Fear, Passion and Purity

Last Saturday as my hairdresser set out to save my unkempt hairstyle from fashion doom, I read "Every Woman's Battle (Discovering God's Plan for Sexual and Emotional Fulfillment" by Shannon Ethridge in one intense sitting.

The book put me in a pretty sober even melancholy mood throughout the whole weekend. The book was not radical or thought provoking in terms of issues raised - it was the usual rehash of the need to stay pure and chaste. The difference was her frankness about how women had to continually fight to keep their purity throughout dating, courtship and in their marriage.

Ethridge was quite upfront - if we women thought it was appalling that men could not keep their eyes from straying even after they got married, we had to take a really close look at how often women let their hearts and minds stray. Many women are guilty of conducting virtual emotional and mental affairs - only some were unlucky enough to get caught when they acted upon the affairs in reality. Ethridge's warning was that if we never learnt to discipline our hearts in our singlehood, we might carry this habit even after marriage: thus allowing the roots of adulterous affairs to take place.

The book scared me. I sometimes laugh at how fast men's heads swivel around on the street at the sight of a pretty girl - but I find it far more serious when I see how fast my own heart can swivel around in the presence of an attractive man. I found myself wondering throughout the day: So why do we women do this? Why can't I get a grip on my heart and mind as much as I would like to? Why do a few choice words or sweet gestures make my resolve melt?

I know I should stay open to being touched by a man's sweet words and lovely gestures - as a single woman, if you put up too unrelenting, too judgmental a wall, you run the painful risk of never letting yourself be open to love and being loved by the right man.

But yet, I don't want to be so open to being touched by words and gestures that suddenly you cannot discern who the right man is any more. Your fickle heart just starts to fall for any man who pushes the right emotional and mental buttons. I don't want to be that undiscerning single woman. And for the future, I don't want to be that adulterous wife either.

I don't think I was ready to date in my early 20s - I was too fearful and insecure in my own identity. I used to say flippantly that I have no problems staying single for the rest of my life if need be because I was scared to hope, scared of disappointment and scared of being let down by God.

Approaching 30 this year, I can finally say quite confidently I know who I am, I know what I want in life, I know the kind of man I can last a lifetime with and I am no longer afraid to hope.

Still, I need to keep watch over my old fears - because it pays not to be overconfident and complacent. Old fears have deep roots and are remarkably resilient and ever-ready to grow again.

What am I scared of? What fears and lies tempt me away from being wise and beckon me towards the path of destruction?

In all honesty:
I have always been scared of not being physically attractive enough.
I have always been scared that good character does not make enough difference to men, even Christian men.
I get scared that God is not as faithful as I believe. That He could not be bothered with my petty desires
I get scared that That This is As Good As It Gets and You Should Just Take what the world has to offer for God does not have better plans for me.
I get scared that patience, faith and hopin God's plans are silly notions - better to be impatient, take things into your own hands and hope you yourself can force things to work.

The fears are very very real in their ability to knock me off course despite my knowing that the fears are very very false.

And so, only Truth sets me free.

So this is what I know is True:
God loves me - in Him, I have significance and security and no fear that I am without worth.
His love transforms me because I see the way He wants me to be and His love helps me believe I can be that way.
God loves the men and women of this world - they all have worth and significance in Him.
His love will transform them the same way that they transform me.

God Makes a Difference. People who have finally accepted that God loves them can be transformed. When you know you are loved, you suddenly feel you can do anything. You feel renewed and reborn - that somebody has looked past all your weaknesses and dirtiness and seen the gold within. You can be Good again because you finally found someone who believes you will be Good.

And God is faithful - His plans to remake us in His image, remake our relationships into purer kinder relationships will come to pass. And patience, faith and hope will see their reward not just in the unseen future but also in the present.

There is so much that is mysterious to me right now. So much unknown that should scare me.
I don't know who God has in store for me at the end of the day
But the patience for God's timing to unfold, and faith in the Goodness of His plans puts peace in my heart that helps me wait.

And this day at least, and prayerfully every other day to come,
I can believe that I will find the strength to stay patient and stay pure while I wait.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Help me God, not to be a Fool.

The Meet Cute

"The Meet Cute"

I learnt this new phrase while watching that amazingly awful romantic comedy The Holiday en route to London three weeks ago. The Holiday reaches new depths of mediocrity with the scenes between Cameron Diaz and Jude Law (gorgeous people but ARGH, noxious plot!) but at least had a few charming bits during the Kate Winslet scenes. (But of course I also think Kate Winslet can do no wrong. hee.)

Anyhow, Kate Winslet plays poor melancholy Iris, a magazine writer nursing her pummelled heart. Her ex-boyfriend is that kind of cad that still wants to remain friends but keeps things so fuzzy that you are always wondering hopefully if he still likes you and wants to get back together. So Iris flies all the way to California to escape her crummy life.

Anyhow in the Hollywood neighbourhood, Iris befriends Old Screenwriter because he has lost his way home and she decides to kindly offer him a ride. That's when he tells her about "The Meet Cute"

According to good old Wikipedia:
"In the film The Holiday (2006), Eli Wallach's character Arthur Abbott (a Hollywood screenwriter) described a meet-cute by saying "Say a man and a woman both need something to sleep in and both go to the same men's pajama department. The man says to the salesman, I just need bottoms, and the woman says, I just need a top. They look at each other and that's the meet-cute." "

In other words, it's one of the conventions of romantic comedy films where you have the contrived encounter of two potential romantic partners in unusual or comic circumstances. During a "meet-cute", scriptwriters often create a humorous sense of awkwardness between the two potential partners by depicting an initial clash of personalities or beliefs, an embarrassing situation, or by introducing a comical misunderstanding or mistaken identity situation.

So if screen mimicks reality to some extent, I wonder how many of the couples I know began with a Meet Cute in real life?

Through the Barricades

I have been doing a lot of mulling over what makes human relationships deep and meaningful. It's crazy how many walls - conscious and unconscious - that we erect around our precious selves. When I look deep within my own self, with the revealing light of God's truth looming before me, I see an internal labyrinth of twists and turns. I am guilty of much of what I am gonna talk about for sure.

The psychologist Larry Crabb talks about how deeply hurtful the sin of self-protection is - and yet not many of us are unaware of the fact that it is a sin. We claim we have the right to "protect ourselves" or say with total sensibility "we cannot expect to be best friends with everybody". It sounds absolutely logical and looks absolutely logical to keep people at arm's length. It sounds almost too convenient.

Sometimes I think being nice and polite can be insufferable and frustrating. Being nice and polite, we sometimes refrain from saying what is always on our minds. It does not mean that we should be aggressive, rude or in-your-face. Nice and polite has a place and time.

BUT sometimes our being 'nice and polite' and 'sensitive' can be convenient excuses to stay indifferent to another person. We don't want to create trouble. And God FORBID, we get involved!

We don't want to go into the uncharted scary territory of offence and in doing so, we create opportunities for ourselves to become hypocrites.

Some of us are scared of OFFENDING another person. So we keep our mouth shut and keep our grouses within in the name of 'niceness'. Yet, we get disdainful and arrogant about how 'touchy' and 'closed up' the person is. Or worse, we gossip with others about why he/she is so touchy.

The question here to answer honestly is : Why don't we attempt to push past the person's barricades and find out how they are and what they think?

Some of us are scared of BEING OFFENDED by another person. So we keep our mouth shut around the type of people who aggravate us the most in the name of 'niceness'. Yet, deep within, we fester with resentment about being forced into a closeted, constrained kind of life by such 'nasty, insensitive' people - we grumble ironically about a closet we actually created for ourselves.

The question here to answer honestly is: Why don't we let down our barriers and let others see our thoughts - ugly as they are?

It is funny how often we deliberately choose not to engage deeply with people. And be driven to despair with the lack of deep engagement. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, a tragic comedy of sorts. The one thing we demand of people, we are not willing to give of ourselves to make it happen.

So many of us hunger so deeply for real, genuine heart-to-heart, deep-calls-out-to-deep relationships. We read up books and hear sermons telling us how to do so but nothing penetrates - especially when the books and sermons sound like meaningfullly offered but flat instructions.

It's like handing our recipies to starving people - they don't want to know the instructions of how to make a meal, they want the meal itself. There is something very wrong and very sad when all people have heard the preaching about Love THY Neighbour and yet not all people can testify that they have felt that Love.

Jesus tells us to Feed our sheep. Not tell them how to feed themselves. Or hope that other people will feed them.

Why are we so scared of crossing the barricades we erect around ourselves?
Why do we erect so many barricades around us?
Why do so many of our words and conversations rotate around and around the desire for genuine relationships and genuine love and yet we never dare to do anything about it?
Why do so many of us pin an obsessive hope for a soulmate to come along as if the perfect husband or wife will solve our deep hunger for real relationships?

Why are we so scared to lose the life that we have? The peaceful, feel good life of non-confrontation?
Why do we cling on so tightly to our privacy?
Our life without fights, difficult conversations and awful truths?

Could it be that deep relationships only happen if we let go of 'polite niceness', speak words of truth IN LOVE - embrace the possibility of fights, difficult conversations and awful truths which may actually open doors for deeper relating?

Luke 9:24 records for us Christ's intoxicating words:
"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

Christ demanded that we give up all earthly things in our life. I don't think he meant just the surface tangible stuff. I think he meant the difficult parts as well - ego, esteem, privacy, vulnerability.

It does not mean we should bare our souls like modern Pharisees, proclaiming loudly in the streets "Look how brave and vulnerable I am!!!! Oh so godly!!!! and honest!!" That's repulsive and reeks of showmanship.

I mean we should have a disarmament. We should lay down our defenses and surrender our need to protect our lives. And say the honest thing, even if that lays everything vulnerable before another.

The writer Frederick Buechner felt this keenly as he struggled through his father's suicide. He wrote a book that quotes King Lear in its title, "Speak What We Feel (Not What We Ought To Say): Reflections on Literature and Faith."

Like all Shakespearen tragedies, King Lear involves miscommunication of epic proportions. Lear has his daughters compete for their inheritance by judging who can proclaim their love for him in the grandest possible fashion. Cordelia finds that she is unable to show her love with mere words. While her elder sisters posture and preen about their love to their happy father, Cordelia says in a famous quiet aside that goes on to start the tragedy going:

"What shall Cordelia speak?
Love, and be silent."

Though traditionally seen as the epitome of goodness in the play, Cordelia is not as innocent as we think. Her general silence - dare we say 'wimpiness - about how she feels about such mistreatment and injustice really does contribute somewhat to how much her wicked sisters get away with.

At the end of the play, among the dead bodies of both the heroes and villains, the Duke of Albany says with great regret:

"The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say."

In short : the truth of our dark times must be told, whether or not it is what others want to hear.

Buechner himself ends off his poignant book with this encouragement:
"Fear not. Be alive. Be merciful. Be human.
And most unlikely of all:
Even when you can't believe,
even if you don't believe at all,
even if you shy away at the sound of his name,
be Christ."

Christ was able to talk to everyone with BOTH truth and love.

He never feared vulnerability or testing other people's pretence at invulnerability.

Surely, we who know and love Christ, and claim to be his disciples - should try to do the same?

How much of our own life do we still want to keep for ourselves? And for what purpose honestly?
How much are we willing to pour out at the feet of others irregardless of whether they trample upon them or not?

I want to see real change in relationships.
But first, it starts off with taking a real good look at how to change ME.

I am serious about this: If you know me personally, and if you have things you want to make me aware of - like how I frustrate you, or how I am insensitive to you - please let me know. :)

I am truly willing to disarm and learn. And die die humble myself. So call me out if I get defensive.

And if it gets ugly, it gets ugly. Love and Truth will deal with it.

God will make sure I am ready to hear about my inner ugliness. :)

lost in translation

surrealkitty
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

been reading a book about understanding conversations between mothers and daughters and why they are always so fraught with tension and misunderstanding.

The title of the book says it all - "Are You Wearing That?!" heh. Was immediately amused because my mother has said that to me a few times before and that naturally led to a crossfire exchange. I remember I hated wearing skirts and dresses before university and my mother would always give me despairing looks if I walked out of the house in yet another pair of pants.

There was once in JC when I was rushing out to catch a play and just at the door, my mother yells, "GO WEAR A SKIRT!" My 17 year old smart mouth answers back, "FOR WHAT?! I AM LATE!" Then, she delivers the clincher," You want people to think you are LESBIAN is it?!" Of course, that did not go down too well with my 17 year old ego. :) Argument naturally ensues and to save time, I grouchily leave house with dress on and think nasty thoughts of Mother Nazi being 1) evil and always looking down on me 2) anti-homosexual.

At 29, I quarrel a lot less with my mother. It comes with growing up and understanding how human everybody is. I think that's the first marker of being grown-up - realising your parents are not superhuman and perfect, and learning to be more gracious towards them.

I think like the author of the book, I start to see that the stuff that comes out of a person's mouth may be a poor reflection of the stuff that WANTS to come out of a person's mouth.

In other words, there is the Message and then, there is the Meta-Message. Apparently, this is key to understanding women-to-women conversation: one must listen hard to the Message and even harder for the Meta Message.

"Are you coming home to eat?!" , "You think this house is a hotel?!", "You think you grow big now got wings to fly is it?!" and assorted nuggets of typical furious chinese mother-daughter exchanges can be translated as a sadder "I miss you. I am scared you don't like me or care for me anymore. Why are you so cold to me?"

Learning to concentrate on the Meta Message - the unspoken volumes of thought that get lost in translation - really helps cover a multitude of harsh exchanges.

If anything, it has stopped me from reverting to my 17 year old self that sees my mother as the Moral Police, the Weight/Dressing Nazi, Incessant Nag. :) It has helped me concentrate on seeing her as a human being hoping to communicate to another human being - one that she helped bring to life by a strange twist of fate.

Hard lessons

avatar3
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

TissueAunty's saga has taken on a new twist. I got a call from her son saying they had trouble paying the rent and they were going to get evicted if they did not pay by 7pm that night. I thought if I could speak to the housing agent directly I could find out more about the situation and reason it out.

It turns out the agent herself sympathised with the family but the owner of the flat was quite no-nonsense and unsympathetic because in her view, the TissueFamily (TF) was nothing but trouble - messy, late in their payments and unreliable in their word. They had apparently promised to pay by a certain time but kept delaying and delaying and hence had broken trust with the owner. The rent and PUB bill for the month was up and that was that.

I offered to bail the family out by paying the rent first. The TF was grateful and I made them promise to pay the PUB bill at least on the alloted date. I stressed to them how they could not give the landlord any reason to mistrust them anymore. TF repeated that they would be getting their pay on that day and could definitely pay.

So anyhow, today was the alloted date. TF had actually called me in the day quite happily telling me they got their salary and were going to pay. But at 9pm, I got a distraught call from the harrassed agent wailing that she did not want to take charge of their account anymore because TF kept delaying the appointed time to meet and deliver the money. She was frustrated and fed up with being the middle man between an unreliable tenant and an unreasonable landlord. I think she was appealing to me once more to take up the bill.

I admit - I feel really frustrated and irritated now with the TF - I don't like the thought that now that I am involved, I cannot ignore their plight. I have to help them as my neighbour. But how do I do this for the long haul? I find myself thinking the same thoughts as the agent - What if next month and the month after that is the same thing? I cant keep bailing them out, I cant keep paying their rent for them. That cant be the solution - can it?

Her problems have now become my problems. The agent now has me on speed dial. And I had to talk with nasty landlord as well. I am officially INVOLVED. ha. Precisely what I asked God for - great. Now what?

Beyond the idealistic fervour of prayer after moving sermons about "love your neighbour", when given a chance to do so and having to confront that said neighbour may not consistently uplifting and fun to love - what do we do? what would Jesus do?

I am trying to give them the benefit of the doubt that something happened and thus they have not been able to meet the agent. But I am sorely tempted with the thought of getting angry at them, bailing out, telling them I cannot do this any more, drawing the boundaries etc. But I am haunted by a constant question - is it right? I know it is practical...but is it right? is it right? is it God's way or mine? What's wrong with the picture? Is it me? I am shocked too by my own anger, impatience and irritation - it is there, at the edges, waiting. If I dont figure out the godly answer to this little conundrum, I am gonna breed some self-righteous hullabooloo within.

This whole 'get-personally-involved-with-the-poor' mission I have taken on is really teaching me some super hard lessons in the cost of grace and hands-on love thy neighbour. Making me solidify my theories. So so so so much harder when you apply ideals to real life!

Its a real education - a regular PhD in theology of sorts! ha.

I have to confront some awful truths about my own attachment to money and my own ideas about personal responsibility and fairness.
Am more and more aware I can never deceive myself that I am "nice". NO, I am certainly not "nice" - I have many more lessons to learn about
true humility, integrity and patience. I am sure there is something I must learn and change - but what?

I dont have my thoughts straight yet. But off the cuff - yeah, it is damnably frustrating. MIssionaries to the poor have my greatest respect.

Gonna read a new book I got about missions to the poor - hopefully it is less airy fairy theory and more on practical application. Post more when I sort out my thoughts.

Meanwhile....ARGH! >:( and GAH!

adultery exposed - a guy's take

neonangel
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

i got an interesting forwarded email lately and have been musing about how many responses it got from guys who agreed with what it said. It offers a pretty interesting look at how men get seduced. AND it also deals with that age old debate among us ARPC gals about whether you should just settle for any "godly" guy or be more stringent. heh.

Any male (or female of course) blurkers wanna offer their take?
btw, am changing some of his comments to protect his identity. :)

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"Here's a surprising fact I discovered - In the many divorce cases I have seen, the women responsible for breaking up marriages and families were not as physically attractive as the wives. I used to be a big fan of a marriage counseling book on the different needs of men and women but this threw the theories of that book out the window.

What I found was this. Men have two very deep, very primal emotional needs. Women who choose to meet these needs become irresistible to men. The needs are:

1)       to feel happy with who they truly are when they are with a woman
2)       to know that this woman is truly happy when she is with them.

But what usually happens after marriage?

The dude comes home after a hard day's work. The first words out of his wife's mouth are a torrent of complaints. And when it comes to Sunday morning, it usually gets worse. The wife is usually the first one up. She'll lovingly prepare breakfast, help pack the kid's stuff and all that.Then barge into the bedrooms of the rest of the family yelling at them that they're gonna be late for church. And after that the wife feels so frustrated and pissed off at why everyone else in the family is grumpier than her even though they got more sleep than she did.

To the dude, married life is a series of minor catastrophies. He is fighting fires day-by-day and he gets tired.

This, ladies, is a dangerous situation. But it's even more dangerous if there are issues that need to be worked out. If the wife is unhappy with the dude over his job, or his pay, or his hobby. And she regularly makes it known by complaining or nagging at him about it. And he gets even more tired.

'Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.' (Pro 21:9) "Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife." (Pro 21:19)

When we dudes look at you and decide that we wanna have a dating/courtship relationship with you, we usually are looking out for red-flags, warning signs that tell us the future problems we're gonna have with you when we get married.

And if we actually propose to you, we do so knowing your problems and hang-ups. We look at them and say "Hey, I can live with them." And we foolishly shrug our shoulders and assume that you ladies look at our problems and hang-ups in the same way too, that if you agree to marry us you're cool with who we really are, warts and all.

That's why, sisters, nagging and complaining about us hits us so badly. It hits us at our core emotional need for acceptance. If the woman I love and choose to spend the rest of my life with is so dissatisfied with me, there must be something really wrong with me. How then can I be happy with being who I really am?

It's kinda like rejection from parents - if the people who brought me into this world think I'm lousy, I must be lousy.

And at this point, any woman who can meet our core needs is gonna affect us powerfully. Hey, it may not even grow to the point of adultery. But doesn't it offend your very sensibilities that it's another woman who makes your husband feel good about being himself, and not YOU?

And if this other woman is genuinely happy when she's with your husband, he's gonna look at her seriously. Even if he's still loyal to you, if he's gotta choose between spending time with you (and hearing you nag) or spending time with her (watching her smile and laugh) who do you think he's gonna choose?

And don't let the marriage vow deceive you into thinking you can get away with emotionally abusing your husband. I had to confront this woman who discovered that her husband, a serious believer, loving father and a husband with a heart of servanthood, fell in love with another woman. It was only his love for God and his children that kept him from actually committing adultery with her.

I had to be the one who told her "If you've been threatening him with divorce at every quarrel (from within the first 3 months of marriage) and constantly telling him how marrying him has totally ruined your future, your hopes, your dreams and your life, how do you think he's gonna feel about anyone who's happy when she's with him?"

I plead with you, don't ever let your marriage go there. Because you know after every quarrel he's wondering why he married you instead of her. He'll be wondering how much longer he can put up with this. And he's gonna be praying "God, deliver me from this marriage!"

Guys, please recognize the power of the two needs I mentioned. You need a woman who makes you happy to be who you really are. And who is truly happy when she's with you. This is the type of woman you WILL love as you love yourself.

On your side the responsibility is this: NEVER commit yourself to a woman who doesn't fulfill these needs, or even worse, is dragging you down in this two areas.

I don't care if she's a pastor, super-model or worship-leader, I don't care how many church meetings, prayer meetings or bible-studies she goes to each week, I don't care how much she's "improved" (God, that word makes me cringe to the very core of my being!) since you first got to know her.

If she makes you unhappy about being you, or you can't see regular evidence that she's happy when she's with you (and don't lie to yourself guys), leave her.

Now.

Because it may be that this woman is unable to fulfill your core needs because of who she is as a person. And if you put her in a position where she HAS to fulfill them even though she can't, you are not being fair to her, putting on her a burden she can't carry.

And if you meet a woman fulfills all these needs for you, recognize this: she's like water to a thirst you may never realized you had. So before you totally lose all ability for rational thought, get a couple of good brothers-in-Christ to check her out and look out for danger signs that you're most probably gonna miss, because you're too deeply in love.

And sisters, when you look for a husband, I plead with you, don't just look for a godly man. Seriously, they abound. Look for a man for whom you fulfill these needs just by being you.

Because if you can fulfill those needs, you WILL respect your husband, as God commands. Effortlessly. It takes genuine respect for who your husband truly is as a person to make him happy to be himself when he's with you. And to be happy when you're with him.

Junk the angmo-nised cookie cutter approach to relationships and marriage that you'll get by browsing the Christian bookshops. The books that get sold there make you believe that marriage is meant to be hard work, and you need to learn 5 love languages, 5 needs of men and women and go through one year of devotionals on becoming soul mates.

After all the experiences I've been through and all the relationships and marriages I've seen, I can honestly tell you from the depths of my heart, if you're not soul mates to begin with, you won't be even after going through all those books, seminars and message CDs.

Finally, brothers and sisters, spend lots of time in God's presence. Because through the blood of Christ he's given you a darn good reason to be happy with who you truly are as a person and he's overjoyed whenever you're with him. And when you get used to having those two needs met by God, you'll recognize it when you meet that special someone who'll meet those needs for you."

Thoughts on TissueAunty's birthday

It was TissueAunty's birthday today - I broke my promise to celebrate it with her over dinner(she insisted on treating) as I was in a meeting and prioritised that as more "important". I am kinda grateful that I got a second chance on my way home. Apparently after her birthday dinner, she went straight back to the little Bugis island, selling her tissue paper. She insisted on treating me to a drink and I sat with her for a while to make up for missing her birthday. Teasing her about her new haircut, I asked her what she wanted as a present. In an embarrassed whisper, she requested for a Singtel Hi Card and perhaps a little pushcart trolley to ferry her multiple bags of tissuepaper, knickknacks and all that she peddled. She also asked for prayer for her and her family.

I thought it was sweet of her to actually want to buy me birthday dinner. And sweeter still that her requests were so simple and asked for with so little bile or greed. She has so little and yet she wants to cheerfully share her wealth still. Since meeting her and being challenged by God on a personal level to be more participative in the life of the needy, I must say she has taught me some things about faith and perseverance in terrible circumstances. She has also shown me that God truly looks after the weakest and neediest in profound ways when we people neglect them. (Update: She found a flat that costs significantly less to rent and an easier-going $1200/month job manning a toilet at Bugis Village! Her son also secured a jib pushing a drink cart near Rochor. That's amazing considering her circumstances when we first met)

_________________

This made me muse a bit about something. On my DISC profile, with my high S and I, I am classified as a Counsellor/Adviser. It seems to tally with my experiences with random strangers. I am an uncanny magnet for strangers with the oddest hard luck stories on the streets. I think I send out a broadband signal - "easy target. will listen. likes oddballs. please approach. will find it hard to say no to request for conversation."

Everytime I meet a stranger with a hardluck story, I am challenged to put my beliefs about helping the poor to the test. I am fairly absolute in my statements to my students about the need to challenge the status quo and bridging the rich/ poor divide at an individual level as well as societal and international level. With each strange 'kook', I meet I am forced to readdress my values, "Are you gonna help or are you gonna walk away?"

It's really really tough and I can feel how easy it is to walk away. It is a temptation to help out in as fast, simple, "in and out" way as possible. Far tougher to make the decision to commit long-term to helping another person. It already is tough to dig out the wallet and dispense out the cash to a needy person. It is far far far tougher to go an extra mile and say you are willing to be involved beyond the chance encounter.

I know all the routine arguments because heaven knows, I have made them before in my lifetime ---- Yes, it is impossible to be involved personally with every single poor person that we meet, yes we can never insure that the money we give does not go to ciggies-drugs-alcohol, yes we are too culturally different to be of real use to them, Yes, I know we can just buy them food because that's what they need most.....so far the nagging feeling that will not leave my mind anytime I hear these arguments is - are those answers tripping just a little too quickly and conveniently off my tongue? Do my clever words disguise mere excuses? Do I want to buy food because I dont want to commit to giving real money and time to find out where exactly the person needs help in?

$5 for a pack of chicken rice is a cheap price to pay for assuaging guilty naggy feelings of "you ought to help the poor" and gaining the high of"wow,i am a generous person." We buy the drink and food for the homeless, feel warm inside with the chance to play benefactor and walk away from them for the rest of our life. We go back to our riches, they go back to an everyday reality of poverty. I just don't buy short-term charity. Real charitable work is a life-time commitment- a hard core decision to invest one's life in another's life. Cursory donations are useful but just don't cut it in terms of long-term solutions.

It's a challenge - and one that I am still wondering how I will fare in in my maiden effort/experiment with TissueAunty. Its tough...there have been so many encounters that I had where I was not sure how to go on further.

One time after working late at school, I was accousted by a drugged out looking chinese man asking for ten bucks. Not wanting to antagonise him, I listened politely to his ravings for a good thirty minutes - the conversation went from how his family betrayed him, to how he jumped off a building once and hurt his 'lum-par' (he gestured at his crotch violently to emphasise his point) but not one of his family looked after him, While talking to me, he would creepily talk at a space behind me, as if there was someone behind me. The nuttiest part was when he declared he had gone to prison before and was angry all the time and wanted to kill people. He stressed that sometimes he wondered if people walking on the street knew that he wanted to kill them. (At this point, I said, 'Oh no, I don't think they do and you should not kill people') He agreed and mentioned that in prison he met a Malay man who was always patient even though he insulted Malay guy's mom ('I call her C-B also he never angry!') From then, he wanted to be just like the guy. I nodded very very approvingly ('ya its good, learn to be like him'), gave him money and walked off as soon as it seemed like he was content he got stuff off his chest and was not gonna kill me.

Then there was the Eurasian man with one of those annoying survey forms who approached me in Raffles MRT, asking me questions about whether I liked my job and whether I was keen on switching careers to the sales company he was surveying for. I was trying to explain to him how I loved teaching and would never consider a career switch - he could not understand at all why anyone would not even try to find out how to get extra income. Conversation became a philosophical one about the nature of work and money with him trying to convince me about his stance - anyhow, turned out he was a slightly mentally unhinged unemployed man, sacked from his management post, and not taking it too well. He was a philosophy major and repeatedly made sure I understood that. Conversation lasted an hour. Anyhow, a few months later, I meet the same guy, doing the same survey at Bugis MRT. When he approaches me, I tell him straight away that he asked me before and we had a really long talk about why I was not keen. He goes on to reveal to me that he is angry the PAP wont subsidise his brain surgery and the government should watch out for how all the unemployed - "the walking dead" he called them - would rise up and overthrow it. He also names for me all the nasty civil servants he met at the CDC distributing social welfare. He also reiterates for me that he is not stupid, he came from a prestigious school and it was not his fault he was like that. (He spoke quite poshily actually, good enunciation)

And the most recent encounter: A woman with long greying hair, watery eyes and a mouth full of the smelliest, broken up , blackened teeth I had ever seen came up to me and claimed she had been praying for God to send her someone to help her pay her rent. The smell from her mouth was the foulest thing ever - she kept covering her mouth and apologising, saying she had cancer. She explains to me how her husband had died, and she was broke, and several times in conversation, she breaks off to pray one-liners to God. During entire conversation, she keeps reaching out to touch me on my hand and my stomach/waist when she wanted to emphasise "I am not a cheat. I got cheated before by a friend, I know what it is to be cheated. Please dont think I am one." We arranged to meet at City Hall the next day so I could give her some cash. She kept asking me to pray for her and how important it was because she had more vital spiritual needs than the material ones.
________

I wondered in every one of those cases, how could I offer long term commitment to help? When do I hand over the responsibilities to other people? It's a really tough call to follow. Need so much grace for it to happen! Still exploring....:)

Snipers

According to the DISC personality test, because I am a super "S" type - I have learnt to cope with my environment by learning to be more objective and rational over people. I swear - that is a big challenge in the face of sniper-type personalities - you know, the kind who cannot resist giving you all their snipey little barbed, bullets of the day. Never fails to bring a good mood down to earth.

Is it a uniquely Singaporean social greeting to make comments about one's appearance? Like "You look very tired/haggard/fat/wierd etc." Whatever happened to just courteously asking after someone's general well-being or family?

The response that always runs in my head is - Oh gee, thanks for pointing it out! I wouldn't have been able to guess. I mean hello, if the person looks tired, he probably knows that he looks it and does not need you to unceremoniously point out how big his eyebags are, or how paunchy he is looking etc.

Of course, the silly part is, I know I have done that to people myself. Its like this horrible mechanism that pops into play - before you know it, you have said the dreaded words, "Oh wow....you look (Fill in the uncomplimentary blank)" ARGH. You have crossed over to the dark side before you know it.

Ok, must repent from planks of primary forest in my eye.

Must consciously say in head, whenever feel tempted to make 'evil comments' about someone's appearance, must replace with 'more encouraging comment' or better yet, just not comment at all.

The tongue! It is such a little monster!

mental games

was looking at article about how Constance (the former VJC girl, ex air stewardess who fell in love with a karang guni man)finally got convicted for killing little Sindee Neo. The photo they had of Constance was so normal looking and sweet-faced. The psychologist's take was that Constance had spiralled into where she was now because her schizophrenia went unchecked.

I wonder what was going through her head from her fresh faced JC days all the way to her standing before the judge, getting her sentence.

here's one ridiculous conundrum i find myself on some moody days:

sometimes i will start by wishing people were easier to understand or easier to talk to.
Then I start wondering how easy I am for someone else to understand.
Then I worry that though I may think I am easy to get to know, I may be deceiving myself in actuality.
Then I start worrying about whether I am a hypocrite.
rinse. repeat. angst.
kick self in backside.
return to living normal life.

I wonder what other unproductive mental cycles of silliness we all have within us? Those private, bizarro self-defeating mental routines that are triggered by goodness knows what? What little madness-es do we have within us and hide?

sometimes when i see 'mad people' or extremely socially awkward people, i wonder exactly how disimilar i am actually from them.

hmm.

A Long-awaited Conversation: thoughts on friendship

In the gorgeous dark woodiness of Mezza9, I met L. for a long anticipated good conversation. Scrooge McDuck that I am, I normally shy away from expensive places. This time though, it seemed fitting to celebrate this moment properly.

After all, this conversation has been 4 years in the making. Heaven conspired to make it happen.

L has always been floating in my peripheral vision. We had been through a series of bizarre events together. Though there have been one or two attempts on both ends to get to know each other better as a consequence of bizarre events, no real friendship ever took root. We both were not ready for it. Our hearts were closed and the intentions too shallow, the fears too many to found anything solid on. Christ had not readied either of us for the moment yet.

Genuine friendship seems to require as much of a miracle as a genuine romantic relationship. Both parties need to be open, interested and willing to give it a go. I suppose next time, if I am ever tempted to think of why I have not been abundantly blessed in the romance department, I must give thanks for the extensive way I have been blessed in the friendship department. Real friends - encouraging, heart-to-heart, walk-me-through-Damascus friends - are true miracles as well.

Back to L : I have prayed for her to know God from time to time, always hoping that she would find Him in an unshakeable, healing way. I prayed sporadically, without any real expectations beyond a vague hope that something would change. God held more true than I did, thank goodness.

When I found out two weeks ago that God had dragged her into His Kingdom in a mighty big zap-from-the-sky way, I was literally dumbfounded. I sent her an SMS to gush out my congratulations and that led to many emotional SMS exchanges gushing about the amazing, fabulous, cunning, humourous, no holds barred God that we were now sharing at long last.

I love it when I can gush with a fellow believer about God - it makes me feel for the Paul-like ideal of Christian community. Paul was the original gusher - he really poured out his heart before the brethren he wrote to. Just check out the abandonment of his greetings, encouragements and grievings. I want to feel as passionately as he felt for the godliness of his fellow believers.

When L and I met today, we talked for three and a half hours straight - exchanging our salvation stories, summing up the past four years, musing through the life-changing revelations God led us to and urging each other on in our newfound desire to be humble and love our parents more meaningfully. "What's keeping you in your comfort zone?" she challenged me about my reluctance to be more consistent in relating to my mother. I was grateful for the fortrightness. She after all was taking a big step of her own with her mother. It gladdened me because she was the last person in the world whom I would expect to hear that from and want to be held accountable to. God has a great sense of timing and humour.

We talked about coming to realise that in Christianity, one's commitment to anyone and everyone was for life. Our relationships - friends, family, husbands to be - once committed to Christ, were meant to last through thick and thin, till His Kingdom Come. I think we are mistaken to believe that marriage is the only major, no-holds-barred commitment we can make in our lives. When Christ called us to be living sacrifices and be a Body to each other, I think He was that serious. Marriage just happens to be the most obvious, visible manifestation of sacrificial commitment. It does have the extra element of literal cleaving onto each other of course which makes it a unique commitment. But I think we need to seriously reconsider our unconscious devaluation of Christian relationships as lesser things compared to Christian marriages.

She handed me my birthday present. It was brilliant - throughly unexpected and genuine in its effort to find something I would want but never get for myself. I told her by SMS later that the conversation we shared and her present were one of the best birthday presents I had ever gotten in my life.

I was gladdened by our newfound friendship. I also thought about how I never had this chance to welcome somebody into God's fold before. It made me think I want to have more chances like this - where I can literally celebrate your turning point from "dead in sin" to "alive in Christ". We should celebrate this momentous occasion with great fanfare - after all the angels are rocking up a storm for us up in heaven as well! (Off tangent: I think we need to celebrate each other more in general. For instance, birthdays should be celebrated as rejoicing in your growing another year in Christ. We should not dread aging, disdain or brush aside birthdays as nothing. They are a momentous occasion for celebrating Christ's gift of life! We should not see it as a time to wheel out a perfunctory cake and card.)

730pm : It was a lovely conversation as we both hoped in our earlier SMSes. We searched for Christian books in Borders for a while and decided to part at the junction of Scotts and Orchard.

"Hey," I said, "Welcome to the kingdom." I gave her an embrace.

She returned it with the firmness that comes from sincerity.

She smiled and said,"We will keep talking." She later sent an SMS musing that she had a feeling we would be in each other's lives for a long time. I believe her.

We both left for home. I crossed a street. It glittered with rain, headlights and possibility.

God is good. His ways are high ways.

the paradox of being encouraging

Have been fascinated by the concept of encouragement ever since I read a book on teenage education reminding us to "Encourage" not "Exasperate". Pour courage and strength into those in need. Do not take the wind from their sails, remove the breath from their bodies. Pretty profound stuff in terms of the implications on our relationships.

Been reading Larry Crabb's Encouragement (from the 30% Tecman sale!) It's an interesting book on how to build a culture of meaningful encouragement in church.

Interestingly, what stood out straight away in the book was his matter-of-fact observations in the chapter labelled "The Character of an Encourager".

Paradox 1:
"We all resist being dependable. We would rather be dependent. Yet becoming dependable is precisely what christianly ministry requires."

Paradox 2:
"The more determined I am to minister, the more painfully aware I become of my desire to have someone look after me. If I am committed to helping another, then I am never free to abandon myself to another. Yet this is what my soul cries out for."

woah. You are hitting it on the head, Crabb.

"People who take seriously the goal of ministry, and who are careful to prevent their desires for receiving ministry from becoming their goals, will inevitably encounter a profound loneliness. An awareness develops that although we may share with others, we can never fully depend on others....Even if he were to scrap the purpose of ministry and actively seek to end his loneliness through others' ministry to him, he would find no real satisfaction. The best of friends will inevitably fail us, because of self-preoccupation or imperfect understanding....The human condition in its fallen state is a lonely one, and a commitment to minsiter compounds the problem."

Ouch....very honest stuff Crabb but awfully depressing. When you gonna kick in the godly way out of this paradox?

"Here's the surprising virtue of loneliness...Godly character requires knowing God firsthand. The route to knowing God eventually passes directly through the valley of profound loneliness. It is in the times when there is no one but God that we learn to know HIm most fully. Those times...come only from emptying our lives into the lives of others.

When we depend on no one to minister to us, when we thankfully accept the little encouragement coming our way from others, then the soul will feel its deepest longing - to abandon itself to someone perfectly reliable and strong.....when the loneliness is greatest, we turn in desperate dependency to God. His love penetrates most deeply when we feel unloved."

"The character of an encourager must be strong. It must be molded and hardened in the fires of loneliness when no one but God is there. And loneliness - that surprising opportunity to know God - comes as we so throughly commit ourselves to ministering to others that we depend on God alone to minister to us. His ministry draws us into HIs very presence so that we can speak to others from holy ground. Then our words have power for good."

okay, before you think Crabb is a masochist who advocates leaders getting all maniacally depressed and stoically lonely, he does write an incisive follow-up chapter called 'When Do We Tell Somebody Else How We Feel?". Fabulous stuff in there and other chapters as well - must read for every Christian but especially those in teaching or leading positions.

..but yeah, Wow. I felt so challenged and so encouraged at the same time reading that chapter.

I want to be a better encourager. It's really good that Crabb pointed out the pitfall of "profound loneliness" to come that awaits. It allows me to prepare my heart and mind before hand to blunt the impact a little.

I have tasted a teeny slice of that kind of loneliness in my maiden foray into playing at being a real encourager. It's a little scary to know I may not even have experienced the full extent of that type of loneliness yet. Am sure many pastors and missionaries have been there and done that. It certainly is a revelation to me about how much MORE we need to pray and guard our church leaders' emotional and spiritual health.

If I feel pangs of loneliness doing my small scale ministry, what on earth must be going through our pastors' or song leaders' heads when they stare out at stony faces in the congregation?

Now I know why Pastor C has been reminding us to turn up on time for church with the mindset of encouraging each other every opportunity we can - in parking properly, in waking up on time, in genuine friendship breaks, in the way we sing, in the way we listen to sermon, in the way we talk to our neighbour after sermon.

We must do so partly to encourage each other. But in between the lines... I think just as importantly, we need to do so to encourage Pastor C himself.

woah. okay. Got the message.
Am on it, Pastor C. Thanks for the heads up, Crabb. I owe ya one.

Pick Me Up, Love - Everyday

rapid
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

"So are you still tired?"
"A little. It never lasts beyond a day but it comes and goes. I'm ok. People have been encouraging."
"How can your tiredness be gone so fast? It usually takes weeks for some."
"No choice lah. Pick up and go on lor. Pointless to mope or bitch about it."

Post conversation, I walked down Orchard this afternoon, thinking of going to the gym to workout and kill the rest of a Sunday afternoon.

At the junction between Heeren and Orchard Emerald, I heard a series of high-pitched shrieks and screams. There was a obese man in his 30s gesturing wildly at the staring crowds. His arms were just flailing around as if he was scoulding everybody.

He cut a freakish, pathetic figure in trendy Orchard Road - fat, faded red polo over his bulging belly, unflattering khaki shorts, and a tiny black backpack that accentuated his girth.

Around him, was a radius of emptiness. He was a stranger in a crowd of onlookers. Everybody was giving him a wide berth, attempting to avoid the madman physically but their eyes were invariably drawn towards him in judgement, either with open pity or open disdain.

After gesturing for a few more minutes and shrieking, he suddenly stopped and walked away towards Paragon. At the next junction, I could hear him screaming again.

I felt suddenly melancholic and in my heart, a sudden thought emerged:
I wish I could help you. I think I know how you feel.

I gave up the idea of gym and took a really long walk instead to shake of the wave of melancholy that was starting to take hold. All the way, I heard the Dave Matthews Band sing "Everyday" in my head.

And I messaged my friend back, "You're right. It doesn't go away that fast. It's awful fighting it off and I am sad."

I bought myself tea and basked in the perfect mindlessness of Martha Stewart's Living at the library. There is something very peaceful in looking at pretty pictures of a well-laid meal or picturesque living room. Went on to have a pretty nice dinner with parents later (surprisingly sane without usual sniping). I re-read an encouraging note I got from a stranger. I received a powerful prayer from SMS. Will end the night in prayer and fellowship with a good friend.

God's love will prevail. It will pick me up everyday. But it does not make the walk any easier. But it does make it more meaningful and more possible. And I guess in that sense - it gets easier. And I can say with confidence and truthfulness - I am doing alright.
______________________

Dave Matthews Band "Everyday"

"Pick me up, love!
Hey, come on come on come on
Everyday, ah
Pick me up, oh, from the bottom
Up to the top, love, everyday
Pay no mind to taunts or advances
I take my chances on everyday
Left to right
Up and down, love
I push up love, love everyday
Jump in the mud, oh
Get your hands dirty with
Love it up on everyday
All you need is
All you want is
All you need is love.
All you need is
What you want is
All you need is love.
Everyday
Everyday
Oh, everyday..."

Meme, Myself and I

neonangel
Originally uploaded by neonangel.

Went to a Christian discussion group today....discussing the implications of globalisation on the Church. Wish you were there to contribute, SpottedOwl!

Dinner was good and the house is as always....one kind of a wah lau darn cool. It is built for uber-hospitality. Macham Balinese resort. Apparently, the hyper-genial host regularly opens up his home for missionaries to stay. Lucky missionaries!!!! :)

But seriously now, watching how an encouraging word could take root and bounce from people to people, infecting them with enthusiasm got me thinking about memes.

I think the concept of a meme is pretty cool. Ideas do have a life of their own - thoughts voiced out capture our imaginations and trigger off a chain reaction of thoughts in other people's minds.

According to the Mighty Wikipedia (love!): "Though memeticists do not generally agree on a specific definition, one can roughly define 'meme' as any piece of information transferable from one mind to another. Examples might include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods."

It's interesting to see how the collective mind works. In the little blogosphere of ARPC where we all sneakily read each others' blogs like fervent lurkers, it's kinda cool to see how what one blogger writes starts off another blogger on a tangent of their own. A chain of thoughtfulness gets initiated.

It's one of the reasons why I blog about my Christian walk. I think it's important for people to verbalise what they are doing or what they are struggling with. From a Christian point of view, it's about meeting the need to encourage others, being a salt and light, a city on a hill in your culture.

Of course. this must be constantly tempered with awareness that there is a thin line between being open and being boastful or prideful. After all, Jesus cautioned about "not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing" and admonished the Pharisees for strutting up and down the street with loud, obvious look-at-me prayers.

From a secular perspective, I blog because I see it has a viral effect. Put out encouraging, edifying thoughts into the collective mindscape and watch the meme take a life on its own. It's pretty cool.

Memes of course can backfire on you - talk about the nastyness or silly things and watch the idea grow ALIENS-like and fester in our culture.
Really.

Watch how fast it takes for somebody's favourite catchphrase or intonation to manifest in the speech among a circle of friends. The more prominent a person, the more charismatic or outspoken a person, the more catching the meme. Cool but Scarys-ya?

Memes are like thought viruses that way. Makes one really start to see why the Bible put so much emphasis on guarding one's tongue!

Was discussing with a Christian group today about why gays feel uncomfortable in church even if there was no obvious prejudice and persecution. Gay Christians I talked to felt there was a vibe of exclusion, unconscious but present. Why do some church cultures seem unsafe or unwelcoming to their gay members such that so many of them are driven to set up their own para churches?

Discriminatory jokes, disparaging remarks, caustic side comments by their heterosexual peers seem to go a long way in drawing up divisions where there should not be. With irresponsible words we start off a little meme that quietly but viciously encourages others to follow suit. Discouragement ensues.

There are plenty of other marginalised groups in church and society - singles, people who are not highly educated, people who are not within a certain income bracket etc.

If I regularly bemoan how I hate the way I look, or how little I earn, or how I hate Singaporeans or how shallow men are, or how turning 20/30/40/50 sucks blahblahblah, it is not entirely surprising that it returns to bite me.

I have fueled the meme. I have helped create the very culture I despise.

My theory is that this meme thingee tells us somewhat how self-fulfilling prophecies work. We put the vicious thought out there, we watch it grow as we nourish it continously with loving repetition. The thought takes root in our culture and then comes back to haunt us in a dozen other discouraging voices. We think, "Yeah, see, I was right, the world is like that. Sucks man"

Moral of story for moi: always sow a couple of encouraging messages into the culture each day, be it through word of mouth, SMS, art or whatever medium of choice. Just do it. Spread da lurrrrrrve. Spread da truth.

Hmmmm anyway, those are loose thoughts post a cool discussion. Too pooped to see if I am making sense.

"Joshua raised the bar!" and other funny conversations

Post ARPC mass meeting, a bunch of us went for drinks at Adam Road hawker centre. Amusing table talk centred around what guys should do to get girls interested in them (hint: it may not be the ability to carve salad bowls and candle-sticks. Or worse, crying while being moved at how well you carve the bowls).

Which led DaMooMan to joke, "It's all church camp's fault. Now every girl in ARPC wants a guy like Pastor Joshua Ng. What hope is there for the rest of us now that he has set the bar so high?" Apparently, Joshua's much lauded choking up when talking about little son and his little Star Wars reenactments with said son had endeared him to many women at ARPC.

I thought about it - I definitely must have thought "awwww....look at how sensitive and sweet the guy is." But that was not the big thing that moved me most. It was more like a "look at how much God matters to this guy." What some of us girls found really moving about the whole thing was he was not just crying about missing his son, but more because he was moved that his little son knew why his father had to sacrifice family time to spread the gospel. That last heart wrenching plea for us to live for Christ and live out His ways sacrificially in all that we do, spreading the true gospel was amazing.

for a man (or woman for that matter) to be attractive, and assuming he/she is going for a godly partner, all he/she really has to do is to seek God first.

It seems to be a simple win-win situation actually. If in becoming more godly, you end up attracting a very godly man/woman, you hit the jackpot - a walk closer to Christ and a new ministry focused more on your spouse and children. If in becoming more godly, you end up still not getting attached, you also hit the jackpot - a walk closer to Christ and an abundance of time and freedom for opportunities to minister . In both cases, you get contentment and joy, albeit in different ways.

But the source stays the same - God supplies the joy.

Singles like me can live on that hope. Joy comes in many forms and singlehood and marriage are both equally lovely gifts because they come from a lovely Giver.

As an odd postscript, I just got my first clandestine inquiry if i minded being "set-up" with some mysterious guy. heh. guess it was just a matter of time before the "setting up" phenomenon came my way. i hear it's catching on in our little church post church camp.
________________

yet another postscript - conversation with the Moth and CatGirl at church. Thought it was funny because it kinda reminded me of the kind of rubbish conversations about pop culture that might happen in Seinfeld or in Clerks (the Kevin Smith movie)

Moth: I hate touchy feely...!
Me: No you don't you are a musician and music is all about the touchy feely
Catgirl: Bach is quite mathematical actually.
Me: But he likes jazz and soul..that's quite touchy feely.
Moth: No it's not. It comes from here (jabs his own chest)
Me: and that's not touchy feely? in a manly way? anyway It's called SOUL ... that's quite touchy feely
Moth: I am NOT touchy feely. I watch war movies like Band of Brothers... Saving Private Ryan
Me: Saving Private Ryan is like the girliest war movie around.
Catgirl: Yeah actually it is quite touchy feely.
Moth: No it's not!
Me: Oh come on...the last scene where the old guy is weeping over the grave....
Catgirl: "I hope my life was worth it...." sob sob
Moth: OK...ya that was quite (rubs goose pimples on hand and shivers)...but it's not a girly movie!!!!

heehee.

the toughest call in the world

I think Jesus really knew how to lay the smackdown when he declared the greatest commandment was to Love Our God with all our heart and mind and strength, and then to try and follow that up with loving our neighbour.

Am finding that second command difficult. When it comes down to certain archetypes of people, i have little patience and am fully tempted to spit out what I really think about them. I always think it's funny when some of my friends think I am patient. It's more like I am patient with the archetypes that do not bug me. But put me with anyone who I think is consciously stupid or a big phony wannabe or belligerent and obnoxious, and watch me cave into anger.

The true test of love is whether you are capable of loving your enemies.
Jesus really kicks ass in that department. Me much less so.

Oh for the grace of God to guard my tongue and for the Holy Spirit to quiet my soul! :(

can you marry anyone?

can you marry anyone?

that seems to be a question that presses on in circles of singles. . Hwees blogged on that recentlyAre we being too choosy when we answer 'No" to that question? When Christ called us to love our fellow man, does that mean technically we can love everyone?

I think the trick lies in figuring out whether one has the right concept of love in the first place. "Love" as in the "Love your God with all your heart, mind, strength...Love yout neighbour".

Yes, I agree we are called to love our fellow man to the best of our ability.
Yes, I agree that many arranged marraiges work.
But I disagree with the notion that it is being "picky" to say "I dont believe we can marry anyone as long as we try...especially if we are christians"

I would like to consider the case of friendship: From strangers to mere acquaintances to best friends - I am called to do my best to Love them as deep and true as Christ did. I try to extend the same courtesies, grace and favour I do on my best friend to strangers especially in times of need.

Yet even while I try to Love everyone, I recognise that only a precious few will become my best friends, my most beloved and trusted of buddies. Even if Christ has liberated me enough that I am comfortable being myself with practically everyone I know, it does not mean I am blessed with 200 best friends. I am blessed with a handful that almost seemed crafted for me to have that instant "click" with.

WIth some friends, there is a natural synergy that goes beyond having the same goals and values. To be trite, it's that "x-factor'. WIth some people, you find a natural resting place, a Home to find rest in, a place of easy laughter. With some people, you find the comfort of just being, without having to fill it up with conversation or activty. Like there is a rightness. a fit, a Design.

I try to love everyone as a neighbour, but some seem to be Destined to become the best neighbours I have ever known. It does not mean once I found my best neighbours I can stop loving everyone. I am called to do so regardless of the blessings of best friends that have been sent my way. Everyone must be my friend - nay, everyone must be trated as precious and designed by God,

That is what I think it will be like for marriage.

My stance as a single christian woman - every man (indeed every woman as well!) is to be treated with the Love of Christ. Patience, kindness, gentleness...Corinthians 13 kind of Love.

But you cannot marry everyone of them. It is as impossible as expecting everyone to be your best friend. You can Love everyone but you do not need to marry everyone of them. You can befriend everyone but you do not need to be everyone's best friend. God has a plan for each of us - unique individuals. There are other unique individuals He will bring into our lives to really impact, and other unique individuals He will send into other people's lives to impact.

Walking into every friendship and expecting them to be your bestt buddy in the world is just as silly and even unloving as walking past every guy and expecting them to be your husband. It is a emotional burden you place on them: what can you Give me in this relationship? It is not wrong to expect people to live up to a standard of human decency but it is wrong to expect everyone (and i suspect anyone) to be as self-sacrificing as Christ. It is a given Truth that while all of us live on this earth, we are all sinners.

More importantly, it is wrong to prioritise what people can Give you in a relationship over what you can give them.

Note it is different from walking into every friendship and treating them as if they are worthy and valuable as your best friend. That's Loving. It's not that Love is given without expectancy. To clarify:Love is freely given without expectancy of reward or it being deserving. That is Graciousness.We need to walk into every relationship in our life with the expectancy to serve and to give.

Sometimes I think we single christian women whine rather too loudly about why our single christian brothers do not turn to us and love us (aka romance and marry us). We are after all wonderful desirable godly creatures right? Men suck. Men don't know what they are missing out on. Men blind etc. etc. Or Women only care about money. Women will never go out with ugly men. Women suck.

Where is the grace?

OK...while there may be grains of truth there (harhar) I think it is unproductive and after a while, silly to keep up with that refrain. Plus I think there is some degree of maliciousness in thinking, "THE MEN/WOMEN DON'T GET IT". I admit I am guilty ot thinking that and always when I do, I realise it does ZERO to encourage or edify my christian brothers or sisters. It is a statement of no hope, no peace and no understanding. Is that treating each other with gentleness?

Why do we worry of such things? Our hope has always been in Christ and the Kingdom of God. a new heavens and a new earth. We all, single and married have new life within.

Life does not start at birth, nor does it start with your first kiss, nor the moment you become one flesh with your beloved. Life starts the moment you realised God was your Father, Maker, Saviour and Lord.

Ask, Seek, Open your eyes, Unstop your ears, Soften your heart.....and be amazed at how fast God will fill you with enigmatic peace and joy within.

We have a whole world of people to Love. Among them, perhaps there will be one that we will be blessed with to marry or perhaps we may walk this world alone For a Little While. It does not matter.

All that does is for us to watch, hope and pray and always, always Feed His Sheep.....be they Clueless Bachelors or SIlly Spinsters or Smug Marrieds.