Abrasive Thoughts, Minimally Filtered

I have a 15 page paper due in 2 days, and I haven't started it yet. I have half a sermon to prepare for about my "missionary endeavors" (cough) in China, but here I am, cursed with a need to write because I feel like I'm caged in this house.

It's the little things that start adding up but have nowhere to go. It's eating these bland tangerines, but having no street vendors outside to sell me sweet little ones. It's having a random spike of electricity in my brain strike the bubble tea neuron, only to realize I can't walk down the street and order at the hole in the wall by saying, "what I usually get, small." It's making lamb kabobs because I miss them so much, and having everyone at the party love them, except myself.

Having spent the last two days snowboarding, it's so strange to be a minority again. Being dropped in white youth culture... that's culture shock with 3 shots of expresso and an uppercut. And the Asians here, they all speak perfect English. Where are the Korean and Chinese accents? Where is the bad fashion sense and inability to apply makeup?? When I walked out the ski lodge and a punk made a racial comment, I wanted to physically relieve my frustration on his face.

I felt like a muzzled dog when I couldn't yell "fu wu yuan!" in the Chinese restaurant. (Why does the food just suck??)

Gah! Why is everything so damn expensive?!

It's strange to be a minority again. Self-consciousness is probably mostly internal, but it exists nonetheless. 

People, things, feel so myopic here. 

I said it before I went to China, and I'll say it again... I have no desire to stay here.... My heart has too much wanderlust.  

Rain, rain, go away!

After waiting two weeks to play Ultimate, it was rained out, yet again.

An American in Tianjin

[Labels are not static, at least not when it comes to people. They define as much as they are defined by those whom they attempt to define. The relationship is reciprocal. They were invented, given, placed for the sake of identifying something with a common characteristic. They are used to cluster, group, simplify, for easy identification, simple mental processing. (Categorization. It’s how our brains seek to simplify the amount of processing it has to do to come up with an appropriate response to a certain stimuli. It’s also how the brain, in many cases, keeps us alive during instantaneous threats that we would otherwise not have enough time to process.)

However, it is these same labels that define those in the group. Once we are labeled as something, should we choose to internally appropriate that label, we will seek to act in ways that are defined by the label, even if we have not previously had those characteristics. A simple example, if I claim to be a follower of Chr-st, then I am given the label of “Chr-stian.” Should I choose to accept that label, I not realize that I am not everything that the label should entail, therefore I change my actions to better live up to that label. (A simple reductionistic socio-psycho explanation, minus nuances and theology, or even what the label should/can/actually means.) So, apart from the implications of our tendency to label, our actions and beliefs determine what labels we acquire, just as much as the labels dictate our actions and beliefs. A dynamic symbiotic relationship, if you will.]

I spent part of today catching up on American politics and international news. I read presidential candidate bios [Obama!] and skimmed a Newsweek article about the state of Muslim-Americans.

Hyphenated-American. The article noted that first generation Muslims often felt an attachment to America, perhaps because of the opportunities it had given them and the lives they knew they had left behind. Many were proud to be Americans. However, the children of these first generation Americans did not feel the same way. Oftentimes, this second or third generation, which had grown up in the prosperity provided for them by their parents, were the ones considered to be in the greatest danger of becoming ideologically extreme. They don’t feel the same attachment to America as their parents did. Having grown up as “Americans” by name, but living in a culture that always viewed them differently, having never grown up in their “motherlands,” they sought to understand what it meant to be a Muslim in the midst of a certain amount of discrimination and fear. Some chose to be defined by the label they already acquired, emphasizing and exerting their differences to define themselves.

In America, I am a hyphenated-American, with the emphasis placed on my former half. My differences have been stressed. I am American, sure, but I am *Chinese*. And perhaps somewhat akin to the Muslim-Americans, I have been trying to understand what it means to be the Chinese part.

But in China, I cannot say that I’m a “Zhong Guo Ren.” The natives here will not accept it. It seems that “Zhong Guo Ren” (what we would translate as “Chinese”) refers more to the nationality, within the borders of the People’s Republic. My teacher will not let me say that I am a “Zhong Guo Ren.” I have been told that I look like a proper Chinese person, but I have been labeled “Han yi” or “Mei ji hua ren” but strictly an American, meaning that I am of the Han “race” or people group. The reference to me being a Han person doesn’t necessarily have any cultural connotations, merely a genetic descriptor. And so in China, I am an American who happens to be Han.

I don’t disagree with that descriptor, as I’ve found that I am indeed very very American. I think, dress, and act like an American. I feel it every day from riding my bike down the street to having conversations with others. My boss at work, who has lived in China for 7 years but is a Caucasian from Michigan, in a lot of ways is more “Chinese” than me.

One quote by a first generation Muslim said something to the effect that when he went back to his home country, he realized he was American. He didn’t understand the jokes anymore. He felt like an outsider. I think I know what he means. And perhaps I also know what the second-generation youth feel like when they say, in perfect English, that they are looking for that first half of the hyphenation to define them. Sometimes they mistakenly view it in an idealized form, having never actually fully participated in it.

And so here I am, an American in a motherland that doesn’t seem to recognize me (except for appearance), but a Chinese in America.

No, I haven’t figured it out yet. Things just aren’t black and white like fundamentalists want them to be. (Alright. Sorry. Totally uncalled for and unrelated jab. But hey, it’s a reality of life.)

Words they don't teach you in language school.

"Cao." With a fourth tone, if you care. It's the Chinese equivalent of "fuck," in the expletive form. Depending on what it is you're cursing at, you can say things like "Wo de cao" or "Cao ni ma." (Oh, this blog isn't PG, by the way.) You can hear Taxi drivers swearing away with a creative combination of other words (which I don't need to repeat here).

Being the good Chinese language student that I am, had an opportunity to use it today, when the barber cut my ear with his dull scissors. I chose the form, "Wo de cao," the more generic expression. I figured it wouldn't be nice to curse his mom out.

Who knew ears bled so much? (Who knew hair could be cut so dang short?? Thank goodness the stuff grows back.) They bandaged me up good, wouldn't let me pay, and sent me off with a bag of snacks despite my adamant protesting. Now I have Oreos to eat.

Humorous. Kinda. For free, I can't complain too much.

(Hey, this is HNGR. It's all good.)



That's not my middle finger, by the way.

"We all struggle with forward motion.."

Art of any sort is an expression that either rusts or shines, depending on the time and heart invested. For those of us who have always dabbled in trying to paint words, play colors, or capture the fleeting, our very sensitivity to the depth we seek to express can be desensitized through neglect. Even if we've never been very good at sharing it with others, the neglect will dull our own experience of it.

After a 9:00-5:30 in an office and a bike ride home, my energy to perceive and think about the transcendent is nigh nonexistent, let alone my ability to express that which I have no strength to grasp.

To some, expression is a luxury. To others, it is a necessity for survival. I fall somewhere in between those two categories, perhaps resting most of my weight in its survival value. Maybe this is why 7th chords on a piano or some walking bass notes on a guitar will hold me over even if I don't have the luxury of digging into the dirt of my heart with words. (After all, my linguistic energy is expended on trying to understand the Tianjin accent of taxi drivers and street vendors or attempting to read store signs and restaurant menus.)

Though learning Damien Rice and Over the Rhine songs on the guitar and piano have been my reprieves, the melancholy of others never fully manages to express one's own, no matter how beautiful it sounds.

In the same way, as much as Henri Nouwen manages to find resonance in my soul, I have found that he can be the Novocain that numbs my real need for the Sp-rit's presence. Vicarious spirituality isn’t the same as the imminent presence of G-d.

It's amazing how sin and a little bit of surface spirituality manage to inoculate against the Incarnate Word. I'm afraid of not hearing the Sp-rit's voice, but I'm petrified of ever coming to a place where I don't care about not hearing Him speak. I don't ever want the daily grind to be my excuse for mediocrity. I find it shocking that callousness is so much easier than sensitivity. Perhaps that's because rolling backwards merely requires passivity, but as some latter day poets with modern harps have rocked out to, "We all struggle with forward motion… Cuz forward motion is harder than it sounds, every time I gain some ground I gotta turn myself around again.''

I'm rather low maintenance externally. Give me a mat on the floor, some food in my tummy (just not celery), and I'm gravy. I'm not that picky. But spiritually… I can't be having no shit. I need to be rollin' out the spiritual caviar and filet mignon.

If ya'll are pr-yer warriors, I certainly wouldn't mind some spiritual throwing-down on my behalf. Over here, the gloves need to come off, Satan needs to know his role, and I need to live this reality of being dead to sin, but resurrected with Chr-st, Romans 6 style. I need space and strength to know His presence again.

Word.

Sure, I like trains.

My two goals in China:

1. To not get pick-pocketed.
2. To not get hit by a car while riding a bike.

The Family on this side of the world has been wonderfully hospitable to me. I have not lacked food or a place to rest my head since I've been here, even though I don't know my way around and only knew a few people. But Jan is gone, and now so are the Bevis's. The Coons are in the States. Being stretched is good.

I've been a wanderer as of late. I haven't really stayed in one spot for more than a few days. Korea, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Jixian, Inner Mongolia, Back to Tianjin, and now I'm off to Chang Chun. It's an interesting way of life, dependent upon the hospitality and help of others, yet never still enough to sit down and take a deep breath. At least not yet... maybe when I get back from Chang Chun... maybe. Always maybe.

It's not quite there yet, but I'm going to need some down time in the near future.

The conference in Chang Chun is about psychological counseling among Chinese and dealing with the cultural barriers that prevent effective practice. It's totally my cup of tea.

Chang Chun means "Forever Spring." I hear it's beautiful (though for Chinese cities, the definition of "beauty" must be held loosely). But I have to manage to get there first... aka, get on the train, make sure I don't oversleep and miss the stop, and find my way into town. I'm much more inept than you'd think, (or perhaps just as inept as you think).

If I'm not wrong, that's where my parents went to school and met each other...

Adjustment

I’ve never had a problem standing out in the States. When I was little, I could never fully blend in no matter how hard I tried. But when I came back to China where I looked like everyone else, I would always try to stand out. I relished the attention I got when I spoke my immaculate English in public, or when my Nikes garnered envious glances from the kids in school uniforms. In China, I was the American, and I strutted around thinking that I was better than the rest of them.

In psych, we talk about the powerful effects of environmental cues on our actions. Our surroundings act to bring back things like memories, feelings, and habits that we had forgotten about.

As I sat sweltering on a bus, cramped and surrounded by, well, lots of Chinese people, I didn’t find it surprising that those on the mainland are sometimes described by non-mainland Chinese as being “tu,” which literally means “dirt” or “soil,” and connotes a certain amount of a crudeness or baseness in their actions and manner of carrying oneself. I can see how that would come about when one’s existence and actions seem so insignificant. Sitting there, I felt like another face in the crowd. I felt de-individualized. How does one hold onto a sense of identity and continue to value people as individuals when the sheer numbers threaten to overload our ability to care? How do I view people as the Father views them, when my relatives seem to have their wisdom in telling me not to even look at those who beg on the streets? When my friends at school spend their Saturdays down in Chicago’s skid row, how am I supposed to just look the other way?

I can no longer flaunt my English or boast in my Nikes. It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think that’s the point of HNGR.

I'm in Guangzhou right now. I'll be heading up to Tianjin in two days.

"Life can be a little sweet, life can be a little shitty."

(To get the full effect of the title, you have to think about Eric Hadland, Nathaniel Strenger, Ted Warsavage and I hiking through the snowy Northwoods singing Red Hot Chili Peppers. Just think, Eric and Nathaniel, doing their hobbly thing, singing. While we're lost. In the cold. Hopefully, it will make you smile and not offend you.)

Well friends, thank you very much for praying for me, but, today, miraculous divine intervention didn't show up and I bombed the math section of the GREs :). There's an option at the end whether or not to report the score.. I decided not to register the score, since umm... I pretty much just guessed on the last 3rd of the test.

It's honestly really very humbling and frustrating, especially since I will have to take it again... in China. And the math section won't go away either. For someone who only applied to Wheaton and didn't think much of the SATs, this grad school and GRE thing is an awful hassle. In our cocky Wheaton arrogance (or maybe just mine?), not being able to complete 28 middle school level questions in 45 minutes without a calculator puts me in my place.

Anticipating these damn GREs, I was thinking yesterday about what it means to trust in God, and even about the nature of your prayers for me. (Ooo... scary questions.) What does it mean when some things we pray for work out the way we want them to, and other things don't? What does it mean when some things look like divine appointments and other times, I can't figure out what God is trying to do, for the life of me?

In the end, I'm trying the best that I can to go the direction the Lord has called me. Personally, the grad program in Berkeley and UCLA look great, according to my standards. I don't necessarily have the numbers to get into them, and whether I get in is really God's prerogative. But if I don't get in, what then? Ah, trust in the Lord. He knows my life and what is ahead far better than I do. Trust in the Lord, and don't mistake God as a divine magician who glorifies an individual. In the end, it must be God who becomes greater as I become less.

Ohh listen to us Christians. If I didn't know better, I'd think we were just playing mental games with ourselves, trying to exonerate the actions of a deity we claim is loving and good. No wonder people think we're fools. (But everyone's a fool, it's just a matter of who we're fools for. I'm pretty ok being God's fool. He's been good and faithful to me.)

Faith is a strange thing. If God played by our rules, it doesn't make sense. But He doesn't play by our rules. (Honestly, it still doesn't make sense, but that has to be ok.)

So for the sweet part, I'm off to China (via Korea) tonight :). I'm gonna keep on going, and worry about the GREs when I need to take them again.

Friends, thanks for praying the will of the Lord in my life. Trust me... I will be needing your prayer.... especially when I come across the math section again.

Let me know how I can pray for you. Really. People think I'm saying that as a gesture of formality or something. I'm serious.

Come and die, that you might live.

"Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." -John 12:24

So I am nearing the end of my walk through "Irresistible Revolution," though the real journey has just begun. I cannot, without counting the cost, follow in Shane Claiborne's footsteps. But I don't think he would call us all to follow his footsteps. He would call us to follow the Jesus he knows, who, without compromising, calls us to lay down our lives and pick up our crosses. If I concede that Shane's interpretations of certain parts of scripture are correct, then I too would be led to his conclusions. I think some of those conclusions warrant much further study, though we should be aware of our tendency to "prove" the status quo and explain away Truth. Every single issue he (scatterbrained-ly) brings up is worthy of our serious consideration as Christians. (If he spent more than a semester at Wheaton, I think he might have hung out with HNGR groupies :)

Whether or not one agrees with Shane's conclusions or manifestations of chasing after Jesus, I would whole-heartedly say that he is dead-on in his holy recklessness (in the eyes of the world) to live for Him. Read the book, if only for the reason of vicariously catching a glimpse of what it can mean to be alive (though there are plenty more).

The Lord will not all call us to live like Shane does (but don't let that be an excuse...). The Lord has called us to our own battles. The challenge is to recognize what the Lord calls us to, and to keep our grubby hands and crusty ideas from distorting it, and then to live it.

One thing I will echo John (and Shane) on... that we must die to live, and that this death just might look very different than what much of us are living right now....

I will not tiptoe my way towards death. Nor will I call the conventionally held measures of "life" and be content.

Love.

"Eels are like women...

... if you try to hold them down, they'll just get away."

It's a quote from an obscure show called Samurai Champloo. I don't suppose too many of you have caught Eels before... I won't bore you with the details. But that idea is a manifestation of something that I'm learning, namely, living life with open hands.

Job says, "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. May the name of the Lord be praised." And later, when his wife tells him to curse God and die in his misery, he responds, " Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

Perhaps it was Richard Foster who first brought this notion of praying with open hands as a reminder to how we are to live our lives. If we live with open hands, we are free to receive from God and free to give others what we have received. We are also free to give up the things in our lives, even the good things, that threaten to tweak God's will with our plans little by little until it hardly looks like His calling for us any more. By then, what we are clasping tightly to our chest will be a dull watered down rationalized selfish version of something that used to be Christ-centered and glorious.

I'm selfish and I'm sentimental. Blame it on Adam, blame it on culture, blame it on me, the fact remains. But with open hands... when we are faithful, it frees us from having remorse over the things and people we missed out on and allows to live fully in what He has given. It helps us recognize that we, being very broken little people in the world, cannot possibly control all that happens to and around us, but that we can with faith, hold out our open hands receiving from God what He has ordained and letting go of ourselves in the process. It inevitably teaches us to let go of our miserly dreams and habits.

It allows us, in a world full of problems that overwhelm us and pain that threatens to numb us, to listen and obey what the Lord has called us to, where He has called us to it, in the timing He has called us to, and in the strength He supplies, no matter how small or how large of a task it might be.

There is freedom in that to finally breath deeply. I don't suppose something like that comes overnight. It's not so much a single act as it is a way of life.

Thank God for grace.

Lots of "craps", but not so many giggles. (A treatise, and a thought.)

A treatise:

Given the general Evangelical cultural norms, I feel like I need to justify my use of "profanity" to my brothers and sisters who do not necessarily feel the same way I do. It's a multi-faceted argument, one that I don't want to spend a lot of time on, but will throw out there so that you might have at least a general sense of where I stand on this, and not think that I've gone apostate for imbibing in an Evangelical taboo.

- First is the emphasis on loving our neighbors. Anything, whether it is labeled as a curse word or not, if said in anger, is out of the question. If you like labels, I'm advocating for the label, "spirit of the law."

- Second, words are contextual. They are fluid. Different contexts grant different meanings to words. They same four letters are not the same across different spheres or circles. There is a complicated interaction where the word itself has a historical meaning, then has a cultural context, then an intended use, as well as a perceived meaning by the receiving parties. Care needs to be taken especially with the perceived meaning, given Paul's pleading for us not to cause anyone to stumble in Romans 14, hence the explanations of my actions. However, not causing anyone to stumble needs to be balanced with simple mindless appeasement.

- What's the difference between Christian curses such as "frick, shoot, darn" and normal curses? They are used the same way, often in the same context.

- I am fully aware and agree with "let no unwholesome thing come out of your mouth" and our words and actions being the overflow of our hearts, as well as blessing other people with our words. However, this is not to say we should muffle an expression of frustration, especially when darn or shoot just doesn't encapsulate the depth of our emotion. Which leads me to the next point...

- Cursing, if used, should be used sparingly and intentionally. If used loosely, it loses its ability to emphasize and highlight. Therefore, when used in the proper context for the sake of emphasis, I find the carte blanche prohibition against cursing, among other things, to be quite simplistic.

- Paul curses. In Philippians 3:8, when he talks about considering all things to be "rubbish" for the sake of knowing Christ, it is a consensus among Biblical and Greek scholars that the term "skubalon," which we translate to be "rubbish," is actually more accurately translated as "human excrement" with the same offensive connotations to that audience that we would attribute to the word "shit" today.

Given all of the above, this does not mean I always flawlessly abide by what I believe. But it does mean that I do not say what I do carelessly and without thought. I am not looking for vindication from my brothers and sisters, since it is the Lord who I am trying to please. But I am not unaware of the issue... which honestly, given the severity of many other things, (oh I don't know, like love, justice, redemption, peace, etc), I don't think is quite as big as a deal as some make it to be. I could quote Campolo here, but I won't push my luck.

Don't think that I don't love Jesus just because I have made a conscious decision to season my life with selective colorful language :). And for the sake of respect, for those to whom it is offensive, I will censor myself.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

A thought:

We are so fragile. In our youth, when our bodies are well, we hardly give them a second thought, putting our vessels through abuse thinking that we are invincible. But something so tiny as a microscopic virus can put us through a very keen awareness of our fragility as humans. It reminds us that we are neither impervious nor superhuman, and that our bodies are so tied with who we are and our wellbeing. It humbles us to recognize that our being is in Christ, and that we are so dependent on He who holds us together. As I was reminded during stressful finals week, and as I was reminded by yesterday's Mexican food, lots of shits do not make for lots of giggles.

My HNGR friends, third world amoebas and parasites are going to add a very realistic and important dynamic to our internships.

The Lord will be our strength in ways we've never experienced before... quite holistically, if you catch my floater. I mean drift.

Hellllooooo Pepto.

Three Stripes on a Puffy Sleave Means You're Better.

I don't mind driving from Wheaton to Jersey. It gives me lots of time to think.

I was listening to some Talib Kweli when in the middle of his song "I Try," Mary J. Blige sings about the upside down Kingdom. For some reason, those words contrasted so sharply with what I feel like Wheaton can be about sometimes. Achievement, success, degrees and graduate schools, well-dressed banquets, smiles, formalities, and hors d'hoeurvs with movers and shakers... they have their place in this world and culture. They have their purposes and necessities, but they have left me feeling grimy. I bit the hook, got snagged on things like admiring the Prof's gowns and wondering how mine will look, and now I feel like I have to scrape a layer of dirt off myself.

An upside down Kingdom, one that consists of the poor in spirit, mourners, the meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers and the persecuted. If that indeed is what the Kingdom will look like, why do I feel so far removed from the Kingdom, as if it were only something I could reach through books and biographies? Why do I feel my calling cede ground to comfort, status, and my own interpretation of it?

"Listen my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?" -James 2:5

What does it take for all my misdirected energy, tears, and efforts to be pointed back to my first love and His kingdom?

He makes all things new.

What makes yesterday different from today? Aren't all beginnings and ends more or less artificial? What makes us really think that things will be different tomorrow?

But here I am, trying to capitalize on these artificial ends and beginnings. The end of the year has arrived. Tianjin, China is a stone's throw away. This year needs to be quarantined and marginalized to the pages of my journal.

New blog. Fresh pages. Don't repeat the same mistakes.

Never forget the lessons learned, but sometimes we need to take what we can get to move on.

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