard the soldiers' songs
Love hangs over them like a banner
Love within them leads them on
To the battle on the journey
And it's never gonna stop
Ever widening their mercies
And the fury of His love

Oh the love of God
And oh, the love of God
The love of God

Joy and sorrow are this ocean
And in their every ebb and flow
Now the Lord a door has opened
That all Hell could never close
Here I'm tested and made worthy
Tossed about but lifted up
In the reckless raging fury
That they call the love of God

Getting pain for loving and living the Fight

The cat has a strange habit.

None of my other cats had it. Chats throws up. Yes, every now and then, the kitty will deposit a mess of still-being-digested contents at whatever spot she happens to be at. Our first instinct on seeing this? A chiding of course, "Chats! ....". Today however, I decide to go after her and give her a little tummy rub to soothe her. And this is what I got:

It is stinging me even now.

Talk about love being messy. Which part of "poor kitty' didn't she get? I feel utterly unappreciated, and I cannot argue with or reason with this feline. It is really painful.

All of us live with some form of pain; maybe the pain of regret or loss. Most of us learn to cope, or numb, or pretend. But there are many today who live where pain is a constant -

They are losing loved ones suddenly from blasts that shatter any solidity they may yearn for. Like in the Middle East.
They are being judged - first - simply because of their skin colour. Like in many parts of that free land called the US of A.
They are worried about being found out, exposed and rejected. Like the guys.gals who wrestle with being emotionally and physically attracted to the same gender.

There is simply no salve or solution, but there is this: Jesus enters the pain. 

I first heard this idea twenty years ago in seminary. In my youthful enthusiasm, the mere knowledge of it made it all so grand. I reached for this truth like it was a trophy and prize and may have uttered, "pain, do your worse for I am not alone!".

This cat scratch that still hurts is nothing. Over the years, Pain has thrown tornadoes and whirlwind against my soul and upset it in no small way.

Many days I wonder that I still stand.

Jesus has entered the pain ---
Is he here supporting me so I don't fall?
Is he giving me moral support, rooting for me with the "you can do it, coz I did" kind of thing?
Is he quietly working out this marvelous outcome, rigging the results while I am having this slugfest in the ring called broken humanity?

Jesus entered the pain by becoming one of us creatures-in-pain. He allowed his infinite being to be limited by time and space, subject to broken humanity and suffered all of the pains we do -

physically  from hunger to near-death physical afflictions,

emotionally from suspicion to outright betrayal,

and endured a pain none of us would ever have to: separation from God as a result of bearing the totality of sin.

In every season of pain, I have gone to this Jesus and asked him again, what does it mean that you enter our pain?
And I begin to realise that my pain is real. It is being taken seriously. I can talk to him about it. He is deflecting and absorbing some of it I am sure or I would totter and crash.

And like a dedicated medic who has rushed to the wounded solider in the trenches, he reaches over and bandages my wounds. He tells me it will heal. I look into His eyes and I believe Him even as the battle rages on.

As the bandage goes around the wound, he tells me too that I am to stay in the fight; not let the injury incapacitate me. I lean back and dreamily wish for Lucy from Narnia, coming up and applying her magic potion that would immediately restore me.

Sometimes it feels that way. It happens quick the healing. Other times, it seems the wound is going to just gape and mock me. But I arc and lift myself up; everywhere are the fallen and I must not get lost in my own pain....Even though sometimes there's the added burden of someone cussing nearby, another calls you a madman or a clown, others cry and melt down; and still a few yell back, "save yourself", the same words they said to Jesus that he may prove himself smarter and stronger; and if he did he would miss the point of love that dies for the beloved.


Lesser mortals would kick the cat that scratched. But I am no mere mortal now who contain glory am I?

"And you...he has made alive together with Him..." ~ Colossians 2v13

So I too enter into pain and deflect sometimes and absorb at other times. I too learn to bandage wounds and speak valour back into the wounded soul.

We are more than the wounded; we are the wounded healers.

And dear soul, how about just pausing for this: healer of my soul {michael talbot}

Of doubts and 'what if I am just psyching myself?'...

Doubts plague all thinking people.

And some of us, we are prone to question, and so to doubt; more than others.

But because the world loves to operate and talk as if we all know what is going on, to harbor doubts can be scary for us. It smacks of a lack of faith. It feels like we are missing something. It feels like we may be have a loose screw jangling noisily that only we can hear. So we berate ourselves and make ourselves feel worse.

But then with I read a cry like this,

Why have you forsaken me? ~ Psalm 22

and know that we who doubt are safe.

Psalm 22 has been called the Messianic Psalm, and right here is the cry from the pain-fraught, anguished soul of none other than Jesus. He cries out that God has left the scene! Jesus on the cross and felt the Father’s absence as the sin upon Christ caused the Father to turn His face away.

If you ever felt the stung of rejection.

This is what Jesus felt. For the first time. In the most awful way.

Because of you and I.

Rejection is at the root of all our doubt. It is the fuel for the “what ifs…” we utter frightened within our hearts. And all of us have felt this sting before.

We think God is all ready to reject us.

But he is the sting-remover; the One who wants to come close and apply a soothing balm to this sting that acts up and cause us to shrink back, become cynical and even paralysed us into non-action.

What if she laughs at me?What if he doesn’t believe?What if I am wrong?

More than once when journeying with people, they say at some point, “I think I am only psyching myself. I am tired of pep-talking myself…”.

I get that.

The pep talk, the one we do to remind ourselves of hope; yes it can seem pretty lame. It’s just words, and often with a stinging pain, it feels plain powerless to make any real difference. Besides, some of us just aren’t the talking kind.

But listen. We talk to ourselves all the time.

We even talk to ourselves that what we say to ourselves is useless, or useful.

It’s kind of circular and silly;  or  it is powerful and deserves repeating.

It really works.

However –

Our self-doubting capabilities will kick in. So we demand some evidence -

If I am worthy, then why doesn't anyone notice?
If I am gifted, then why is my life so ordinary and I am so wrecked with pain?If I am loved, then why do I feel so miserable and weak?

I get this too.

We need to talk to ourselves.

But we need more than preppy, happy, ’clappy’ shorthand ways of describing life. We need more than clichés.

This means it is pretty important that we talk to ourselves properly.

Takes time.

Takes effort.

Takes quiet.

Often helped with a journal.

If you want to have a great conversation that unearths truth and sends light exploding in strange corners of your soul.

If you want to be real and authentic; which is required for intimacy and communion.

If you want to feel free and lighter.

If you want to sense a trajectory to your life.

Then talk to yourself properly.

Don’t stuff your feelings or ignore your fears. Don’t kick those doubts or trash those tuggings.

If you reject yourself, you make yourself more prone to seeing rejection in others’ responses to you.

Even more – rejecting yourself is an affront to the God who made you.

This is the God who declared each of us fearfully and wonderfully made. There is no mistake or manufacture fault from His point of view. But it's so hard to believe this when we live in a world that defies this truth and trample upon it in a thousand ways; demanding that we prove our worth and earn our space here. Founder of evolutionary biology Richard Dawkins recently tweeted that couples should simply abort their babies because it's immoral to give birth to a Down Syndrome's kid. That's saying a lot - and talk like this floats around in the air we breathe in each day. It can get hard to talk ourselves to a place of security.

This is why, the self-talk must give way to silence – when we listen to God talk.

Whether we intentionally shut up and read Scripture, and scrawl sightings.

Whether we sit quiet and wait.
Whether we walk in the great world he made and let bird, water, light send their echoes of delight into our souls.
Whether we draw, doodle, make music, move or squish mud to be amazed that these hands and this body and this mind can come together and convey beauty and longing.

For in the end, we are reflectors. We reflect what we absorb.

“In the beginning was the WordAnd the Word was with GodAnd the Word was God…Through Him all things were made;Without him nothing was made that has been made.In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
~ John 1v1-4

The Word that's always been is what forms and makes and shapes. The Word gives definition and stirs to life. There is the promise here that we can be set alight by this Word that gives life. 

If we ever hope to have some light on our lives, the most important self-talk is to remind ourselves to go to the Word, the Life, the Light.

For a little more dissecting, here's the good, bad and ugly of doubts .

Getting older, growing bolder {with cat pictures}

No one seemed to have witnessed it.

There was a huge arc of light splayed apart in its constituent colours last Tuesday. I followed the arc and it flowed towards where I lived. For the first time in my life I tried to chase a rainbow. But as I grew nearer, I realised that when we stand right under the Light, the colours scatter all around and we may not notice it!

We remember the first rainbow as a promise that a earth-wide deluge would not happen like in Noah's days. But there is more. God is not looking to destroy but to heal and embrace and make real. The rainbow is what light really is. When it shows up, we are always surprised and a little dizzy with delight -- the same way
when we stop; and remember that we all stand under the Light.

And there is this choice to notice it.

"I am the Light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness,
but have the light of life." ~ Jesus in John 8v12

May I share something I saw under the Light?

Seventeen years ago, i decided to check out the meaning of my name. I found out that it means 'boldness'.

I sat deeper into my chair -- and the moments I was bold and the many times I was just plain scared, when I stepped away, backed off...all came tumbling into my mind.

Was I bold to choreograph a dance when I did not know a thing about dancing?
Was I bold to write that protest note on behalf of the class to the principal and so five of us got to see what it was like in her office.
Was I bold to trek off into the mountains of the Golden Traingle in Thailand with an two-week old cough?

Perhaps.

Who we are is given to us. 

While our mom and dad and so many fussing aunties or none at all look at us and decide on a name; they had no clue what to call forth from this tiny being all packed with future and possibility.

There were hints: I was the kindergarten bully - I sat next to this clueless kid who drove me mad and I made sure he knew. But I was also the one who would cry and refuse to go because I remembered I forgot my book. I was the pretty girl my mom wanted to spend her precious little on, but when she took me to the market and after twenty minutes when I stood my ground instead of accepting any of the frilly dresses, we ended up eating fishball noodles instead.

There are times when who we are might be crushed and squashed a little; even lost to us when hurt and pain can send us hiding because we think that's the way to be safe. But we die as we hide.

come on out from hiding!

This is why it also takes this:

Who we are is called forth from us.

Was I bold to walk into a new place and people and start being their pastor?
Was I bold to call myself a 'pastor-writer' when no one else did?
Was I bold to ignore the reasonable voices that I should look after the needs of a few hundred and not stay home to watch the souls of two?

The needs call out our gifts.
The convictions of our hearts stir the cauldron of our values and prime us to activate our selves.
The faith of others, when they see our gifts and affirm them energise us to arise.

Bold - is the standing up, being loud and noticed, making a splash and causing a stir. It is speaking up, being different, daring new things. So we think.

and we stand, now, upon Grace

But as I grow older, I find my boldness surface and surprise me. In fact, it seems my boldness is leading me away from the typical places where the bold tread: decision and power centres. But I see that a courage is being nourished and honed in this strange paradox of being obscure and away from the action. This process mostly involves me seeing my fears up close and refusing to cover them up with leaves; but to accept my smallness, to weep over my cowardice and compromise, and to rest that Someone greater has named me, given me gifts, and will call me forth. 

What have you been given?
What is being called forth?

And, haha this -

o kitty! not like this!

All Parenting must start at the very beginning...with Genesis

We love '....and they lived happily ever after'.... 

But -
that won't do unless it began with 'Once upon a time'... which makes it real, concrete, believable -- because -- it apparently really happened before!

Do our lives have a 'Once upon a time' too? 

Yes it does!

Perhaps this is why we connect with the stories and long for the logical conclusion: the bad guy is extinguished and the good guy wins and saves the gal; and they live happily ever after!

Sounds like heaven to me! {Jesus comes and vanquish his enemies and win His bride the church}.

Except --
to a temperamental teen and a distracted boy, heaven feels more real when the teen gets to whatsapp furiously with friends, while the eight year old gets to play without a care for time or chore with his Lego pieces.

This is where Genesis comes in.

I dream of perfection and highest joys with them. I remind them that heaven is very real, and is the longing of our hearts because right there in Genesis chapter 1 we had it. It was great.

But we messed it up. So now we feed on counterfeits and can grow callous and insensitive to the real deal.

This basic truth is so essential and foundation to parenting children (of the utero or spiritual kind). Genesis sets the stage for us to understand so much. Like they say, "if you don't know where you came from, you're likely going to lose your way".

The creation of humankind is our background story. It explains our glories, longings, possibilities and the very real threats and angst we feel. It can be taught simply to smaller kids and used with great drama with teens!

Take this conversation for example -

son : I'll be so happy if I don't have to work, but everything is work..even playing!
me : well, God created us to work!
son : {looks at me}
me : Do you remember why? (i whip out my phone and read}

let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature
so they can be ressponsible for the fish...and yes, Earth itself.. {read with drama of course}

See, it is part of God's plan that we work. It's good for us!
But you remember what happened right? {i remind him of the Original Sin and continue reading}

"the very ground is cursed because of you;
getting food from the ground will be painful..
the ground will sprout thorns and weeds.."

God created us to work, to take care of everything. Sin has made the work much harder. This is why we find it so tough; and we are tempted to become lazy.
But this is the beginning right? What happens later?

son: Jesus dies for us.
me : That's right! Now,you have the Holy Spirit within you. Jesus lives within you ..and listen carefully to this:

"do your best, work from the heart for your real master for God.."

This is the picture we parents want to avoid:

Helping our children embrace life involves helping them to see a huge part of life correctly: work.
Hopefully, our own view is sound too.

Genesis, the book of beginnings -
sets us straight, inspires us, and reminds us of why we need a Saviour.
throws us back to depend on the sweet Spirit to guide and empower us.
opens our eyes to the First Person of the Godhead, the only real Power there is, and so -
sets us on the solid ground of reverence and awe, gratitude and godly fear.

It's a very good place to start!