Careful Infidelity

Jesus sums up common-sense carefulness in a disciple as infidelity.
-- My Utmost For His Highest (May 23)

Oswald Chambers links this strong comment on careful infidelity to Matthew 6:25 where Jesus says: "Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body what ye shall put on."

In exhilarating contrast, Oswald Chambers speaks often about being abandoned to God, like Paul. He believes that "abandon to God is of more value than personal holiness."

Abandonment to God makes me think of a yieldedness and surrender that's also paradoxically extravagant, like King David's worship. Or the woman who sacrificed her alabaster jar of perfume and poured it lavishly over Jesus.

There've been stepping-over-the-cliff moments that abundantly show that life with God is the greatest adventure of all, better than anything we plan or desire. These are the times of abandonment, of new intimacy, and of a deeper hunger and worship than we imagine. Patrick actually dreamed about going over the cliff... and landing quite safely!

PD says he asks God: "How can I worship you today?" I didn't think of that before and I really like it.

Peonies

Now that it's early summer, I look out for peonies. These lush and extravagant blooms first entranced me when I saw them at the home of a Japanese journalist in Washington.

Peonies are a symbol of China. I imagine that they're popular in Japan too. In the United States, the Cricket Hill Garden in Connecticut is "madly devoted" to peonies. I like their peony picture collection, where I viewed an "Ancient Pink" peony (above).

And the name Ancient Pink suggests one more reason why I love peonies: They evoke the ancient, and most of us have a sense or a nostalgia for the ancient -- the virtuous side of it anyway.

My pastor has talked about Robert Webber's ancient-future faith which values a deeper kinship with the early church. Recently he also highlighted Isaiah 61:4 and its idea of rebuilding ancient ruins -- which is one reason why our morning service rents a room in a lovely old Bethesda church, whose tiny congregation has a desire to grow vibrantly.

Fathers

I met Trangdai Tranguyen once. All serenity and friendliness, she was stirring a pot of perfectly clear and flavour-rich chicken broth she'd prepared for pho at Sandra's place.

Soon after, I was entranced as I read three slim volumes of her poetry in mostly one night.

This is an excerpt from Daddy's Weekend, a poem in Songs For A Boat Father:

sunup
weekend
you're keyed up running to each room
asking, inviting,
- Get up! Let's go have breakfast!
the five children turn over
all five

The father is also pictured toiling over dinner, pulling a movie from his archive for his children, constantly on the go during the weekend -- highly enthused, sacrificial, pouring love into the lives of his children whom he'd missed for years when he migrated alone from Vietnam to the US.

Such poems that so tenderly portray the translocation trials of refugee families are transformed into the universal with Trangdai's skilled pen.

Certainly it reminds me of my own sacrificial Dad. The way he enrolled us in the best schools where he had to make patient, persistent connections. The opportunities he gave us out of his limited resources, and the times he played with us. He brought me to the library when I was six and I began my lifelong love for books. I think he was the only person who tried to imagine the extraordinarily intense first days of my life in the US, and that humbles and amazes me much.

Our fathers are wonderful and flawed. They are an imperfect but still-shining glimpse of the Father's heart and the God-designed love He placed in the hearts of men for their children.

Sushi on Sunday

In Japanese, Hinata has a lovely meaning: sunny place.

That's the name of a Bethesda mom-and-pop sushi restaurant and mini-grocery. I like to share this bright space with friends but most of my lunches here are solitary, and very late.

The sushi is beautifully formed, good and inexpensive. I often ask the proprietor's friendly wife about new items I discover on the shelves, and she's supplied enticing tips on the spicy cod roe, exotic snacks and all.

It was such contentment and enjoyment today to relish sushi on the summery eve of Memorial Day while reflecting on PD's increasingly anointed sermons. That's double sustenance -- sushi and the word of God!

Our perspective changes the more we draw close to the Creator, he said. The bills don't matter as much anymore when our focus turns to Kingdom needs. Our job is to be faithful, and God's role is to take care of the rest. Often we want to do or think more to change our circumstances, but there's no true help or self-help apart from Jesus.

Such truths from God are greatly sustaining and liberating. Uncertainties begin to look like adventures instead. Tough days become doors for grace and revelation. Our shallowness is replaced by growth, intimacy, integrity, character -- an excellent journey.

Gatsby in Maryland

F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby and vivid chronicler of the Jazz Age, is buried in lil unassuming Rockville, a little down the road from where I live.

Not too long ago, friends told me that the novelist who portrayed America's shining possibilities (and also the darker reverse side of the American Dream) had links to historic Rockville.

The optimist in me loves the line about Gatsby having "some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life."

I guess I'm talking about Gatsby now because I'm hurriedly blogging the many byways of my personal journey in America as my departure looms.

Also, I'm now reading the memoir "Reading Lolita in Tehran" which has startling passages about the time when author and professor Azar Nafisi ingeniously put The Great Gatsby and his dream on trial in her University of Tehran class. It forced her students to take sides, in the days when Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution began closing down the country.

Jamaica III: Diaspora

Pastor Andrew plans to link the Jamaican diaspora in the US, Canada and the UK to reach out to the homeland, which has 2.7 million people.

With apparently 20,000 Jamaicans leaving their island each year, the economy -- and society -- is in some danger of hollowing out.

Yet Jamaica has the potential for a bigger imprint on the world. It's already famous for its exquisite Blue Mountain coffee, reggae -- and being a tropical island never stopped it from sending bobsled teams to the Winter Olympics!! That's great spirit!

My Books

I'm 50 pages into "Reading Lolita in Tehran" and it's a mesmerizing journey. Azar Nafisi's memoir is such a celebration of the power of the literary imagination in fundamentalist Iran.

Like many readers, I surround myself with books that pool luxuriously here and there, and these days I'm actually reading!

Recent gifts from friends and choices from my happy browsing include:

Common Sense 101: Lessons from G.K. Chesterton - Dale Ahlquist (Wonder-stirring)

100 Year Bloom: Your Keys to Living in Permanent Revival - Mahesh & Bonnie Chavda (My Singapore friend suggested that I visit their ministry in NC. I checked and saw that they were headed to the DC region for three days! Powerful time.)

My Life - Bill Clinton (Hey, only 25 cents from a yard sale!)

The Etiquette of English Tea - Beryl Peters

Neu Me Thich (If You Like, Mom) - Trangdai Tranguyen (Luminous reflections on parental love, the immigrant experience and more)

I won't be shipping much stuff home. But books are friends, so they'll go with me.

Snapshots

What's an image of Lubriderm moisturizer doing here?

Really soothing in winter, Lubriderm was an early discovery for me when I first lived in the US. Auntie Minar introduced it in a motherly gesture. But my Indonesian librarian friend is more than sweetness and light. On pure logic alone, she once out-maneuvered a team of car salesmen to sell me a Toyota Camry (another early purchase) at a great price.

I've been taking snapshots these days, hoping to catch fleeting butterfly memories of life in America before I head home.

This afternoon, I bought Whole Food cranberry-orange scones and took a picture. A little silly. I used to love these scones a decade ago, before I scrutinized nutrition labels. Each scone weighs in at 270 calories!

Other Pictures: The house-shaped box of crayons that occupied Julie, Megan and other little visitors. Can't ship it back. The Ikea crockery that my parents packed in their luggage for me. The cherry dining table, which still conjures up guests and good times over the years.

I'm so grateful for these amazing years in the US. As Ephesians 3:20 indicates, God has been doing in my life "exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think." What's next? My good friend TS, at a really sad moment when he and his family left for Seattle, said it best: "Look ahead."

Jamaica II: Sunglasses

My lost sunglasses travelled back to me.

I'd left them in the tour van on our last afternoon in Jamaica. A few hours later, we were walking through a crowded, boisterous part of Montego Bay city when a tall smiling man stepped up.

"I'm your driver!" he announced. It was our tour van driver Errol, just then moonlighting as a cabbie.

"Errol! Hi! Did you see my sunglasses?" I asked.

"They're yours?'' he asked, surprised.

And that's how we landed in his cab -- a safe haven after the manic hustling cabbies we kept encountering -- and picked up my sunglasses from his boss' house, before returning to our hotel.

Sue was intrigued, and definitely me too. I'd sensed God's timing at work two days earlier, when our new Jamaican friend Pauline literally opened the door to our tour possibilities on a Sunday afternoon when the tour agencies were closed.

Surprising Pauline at her workplace two days later, we invited her for dinner. She found us a local place and later told us that she didn't have money for lunch that day. She knew it was God's provision when we asked her out.

The sunglasses, the tours that Pauline made possible, and her unexpected dinner -- God displayed His beautiful timing three times, not simply once. It was a generous assurance that His timing is perfect and He is all sovereign. It amazes and comforts me, particularly at this moment just before my big move to Singapore.

Jamaica

I love the dazzling sea in layers of turquoise, azure and aquamarine that I saw everyday in Jamaica.

Also I enjoyed the odd trip to Bob Marley's village where the dreadlocked reggae star once spun his songs and now lives on as an icon for other Rastafarians. Plus our plantation lunch amid music, the high-spirited children who performed for us (above), and our nature walk near a little town of isolated Germans.

The vacation was also marked by hustling, poverty and a sense of that Jamaica could be so much more.

What lingers however are the encounters with people like big-hearted Pauline who sweetly opened the door to our Jamaican excursions and made sure we were safely transported to our hotel, twice. And our introspective tour guide Paul who had much to share after we discovered his church-planting role. Jamaican pastors like him have to work it seems.

My encounters with Jamaicans in the US certainly spurred an initial interest in Jamaica though I had very few mental images of the land. One Jamaican I know in the US is Pastor Andrew, who has such a shepherd's heart and still calls or emails sometimes though I was in his church only six months. Bonds with people are living gems.

Wonder! Galaxies & GK Chesterton

Image: Dead Star Creates Celestial Havoc
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A friend gave me a book on his intellectual hero, GK Chesterton. I know his poems, but he's like the author and thinker I was waiting to discover! The first chapter I flipped to was titled "Wonder," my favourite concept!

Chesterton, a larger-than-life London journalist who wrote memorably in the early 20th century, said of wonder:

"The function of imagination is... not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders."

"A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of five is excited by bein told that Tommy opened a door."

My high-spirited unstoppable nephew Caleb is five. The world is new and wondrous to him, even the littlest things. This early waker popped into my room one morning. I told him my new alarm clock would chime soon. A ho-hum everyday moment? Caleb's eyes widened and his mouth formed a surprised O in the half-light when the tinkling tune began.

One of my best Bible Studies highlighted Jacob and his dream of the stairway to Heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. (Genesis 28:10-15). It didn't matter that his pillow was a rock and he was a fugitive. Wonder can still be our experience in woeful circumstances. We're alive to possibilities!

In my life, God embedded a special wonder when I was five or six. I was lying on the grass on Fort Canning Hill and suddenly I became aware of stars and infinity in the early evening sky. The Creator of the galaxies is also an intimate God who pursues us in love. We and the cosmos fall down in worship before God.

We're Transients

My prayer circle was commenting that several of us are now seeking direction. So is our little church as a whole.

The key is to be ready and available before God, Patrick said, even when we can't answer a lot of questions rationally.

I know how awkward it is to be in transition. But then our days in this world will never be fully comfortable because Heaven is our home, Beverly added. Get used to living outside comfort zones!

I often think about Hebrews 11:13 which makes it clear that we're "aliens and strangers on earth." Other translations pile on the meanings: foreigners, nomads, exiles, pilgrims, temporary residents and transients.

Transients! There it is. It also suggests how brief our earthly lives are... vapours, fleeting shadows and all. And how momentary our troubles are.

Meanwhile, like King David we can live to the utmost while waiting for God's perfect timing to play out. When David was a very young man, it was prophesized that he'd be Israel's king. It was many years before that happened, and in the meantime he'd alternate between working for Saul in the city and being a shepherd. It was an active, productive time of waiting and preparation, and he lived life fully.

Fidelis had lots to say. He's a young man from Ghana, and really discerning and on fire in his unassuming style. Relax and don't rush into the future, he said. There were times when he got a headache trying to get friends to help him reach the goal God set before him. God doesn't need our help! When He opens the door, things happen very quickly, he said. And it'll be better than we ever imagine "even if our lives are ruined!!"

As an example, he said that with his rational mind, he'd chosen to migrate to the United Kingdom cos that's where his sibling resided. But then the door to America was flung open. When he boarded the plane in Ghana, he was ushered into First Class though he was abashed and there were people far better-dressed than him.

Things like this keep happening to him. It's like he passes close to God's white-hot presence. I should blog a couple of his testimonies.

No More Worlds To Conquer

I read this mini-profile of Payton Jordan at the San Francisco Airport, en route from Singapore to Washington, DC. His story stirred me from my sleep-deprived state, and his life is one window into:

• America's competitive spirit — a national strength
• The incomparable sense of possibilities — one compelling reason why I admire my host-country of 10-plus years

Payton Jordan

He coached track and field at Stanford from 1957 through 1979, his athletes winning six individual NCAA titles and setting five world records. He was the head coach of the 1968 U.S. Olympic team that won a record 24 medals, including 12 Golds, and established six world records. He was also the director of the historic U.S. vs. U.S.S.R. meet at Stanford Stadium in 1962.

Then, when well past 50, he resurrected his own career as a champion sprinter, setting "Masters" world records in the 100 meters for every age group from 55 through 80. He finally retired at age 81 with no more worlds to conquer.

Inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 2006.

April 19 Update:
Important to remember the best of America and men like Payton Jordan, amid the carnage, grief and questions surrounding Virginia Tech. The students rallied together overnight and showed amazing spirit.

Charismatic Megafauna

I learned a new word today: Charismatic Megafauna. A ranger in wildest Alaska applied this word to the bears that have magnetized travellers everywhere.

Charismatic megafauna include giant pandas, African bush elephants and Great White Sharks. In protecting these awesome creatures, smaller endangered species in their eco-systems are also saved.

The word captures my imagination. It also conjures up half-mystical megafauna, like the mammoth or giant squid.

My favourite megafauna is the lion, with its majesty, mystery and Narnia aura.

I love the imagery and vibrant Edenic promise of Isaiah 11:6: The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.

The Chocolate Factory

Thanks, Sue, for introducing me to The Chocolate Factory when I visited Singapore!

One bite of Laurent Bernard's chocolate tart and it was clear he's gifted. One sip of the hot chocolate and my sister and I were transported to Paris.

We'd loved the hot chocolate (thick, indulgent, intense) and Mont Blanc (pastry of chesnut puree on meringue) from Angelina, a Parisienne-Viennese belle epoque cafe that we popped into after a morning at the Louvre and a summer picnic on its grounds. Perfection!

Create memories, PD reminded us today. My chocolate memories flow from the enjoyment of life and wonderful people.

Cloud Prints

There's a "cloudiness" in recent days when I think about the months ahead. A kind of unknowing that clouds the all-Singaporean inner planner in me. But then I read Oswald Chambers, who says: "The clouds are but the dust of the Father's feet. The clouds are a sign that He is there." How uplifting! It's all about His presence!

Matthew 24:30: They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory.

Cherry Blossoms in Washington

I missed Washington's cherry blossoms for the first time! Today, after returning from Singapore, I did spy several cherry trees near my house. But they were in the awkward flower-and-leaf stage and totally past their wondrous early-spring peak.

Life-transitions are like that: unbeautiful, but hiding a new day. Hopefully, our transitions are as ephemeral as those pink and white blossoms too!

During my first spring here in 1997, I wasn't going to view the blossoms. Too sweet, I imagined. Until I spent a gorgeous mid-afternoon strolling through Bethesda's affluent Kenwood neighbourhood where 1,200 Yoshino trees were in full bloom.

I joined the invasion of gawkers on the pretty streets, all of us floating slowly, it seemed, under the millions of dreamy petals held aloft on old, dark, gnarled branches.

This was where American suburbia encountered Japan too. American children set up stalls to sell home-made brownies and icy drinks.

I remember buying lemonade from a little boy whose house was far from the hubbub. His hopeful eyes had followed me as I walked up the road; that was how I made my modest 25-cent contribution to a future entrepreneur, one of America's best products.

I love the story of how in 1912, Tokyo presented Washington with 3,700 cherry trees that soon encircled the star-shaped Tidal Basin, signifying friendship.

Once, a Japanese journalist told me he much preferred Washington's sakura season. In Japan, there were karaoke and drinking contests under the trees and it gets crazier every year, he lamented.

That afternoon in Kenwood has stayed with me - the tender colours, the spark and energy of early springtime, and another Asian echo in America.

Snow!

Delicacy, purity.
Praying, remembering.
Wondrous to walk in falling snow.

Today, I walked for 1.5 hours in the snow. Someone commented that the pearly-gray sky added to the feeling of weightlessness. I stopped often. Taking pictures. Journal-ing in my mind and on an increasingly damp scrap of paper. Looking at 13 puffy-headed birds with pale yellow chests, resting on the upper twigs of a tree. Staring discreetly as an indulgent Dad took his three little colorfully wrapped children out to skitter down a baby slope on tiny snow-saucers. Kind of like the days when my own Dad, hour after hour in Singapore's burning equatorial sun, pushed the swings with me and my sisters on them. I don't think he's seen snow, much as he loves traveling to new places.

I remember another Sunday, in 2003, when a snow-storm caused our little church to worship at a home. Later we walked down the empty street, so transformed, all white beauty and exceptional hush. Our friend Peter walked ahead with exuberant little Michael on his shoulders. Two other wonderful friends later gave the middle name Snow to their lil daughter, who just turned two. How beautiful that those days of church-planting and God's favor are so embedded in my heart that the snow today easily stirs memories of my friends, now a scattered family.

Today, it was mostly the glorious solitude that made it natural to be abandoned to Jesus -- and to know it's possible and desirable to be faithful whether I'm here or there. These couple of years, I've had to embrace the transition and the absence of certainty. It's been a time of growing while waiting. Of making the utmost of my days in the US and discovering so many gems, like the dreamy Berkshires, all nations in my workplace, new creativity, an irrepressible little church, the dazzling edges of revival.

God remembers His promise to me, Jeanne said during our intercessory circle. And He makes all things new, according to Revelation 21:5. That's a verse I always quote and pray! How perfect is that?

Soft Golden Cloud of Leaves

Pennsylvania's Amish Countryside, Nov 12:

The leaves were still soft, vibrant, freshly fallen. I sat down a minute, on a golden cloud on a golden afternoon.

What a gorgeous ever-changing palette of colours our God plays with! He's the Creator who robes the dawn in red, devises a snow-laden storehouse in the sky, sets the boundaries of the sea, and unimaginably more... (as Job 38 reveals). Yet He so intimately "bends down and listens" to our prayers. (Psalm 116:2)

How can anyone dread Heaven, thinking it'll be boring for eternity? One of my English professors thought so, preferring the clash and conflict of this world. That's a pale, distorted image of the true adventure we desire in the deepest part of our hearts, which partially explains the appeal of heroic fantasies like Lord of the Rings and Narnia. As Sam realises one night in LOTR, there is "light and high beauty" that will eternally outlast the momentary troubles of the world.

Update, Feb 26, 2007: My dear friend Makiko presented me with the book Heaven by Randy Alcorn. It portrays Heaven as a place of vibrance, new beginnings and creativity — certainly not a colorless afterlife. The book inspires me to live fully in the light of Heaven. To me this means to live life to the utmost with purpose and delight, to worship God faithfully and passionately, and to love people in the fleeting days that we have.

Thanksgiving 2005

Fallen leaves swirling skyward,

A wild dance, mimicking life.

Light draining, early and indifferent,

From this city I never embraced.

The absence of all of you,

Trails --

A pearly vapour

Suffusing Thanksgiving.

Our stories disconnect,

Yet persist, suggest

Marvellous light,

Not our own, divine.

I decided to spend Thanksgiving Day in solitude and prayer, away from the celebratory hubbub that always delighted me. I longed to step into a new season of walking in God's marvellous light, and glimpse (or see with eyes of faith) the outlines of a path out from my long transition. I missed my absent best friends with whom I'd celebrated Thanksgiving and served God in our church-plant these amazing years till last December.

I believe my prayer is being answered in the heavenlies. Meanwhile, one overnight fruit (yes, 24 hrs!) of my quiet day was this poem. I'd not written for such a long time, and I thank Jinsook who sweetly, insistently, unabashedly reminded me to write, week after week. She must be one of those people who know how to knock on Heaven's door. : )

I really want to write again. Not indulgently like in my college years, but maybe to flip open a few more windows in this vast online space to God's glory.