The Hunger for Love

Met an old friend P for a very overdue cup of coffee today. We have not managed to meet even though I have been back for a few months now. I blamed her moving off to an office in Ulu-sville, and she blamed me for being still a workaholic (she only knew me from the days of practice). After we disabused each other of our respective notions on ulu-ness and workaholism, we did some real time catching up. Closing a gap in the years here. Bridging a memory from the past there. While always pleasant, these catch-up sessions (and I have had a few of these in the last months since returning) can feel like strangly reductionist experiences - all those years of living, loving, hurting, growing - compressed into an hour- long coffee session. You know you can't really take your conversation partner back to live the past with you, simply because they were just not there. So we smile and nod and say how things have changed and how they have not.

But I was completely unprepared for what happened next. I realized that sometimes, the passage of time crosses over separate lives, with us completely unaware of what has gone on in another person's life.

We were joined by P's friend whom I have not met - a pleasant-faced unadorned lady in a simple suit with mid length hair. When she went to collect her coffee. P said to me, "She's the reason why I have been so busy."

In the next 20 minutes, the three of us chatted normally enough about practice, and skiing, and stuff.

Skipping past all the [necessary or unnecessary] feelings of surprise, puzzlement etc. (this is actually the first time anyone has made the "confession" to me), which I am telling myself to process only after P and I find another occasion to talk in private (like Broccoli Man advises, do not try to reinterprete her, or rather, my memory of her), one thought stuck in my mind all this evening.

The hunger for love is strong indeed.

Not just in P. Also in old schoolmate who took up an overseas posting early this year without her husband to give herself "space" in her 10-year marriage, and who is now re-discovering herself through "the other people" she is meeting. As well as the long-time Christian brother who is, to the great surprise of all of us, now engaged to a non-Christian girl.

The "judgment" part is really superfluous in each case. These are people I know well, and they know well also my position on these things. In every of these coffee sessions, the thing that rings more loudly in the ear than the "confession" is the tacit plea for their need for love to be acknowledged. And how does one not recognize and acknowledge it when it rings so loud? Not just from them but all around in everyone, and within oneself too.

There will come the right time for processing, interpreting, perhaps persuading. But, the question of the evening rings out in the mind still -

How, Lord, does one respond to the hunger for love, which is strong indeed?

Consciousness

This poem is writtn with th e monitor screen switched off,,
There may be typos, andit feels a bit like roller blading
When you cannot correct your mistakes, but type on...
Does it make one lesss self-conscious? is it close
To a stream of conscioususness? When you
cannot see the screen or a person's face,
You can stop thiinking about how things look to them. But in
my mind's eye, I can still see the words and I
backspa ce to correct the typos I know I have made.

Thoughts on Lilies this Weekend

Have you, my friend,
Considered the lilies recently?
They may not have traveled
To the furthest north
Or the deepest south
To build their treasure store
But they wear the greatest
Splendor in their gentle
Pale trumpets, quietly
Shouting to the world
“This is how you find rest”.

My weary friend, who knows not where to call home, have you considered the lilies recently?

(Written after watching the play "Furthest North, Deepest South" by Finger Players Theatre Company last week)

(photo by Arrow Q.)

Re: URGENT: Project Mistletoe

Dear I-Banker,

I know you are reading this email
(actually it’s a poem, but don’t delete it)
Late, before you leave the office
Or in a cab, on your Blackberry.
It’s Urgent.

Tomorrow the deal shall launch,
And make the league table
For this quarter in the IFR
The big one for you this year.
At last! You can finally go
On vacation, but the tickets
Are booked up for Christmas.

The cellphone shows three missed calls
In the last hour, One
You know you have dealt with
The second is from your daughter
The third, from the client, needs
A return call. Calling…
The night is long for you
It’s a Dubai client.

The streets are darkened.
The deal will launch tomorrow
Before you work on the next
“When will it end...when can
we go on vacation?”, says
Your wife’s voice message
“When I make MD”, you already
Told her last week, on the night you
Made dinner.

But she will surely understand
It’s for the children
It pays for the IS fees, the driver,
The cleaner air in Repulse Bay
And the vacation that we
Shall take once the deal
Is launched tomorrow.

It is tomorrow.
The streets are darkened. It’s Urgent.

(Written at night in the office on one of those weeks at work)

DAYEINU

These were the words of the Dayeinu Song that was read from the Haggadah at our Passover supper last week:

"How thankful must we be to God, the All Knowing, All loving, for all the good He has done for us. For each blessing we give thanks!

If God had only delivered us from Egypt, It would have been enough for us. That is it would have been sufficient. DAYEINU

Had He brought us out from Egypt and not executed judgment against them, DAYEINU

Had He executed judgment against them and not done justice to their idols, DAYEINU

Had He done justice to their idols and not slain their first-born DAYEINU

Had He slain their first-born and not given us their property DAYEINU

Had He given us their property, and not divided the sea for us DAYEINU" etc.....

I was a little horrified at myself when, on hearing these lyrics, I found myself applying er...the rules of causation and wondering ..."Had God but split the sea, and not passed us through it on dry land – it would have been enough.” hmm...How would it have been enough? Had Israel not escaped through the Red Sea, they would have been slaughtered by the Egyptians! Then we would possibly not have the law , or even the gospel!

It took the few days through Easter for the meaning of this old Jewish song of thanksgiving to sink in...

I think I will remember this Easter to be one that laid a certain weight on the heart more than some of the others that have passed. I do not know whether it was a coincidence, but news of death and sickness were brought repeatedly to me during those few days. CW, my old tennis buddy in Hong Kong, was visiting Singapore, and was telling me that her sister, who lived here, has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 39. She had a shock when she landed at the airport to see her completely bald from the chemotherapy. Then, I got an email forwarded from a classmate to say CM's sister, whom we know had been battling cancer in New Zealand for a few months, was ready to take the morphine injection to end her life and put an end to the suffering. She is only a few years older than me.

Easter Sunday service this year was a deeply solemn (though not unjoyful) one. Two elderly men gave testimonies that brought tears to many eyes. Mr L accounted how he went through a horrific accident that left him paralysed from waist down, and Rev T revealed for the first time to the congregation that he had been diagnosed with Motor Neuro Disease. I can't say I know them personally, but the calm and quiet assurance that was so evident in their voices was deeply precious to hear, and brought the reality of God in their lives to my consciousness in a way that hearing sermons and reading books don't always do. Now, do they feel fear and sadness and pain? Make no mistake about it, they do. Yes, these were men who had faced, or are facing the prospect of death in a real real way, and yet they chose to rejoice in Dayeinu. That to me, is the most incredible thing about the Christian faith, which calls us to experience the deepest of sorrows, so as to experience the greatest of joys. We need not fear fear, or banish sadness like the world does, for a broken spirit He does not despise. The soul must first feel death before it can experience true joy.

Really, when faced with death, nothing really matters anymore. It is the finisher of hope, the most painful state that anyone could be in, even more than the physical pain and suffering. So Charm's sister will not be able to see her adorable daughter grow up anymore. How does one deal with that? And even when death is not a definite certainty in some illnesses, the shadow of it will hang over the person and change entirely the way he or she goes about living. CW's sister with now one breast, and not being able to work indefinitely. How sharp is the sting of death, even when one is slowly approaching it!

As humans, we do do fret about whether "it is enough." I worry whether the job that has been given to me is enough to sustain me, and those I care about. I worry whether it is enough if God chooses singlehood for me. I worry if it is enough if change takes away my best friends to far away places, and I have only Him.

And yet, like the account of events spanning over 400 years in the Dayeinu Song (from the entry into the Promised Land to the building of the Temple), each of our lives tell of multiple facets of God's miraculous deliverance. Each step constitutes a miracle in itself, even though we may not see the whole, or even if there is no "whole". So in this Song, the poet feels the living power of each gesture of divine favor, irrespective of the final or complete result. Had You only done this and no more – it would have been enough for me to feel Your divine love! The principle of “dayeinu,” of giving thanks even for the partial and incomplete, how difficult and yet crucial for joyful living in this uncertain world in which few of our dreams ever come to total fruition. We thank God every day for the miracle of being alive. But more than that, we thank God that we have been saved from Death. For nothing else should matter more. Can we say, that if You had given me nothing, done nothing, except Salvation, it would have been enough?

Yes, Lord, Dayeinu...

Have You Tasted a Story?

Instead of reading and telling stories, the Book Clubbers and a friend got together on Maundy Thursday to taste a story - an old, old, story that has been told every year for 3500 years, and which, when the events did happen, foreshadowed The Story of all stories.

We had talked about the Sedar supper for a few weeks. I think most of the 6 of us weren't entirely sure what to do or expect, but we all thought it would be a meaningful thing to do this year at Easter. Christian festivals these days tend towards simplicity, perhaps a conscious effort to ensure that the message of Christmas/Easter is not obscured with tradition and ceremony. I am an advocate of that definitely, but it was an interesting experience to re-enact at home the age-old Jewish passover tradition, and to come to a new appreciation of how the Old Testament runs parallel in purpose to the New Testament in the whole theme of "rescue".

We had to improvise on some items, but this was how the Seder supper table looked like on Thursday.


Took the Cappadoccia plate down from the kitchen mantlepiece, and it became our Sedar plate!


The significance of the items on the Sedar Plate:

• The MATZAH, The Unleavened bread (that's the table water biscuit). The Israelites fleeing Egypt had no time for it to rise. It is the bread of affliction or the humble bread. The bread without leaven (symbolizing sin), made of fine wheat flour, water and oil. (Exodus 29:7 & Deuteronomy 16:3)
• The Roasted Lamb Bone is a reminder of the Temple Sacrifice and the first Passover Lamb.
• Bitter Herbs recall the bitterness of slavery. Traditionally made of Horseradish, grated by hand by the man of the house till he sheds a tear. This makes up for the ones shed by the wife during the year.
• A Green Vegetable represents the hyssop branches used to apply the blood of the lamb to the doorpost. It is also considered a bitter herb. (Exodus 12:22a)
  
• The Clay (Charoset) of apples, nuts, cinnamon, and wine, represents the bricks and mortar the Israelites were forced to make under Pharaoh's taskmasters. (Exodus 1:14)
• A Roasted Egg is a reminder of the Temple Holiday Sacrifice and also a symbol of life. It was offered at the Temple during the Feast of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. (Deuteronomy 16:16)
• Salt Water symbolizes the blood of the first Passover lamb, also the tears shed by the Israelites slaves. We also recall Israel's baptism in the Red Sea. (Exodus 14:22)

The Red Rabbi led us through the Haggadah, which he brilliantly adapted for this group. The full version (Christianized) can be found here, and one could spend many hours studying it. I guess we each have our favorite parts of the Haggadah. Here's mine - the Yachatz - Breaking of the Middle Matzo:

" Three Matzos are placed in a special white covering. The middle matzah is removed and broken. The larger piece is wrapped and hidden, it is called the afikoman meaning that which comes later [in Greek]. The Afikoman is hidden, or buried, to be found and redeemed later for a reward. The smaller piece is eaten before the meal. Why are there three matzos? Some rabbis say it represents the HIGH PRIEST, LEVITES and PEOPLE of ISRAEL. The three forms of worship in temple times. But why is the middle broken? Other rabbis say that it represents ABRAHAM, ISAAC and JACOB. But this, too, does not explain why the middle matzah is broken. Still other rabbis say that in the wilderness God gave daily MANNA, but on Friday a double portion was given and one is added for Passover, making three. But why is the middle matzah broken, buried and brought back? This tradition has been celebrated for thousands of years. For us who believe in Y'shua, it is no mystery. It is a beautiful picture of Jesus and the one and only God revealed in three persons: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son left the Holy of Holies, heaven, was broken, buried, and brought back. He who finds Him receives a great reward, Eternal Life."

So the truly astounding thing about Pesach, and the Pesach that we as Christians now practice (the Lord's Supper) is that it is not merely a teaching about Christ, but an experience of Christ. Not just in the tales we hear, the songs we sing, or even the elements we partake in the Supper, but in being able to say, "Come now and taste that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8)

[more thoughts on Easter....to be continued]

The Gospel of Judas

The Gospel of Judas premiered one month ahead of The Da Vinci Code on the National Geographic Channel last Sunday. Everyday on the way to work this week, the pre-recorded voice of the Class 95 DJ (quite possibly following a standard trailer script of NGM used around the world) invited viewers to tune in the NG programme on cable "to understand the gospel like it never was understood before" and to discover "how the most hated man in history in fact knew more about the truth than anyone else". At church, fellow JFNers talked hushedly about it. "eh, have you heard?" and at one work luncheon, an articulate fellow member of the profession alluded knowingly to "the suppression of information for political means".

Being a minimum subscriber of Starhub Max Online, and having been brought up in a Hakka household to watch almost no TV, I am a happy survivor of Mediacorp TV, and do not have an SCV subscription for the Treehouse. So I missed both the premiere of the Judas story and the repeat telecast on NGC. However, there were enough second hand witness accounts to give one an idea of what went on during the programme. MOWL, on Thursday evening, gave us cable-less folks a particularly useful account of the program, including the casting of the characters. While Jesus was given the due and respectful glowing aura, Judas was clearly a cut above the rest of the disciples, looking smart and clean shaven beside the rather unkempt and bumbling Peter (poor dear Peter, always an easy target for this sort of thing!). One can imagine how entirely plausible it must have looked on reel for Jesus to pick Judas out from the band of twelve as the only one to whom the "mysteries of the kingdom" would be revealed. One was originally hoping that NG would perhaps have refrained from using these techniques - I have always had much respect for the magazine for being a "BBC" rather than a "CNN" of educational TV, i.e. choosing understatement over sensationalism. But I suppose the imminent Da Vinci blockbuster (expected to be the biggest of ALL TIME) is hard to ignore - NGM may not be able to get Tom Hanks to appear on the show, but it did pay a handsome sum for the text of the Gospel of Judas, and so there are bottomlines to consider, I am sure, and the DVDs need to sell reasonably well.

Now, all in all, I have to admit that I can't say that I was too "fazed" by the Gospel of Judas. Perhaps only a little more so than the Da Vinci Code (which read, so obviously from page 1, like a script prepared for Hollywood, that I almost feel sorry for Dan Brown for having to take so much heat from the church). The question of canonicity of the Bible books has always been a somewhat delicate one for this Bible-believer and perhaps others. When something shows up as a "Gospel", it's only natural to ask, oh dear, did we miss this out from "inerrant, infallible and all sufficient Word of God (not tolerable to a BP-molded mind, even a reformed one)? Or more scary, what else did the Fathers miss out and what did they exclude by mistake?

The "fazing" lasted for all of 20 minutes, thanks largely and ironically to the National Geographic Magazine. The TV special aside (which like I mentioned I haven't watched) there really is a lot of balanced and useful information on the NGM website on the document itself. The actual translation, as well the original Coptic manuscripts are all available for viewing on the NGM website (thanks here to the ever curious minded Mystery C., who first examined the primary materials and forwarded them to me). As one blog pastor points out, this is probably the first time that the average person has such direct access to the study of ancient texts. And any Christians who are minded to watch the TV special should read the translation of the "gospel" text before or after. The contrast to the canoncial Gospels is great indeed. Not to take lightly the job of the Church Fathers and various Councils who had to decide on the weighty issues of canonicity, but perhaps it is really not all that impossible to exclude (with or without impunity), a "Gospel" with a protaganist who purportedly said to Jesus "I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."

The bigger puzzlement left in my mind from this episode (no pun intended!), like I was telling Mystery C. after we had a good guffaw about Barbelo, was why I didn't feel that terribly "worked up" about it (and for that matter, the whole DVC debate), as I would have as new believer or seeker years ago. I do remember those days of going through tomes of apologetic literature (or whatever one could find for free at the NLB or the church library) trying to figure out, with not a little fear and trembling, whether evolutionary creationism or German higher criticism would deal the death blow to my (newfound) faith in the God of the Bible. I figured it might be due to any or all of these (i) being a little more equipped over the years the "test the faith"; (ii) knowing that pure intellectual persuasion or dissuasion alone does not get one to Critical Point anyway; or (iii) [gulp] just being old and convinced like Solomon that "there is nothing new under the sun".

We were, of course, reminded by Pastor Chia last week during his DVC series sermon that as Christians, we ought always be ready to defend the faith against the current sensationalistic theories, and I gather, to be ready to give a reason for our faith. The power of the media is strong indeed - if seeing is believing, and if facts and information can be presented (manipulated) in a way that catches the [increasingly short] attention [span] of modern folks, there is real work that the church needs to do to bring the authentic gospel to the world.

It is indeed a very wonderful thing to come that stage of one's Christian walk where one no longer feels so easily "blown about by every wind" or affected every Holy Grail movie...but dear Lord, let it not be for the lack of diligence or failure of empathy for the sincere seeker, that this commissioned advocate for You stands down at the surrebuttal.

Sonnet XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

- Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1850) *

This speaks true of the kind of love each of us are looking for, whether we realize it at first, or admit it in the end. More than wanting someone to love us for our qualities, we want that person to love us simply for who we are. In every being who is celebrated by another for his/her beauty, or intelligence, or kindness, there is a secret yearning to be loved regardless of these. Indeed, Elizabeth Browning says that even love borne out of deep empathy, might change when the need for empathy diminishes because the object has been strengthened by that love!

There is of course only One who loves on, through love's eternity...who truly loves "for love's sake".

* Sonnet XIV is from Elizabeth Browning's most famous work "Sonnets from the Portugese", a collection of 44 sonnets dedicated to her husband Robert Browning, recording the growth of her love for him. The pair are possibly the most well-loved poets of the Romantic Era. Deeply ingrained in their works on celebrating romantic love, is their faith in the God of love.

"Poets' hands" - bronze cast of the clasped hands of Elizabeth Browning and Robert Browning, photograph from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.

The Secret Life of Food

A few weeks ago, Arrow Q. and I chanced upon the BBBB (Bras Brasah Book Bazaar) where they were selling all sorts of books by weight. Anthologies, literature texts, cookbooks and travel guides for $2 each!

Now one of the best things about Life at Home is the accessibility to and affordability of English books. In Hong Kong, a visit to the bookstore tended to be a fairly brief affair - there was of course the ubiquitous Dymocks (the only English bookstore chain there, pronounced "Dee micks", with an Australian accent, mate), with Mao and Angels & Demons switching places weekly on the Bestsellers Shelf. English books were also ridiculously expensive there too (much like everything else in Hong Kong really).

I did, on all of one occasion, where there was nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon after church, venture into the multistorey local Chinese bookstore in Wanchai across Revenue Tower. It was there that I came to the clear realization that, even if one drafted Chinese contracts for a living, my store of food for the mind, inspiration for the soul and horde of female magazines, would ever be confined to the English canon. That is alright by me really, for even the MM recognized that only a tiny minority of the human genepool would ever be truly equally bilingual in two unrelated languages, but I did remember leaving the Wanchai bookstore with a slight sense of regret, wondering about that other world of ideas and thought which is technically accessible but has never been really so for me at the same time.

But I do digress. So after Arrow Q. shot off for her Japanese class nearby (she will be truly trilingual), I spent an exceedingly Happy Thursday Hour at the BBBB collecting paper by weight. I remembered that the last time I did something like this was in secondary school - once a year the Times publishing house would open up their warehouse (right by the Pandan reservoir near where I used to live) and sold books on the supercheap. You had to make sure you brought your own carrier bag, because they only gave string and no plastic bags for you to take your paper home (like the garang guni man with his used newspapers). I was a little concerned before I checked my stack of 18 books out at BBBB - I had only my work tote and no carrier bags with me - should I abandon my shopping? But happily, at the makeshift cashier counter, they were dispensing industrial strength plastic bags, and even had a Nets machine.

It was, to be expected, an eclectic mix of books. A Cambridge anthology of annotated Romantic Poetry and Prose. The Oxford Guide to the Mind. A Zen book on regulating energy. A Pocket Guide to Orchids. A Legal Dictionary.

The biggest gem I picked up was this.

This is a collection of recipes by Clare Crespo for creating the most demented and delightful culinary creations you will ever have seen. What you see on the cover are two baked potato slices with string beans stuck on them. Edible Flip Flops!

I went on the Internet today to see if I could find more of her creations and came across the website of the photographer Eric Staudenmaier. I am going to forward Hey Cupcakes! to Mr M on Monday.

Completely fun!

The Treehouse

D the contractor came to do the "final" touches (for the 8th time). He forgot to bring the light transformers for the kitchen track lights (and so will come again next week) but he did not forget the bring the CD of photos taken by the photographers. The photos did come out really rather nice. :)

Welcome in to the Treehouse...