For two and a half years now, I've been discussing Christianity with Chinese friends. In these discussions, my understanding of my own worldview has grown in unexpected ways due to difficult or complicated questions posed to me by my friends. Usually a topic is brought up, they express their reservations about it, and I am forced to admit I don't have a ready answer. One such confusing topic is Eve's involvement in the fall of mankind. What surprises me when discussing this topic with my Chinese friends is that they think Eve was condemned for curiosity. Growing up in a Christian home, I was always told Eve was condemned for rebellion against God, not human curiosity. Additionally, my Chinese friends quickly jump to the conclusion that Eve receives the entire blame for evil entering the world, another contradiction to what I was taught. It bothers them to see the female sex blamed for the world’s evil and problems. After all, isn’t curiosity a natural part of human existence? A few weeks ago, I read something that shed light on this topic for me and has caused me to contemplate the Western worldview’s conflicting influences. I climbed into bed and took out Bulfinch's The Age of Fable for light reading before sleep. Remembering a painting depicting the story of Pandora I once saw and loved, I decided to educate myself and actually read the myth. In one short paragraph, my mind was filled with thoughts that kept me awake for some time. The Greek myth of Pandora relates how evil was brought into the world by the accident of a woman. In some ways, it resembles the Biblical account of Eve's participation in bringing evil into the world, and yet there are crucial differences. Within the West’s literary and religious heritage, we find competing descriptions of womanhood. Bulfinch's recount of the myth reads as such: "Woman was not yet made. The story (absurd enough!) is that Jupiter made her, and sent her to Prometheus and his brother, to punish them for their presumption in stealing fire from heaven; and man, for accepting his gift. The first woman was named Pandora. She was made in heaven, every god contributing something to perfect her. Venus gave her beauty, Mercury persuasion, Apollo music, etc. Thus equipped, she was conveyed to earth, and presented to Epimetheus, who gladly accepted her, though cautioned by his brother to beware of Jupiter and his gifts. Epimetheus had in his house a jar, in which were kept certain noxious articles for which, in fitting man for his new abode, he had had no occasion. Pandora was seized with an eager curiosity to know what this jar contained; and one day she slipped off the cover and looked in. Forthwith there escaped a multitude of plagues for hapless man, -such as gout, rheumatism, and colic for his body, and envy, spite and revenge for his mind, -and scattered themselves far and wide. Pandora hastened to replace the lid! but, alas! the whole contents of the jar had escaped, one thing only excepted, which lay at the bottom, and that was hope. So we see at this day, whatever evils are abroad, hope never entirely leaves us; and while we have that, no amount of other ills can make us completely wretched." In Pandora's tale, the creation of woman is a punishment, which is alone cause for concern, but even more interesting is the relationship between woman and evil. Evil is a problem that comes from outside of Pandora, rather than something that lies within, thus making the release of evil into our world an excusable mistake. The justifiable act of curiosity gets the better of woman by accident. Though woman herself is a punishment for an act of treachery, the action that brings evil upon humanity is not condemnable. Evil's entrance to the world is grieved and regretted, but not condemned because the culprit made a mistake rather than a choice. Pandora is a victim who is not held accountable, thus stripping her of a protagonist’s role. In short, woman is a curse without moral accountability for her decisions. In the Biblical narrative, we see almost the exact opposite. Genesis 2-3 reads: "And the LORD God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: 'This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.' Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’' Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden." Here, Eve is a protagonist, someone capable of making important decisions. In the beginning, Eve is in her being and essence a blessing to mankind. Her purpose and existence is to fill a void, the answer to a felt need recognized by God. With her arrival, human relationship begins and she is recognized for her physical, mental, and moral comparability to Adam. Most importantly, she is a responsible being who will be held accountable for her actions. In Genesis, curiosity in not the cause for evil's entrance to the world. Evil enters by willful action, a choice to disregard the truth and forget the promises of God. There is no victimization by others, rather a sad and despicable rebellion. This distinction is incredibly important to the way we view ourselves as women. One of the most common misunderstandings of Biblical Christianity that I've come across in my relationships with Chinese women is that Eve ate the fruit and fell from grace because she was curious. And how could God punish someone for being curious? For my friends, it’s like asking, how could God punish woman for being human? We women need to reexamine what our inherited Western worldview tells us about Eve, learning to distinguish between the dignity given to woman in the Biblical account and the assumed Pandoraish version of the story we’ve inherited and is passed on to those outside the West. If we think of Eve as a Pandorian mistake-maker, then God’s condemnation of mankind truly does smack of injustice. But if I look at the Biblical account without the centuries long influence of Greek mythology, I find a much more dignifying, though terrifying, explanation for the state of woman’s sorrow and of the world. The picture of womanhood given us by Pandora is the globally common and pagan one, and it is this version that has helped create the marginalization of women. A summation of this view goes, "Women don't know what they are doing, they can't be trusted, so to keep them from making harmful mistakes, keep them out of the loop." To say our involvement in the destruction of mankind was a mistake is the first step to giving up our dignity, our rationality, and our voice. Interestingly, this is the first thing the Biblical account describes Eve doing after her eyes are opened to evil. Eve’s first statements after eating the fruit pass the blame of her actions on to someone else. She removes herself from the protagonist’s position and assumes the role of victim. Man was not the first to victimize woman, keeping her from being an active participant in the world’s decisions. Woman was the first to do so. Our mother Eve victimized herself and the rest of us when she told the first myth that it was someone else’s vault she ate the fruit. Since then, every victimizing myth, every story or fable that has made women helpless and stupid is only a retelling of what Eve herself declared to God when asked who was responsible. Pandora was Eve’s creation. So how do we respond? By no means am I writing that women should be proud of Eve's actions. But I do believe that if women want to claim "comparableness" to Adam, our first step should be to stop passing the blame were it isn’t justified. Our second step should be to stop blaming the Bible for the victimization of women, for in its texts, even in woman’s worst moment, she is given more dignity than the world’s myths provide. And lastly, through my conversations with Chinese friends, I’ve learned that the third step is to grieve the reality in which we live and to reach out for the overwhelming grace given woman by her Creator. ~Hannah
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"A highway shall be there, and a road,
And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it, But it shall be for others. Whoever walks the road, although a fool, Shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, Nor shall any ravenous beast go up on it; It shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there, And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, And come to Zion with singing, With everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away." A year and a half ago, I would have read this passage and thought of the Highway of Holiness as the path created by God's commands. Obtaining life by following his laws and living according to his ways would have seemed to fit with my immediate assumptions concerning Israel. I probably would have bypassed this passage's obvious arrow to Christ. But the Body's diversity is a really cool thing and I am impressed with the splendor of a multilingual community at the moment. I know it is important to understand Hebrew and Greek in order to get the best original meanings of the text, but as with the case of the above Isaiah passage, I am finding reading God's Word in a variety of modern languages is also beneficial. I can't help but think God reveals himself through the languages he has created and allows for unique scriptural insights in each translation of his Word. "道“ is a very interesting word in the language I am currently studying. I obviously don't know as much about the word as a native speaker or any more serious scholar, but I do know a little about the word and it intrigues me. It is a complicated, ancient word connected to Taoism and loosely means the way, principle; path, road; and to speak, say. It's an amazing word scripturally because it ties together so many of Christ's attributes. In translations of John 1, 道 is used for "the Word" that existed in the beginning and when Jesus calls himself "the way, the truth, and the life," 道 is used for "the way". When scripture uses 道 in John, it lends a fullness and roundness to who Christ is whereas English translations piece together multiple individual meanings to give us the same picture. Back to Isaiah. Because I now have another translation of the Bible floating around in the back of my mind, when I read Isaiah 35, Christ is immediately visible. This passage is talking about a path that leads all who walk on it straight to holiness and redemption. There are no precursors to getting on the Highway - even a fool can come and find safety and direction. When I think of the word 道 rather than my own word of highway, religious laws quickly fade from my mind and a person comes in view. I no longer think of a way of life to follow, but rather THE 道. The road to redemption is a person, not a system. I am thankful for God's creativity in language so that I might have a fuller understanding of what he is communicating to the world and that I might reach that understanding in connection to my brothers and sisters half way around the world. ~Hannah "We have to keep finding new ways of saying the same thing: 'You are the beloved of God.' But it is important that we not become sentimental about this love. The Scripture makes it clear that God chastens and disciplines those who are loved... This is no ordinary lover we have; this one will be impossible to manipulate. It is God who molds us, and sometimes that hurts. Love isn't always easy on us, but it is always our salvation." - M. Craig Barnes in The Pastor as Minor Poet
"There's a wideness in God's mercy I cannot find in my own And He keeps His fire burning To melt this heart of stone Keeps me aching with a yearning Keeps me glad to have been caught In the reckless raging fury That they call the love of God Now I've seen no band of angels But I've heard the soldiers' songs Love hangs over them like a banner Love within them leads them on To the battle on the journey And it's never gonna stop Ever widening their mercies And the fury of His love Oh the love of God And oh, the love of God The love of God Joy and sorrow are this ocean And in their every ebb and flow Now the Lord a door has opened That all Hell could never close Here I'm tested and made worthy Tossed about but lifted up In the reckless raging fury That they call the love of God" - Rich Mullins, "The Love of God" "He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realize just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me. We are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking. So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, And my heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets" - John Mark McMillan, "How He Loves" I don't believe in God's goodness towards me. It is something I want to believe in and an area of faith where I am progressively growing, but it remains true that at the core of my heart, I doubt God's goodness. It is easy for me to believe all of his other attributes and I consent rationally to his goodness, but the degree of stress, anxiety, worry, etc. that I keep around in my life shows that regardless of logical agreement and correct theology, there is a doubting disconnect between my mind and my heart.
Two weeks ago, God used some frustrating circumstances to give this disconnect a lesson. I was with friends in Siem Reap, enjoying the first delicious days of vacation and very ready to move on to the beach so I could completely unwind and let go of an exhausting semester's lingering stress. In a twist of events, though, my passport was stolen and I lost any chance to rest as I battled embassies, immigration control, crowded international buses, and sickness just to be able to return to start a new semester. The stress was almost unbearable, primarily because its roots lay in my anger that God wasn't giving me what I needed. I needed rest and he wasn't being good enough to give it to me. As I sat on a bus from Cambodia to Bangkok, I read something in George MacDonald's At the Back of the North Wind that has started to dissolve the head/heart disconnect. MacDonald tells the story of Diamond, a little boy who meets the North Wind and progresses through a series of adventures with her. North Wind is at times an allegory for God and in one particular chapter, MacDonald uses North Wind to give one of the best illustrationa of God's infinitely wild love and goodness towards us, even though it is often almost impossible for us to comprehend this kind of love. Two keys aspects of the story stand out to me. First, being as close to North Wind as Diamond is brings pain with it. Diamond could choose to stay on the safe side of North Wind, benefiting from her and having relationship with her, but keeping a safe distance. Instead he desires to be close to the very heart of North Wind, regardless of the pain it includes. Being at the center of God's loving heart is simultaneously the best and most painful place to be. Diamond makes the statement, "I begin to think there are better things than being comfortable." Knowing God's love is a tremendously powerful thing, but there is nothing comfortable about it. Second, it is only possible for us to doubt God's goodness when we think we have done anything for him; when we realize we have never done anything for God, that only he has done on our behalf, we can start to make sense of God's wild goodness. As North Wind holds Diamond in her arms, she sets out to sink a ship. Horrified by this, Diamond questions her goodness. He knows there can't be two North Winds, one good and one bad, so he is faced with deciding if North Wind is completely good or completely bad. Diamond admits he has never done anything for North Wind and therefore their relationship is based entirely on North Wind's goodness to him. Because of this acknowledgment everything about his relationship is based on North Winds desire to do good, Diamond has faith that sinking the ship is within North Wind's good character and they continue on their journey. It's a difficult argument for me because at times I think I see God's goodness and at times I seem to see God's badness, for a lack of a better word. What is to keep me from deciding that God is entirely bad all the way through? When the ship is sinking in my life, why shouldn't I decide God is bad? And it can only be harder for others. It is one thing for me to flip flop back and forth on this issue because sometimes inconvenient things like stolen passports happen in my life. But what about the really bad stuff in this world? What about sex trafficking? What about people I love going to hell? What about starvation? What about earthquakes that kill thousands of people? Based on the collective experience of humanity, what is to prevent us from concluding that God is bad all the way through? Grace. George MacDonald got it right when he highlighted grace as the evidence in our lives that God is good. If I think I have contributed anything in my relationship with God, or on the large scale, that people have contributed anything, then yes, there is enough in this world to think God is bad. But if I believe that I have not been able to give God anything, that even my best is worthless, that God is in my life simply because of his own desire to be in my life, then that is enough goodness for him to be thoroughly good. MacDonald's point is that if I accept God's grace in my life, then I also accept his goodness, even when I don't understand the sinking ships. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of this. No, I am trying to wrap my heart around it. I want it to transform the way I see my life and my God, so that stress and anxiety don't define me. If I lived like God was good to me, fear would have nothing to control. I want belief in God's goodness to sink down into me, deeply and completely. And it will. Just as the North Wind's billowy and blustery presence changes Diamond and leaves her mark in his life, so will God's powerful and loving presence leave its mark in my life. ~Hannah La Corona
Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise, Weav’d in my low devout melancholy, Thou which good, hast, yea art treasury, All changing unchang’d Ancient of days; But do not, with a vile crown of frail bayes, Reward my muses with sincerity, But what thy thorny crown gain’d, that give me, A crown of Glory, which doth flower always; The ends crown our works, but thou crown’st our ends, For, at our end begins our endless rest; The first last end, now zealously possessed, With a strong sober thirst, my soul attends. ‘Tis time that heart and voice be lifted high, Salvation to all that will is nigh. Annunciation Salvation to all that will is nigh; That All, which always is All every where, Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear, Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die, Lo, faithful Virgin, yields himself to lie In prison, in thy womb; and though he there Can take no sin, not thou five, yet he’will wear Taken from thence, flesh, which deaths force may try. Ere by the spheres time was created, thou Wast in his mind, who is thy Son, and Brother; Whom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother; Thou’hast light in dark; and shutst in little room, Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb. Nativitie Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb, Now leaves his well belov’d imprisonment, There he hath made himself to his intent Weak enough, now into our world to come; But Oh, for thee, for him, hath th’ Inn no room? Yet lay him in this stall, and from the Orient, Stars, and wisemen will travel to prevent Th’effect of Herods jealous general doom. Seest thou, my Soule, with thy faiths eyes, how he Which fills all place, yet none holds him, doth lie? Was not his pity towards thee wondrous high, That would have need to be pitied by thee? Kiss him, and with him into Egypt go, With his kind mother, who partakes thy woe. Temple With his kind mother who partakes thy woe, Joseph turn back; see where your child doth sit, Blowing, yea blowing out those sparks of wit, Which himself on the Doctors did bestow; The Word but lately could not speak, and lo It suddenly speaks wonders, whence comes it, That all which was, and all which should be writ, A shallow seeming child, should deeply know? His Godhead was not soul to his manhood, Nor had time mellowed him to this ripeness, But as for one which hath a long task, ‘tis good, With the Sun to begin his business, He in his ages morning thus began By miracles exceeding power of man. Crucifying By miracles exceeding power of man, He faith in some, envy in some begat, For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious, hate; In both affections many to him ran, But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can, Alas, and do, unto the immaculate, Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a Fate, Measuring self-lifes infinity to a span, Nay to an inch. Lo, where condemned he Bears his own cross, with pain, yet by and by When it bears him, he must bear more and die. Now thou art lifted up, draw me to thee, And at thy death giving such liberal dole, Moist, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul. Resurrection Moist with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul Shall (though she not be in extreme degree Too stony hard, and yet too fleshly,) be Freed by that drop, from being starv’d, hard, or foul, And life, by this death abled, shall control Death, whom thy death slew; nor shall to me Fear of first or last death, bring misery, If in thy little brook my name thou enroll, Flesh in that long sleep is not putrified, But made that there, of which, and for which ‘twas; Nor can by other means be glorified. May then sins sleep, and deaths soon from me pass, That wak’t from both, I again risen may Salute the last, and everlasting day. Ascension Salute the last and everlasting day, Joy at the uprising of this Sun, and Son, Ye whose just tears, or tribulation Have purely washed, or burnt your drossie clay; Behold the Highest, parting hence away, Lightens the dark clouds, which he treads upon, Nor doth he by ascending, show alone, But first he, and he first enters the way. O strong Ram, which hast batter’d heaven for me, Mild Lamb, which with thy blood, hast mark’d the path; Bright Torch, which shin’st, that I the way may see, Oh, with thy own blood quench thy own just wrath, And if thy holy Spirit, my Muse did raise, Deign at my hands this crown of prayer and praise. I just finished reading Chi An's A Mother's Ordeal and I couldn't recommend it more. During the first few chapters, I was bored with the typical tales of the Cultural Revolution. You can read a slew of other books, all full of horrible, dehumanizing descriptions of China's chaos. But by half way through, Chi An's tale grabbed me in the gut and I found myself waking up to an extremely personal admission of victimization and guilt unmatched by other such memoirs.
Chi An tells her story of growing up, finding a husband, and starting a family, all against the backdrop of China's population control policies. After suffering the cruel delivery of her first child and the forced abortion of her second, Chi An finds herself bitter and self-focused. Willing to do anything for the benefit of her own family and despite deeply suppressed ethical qualms, she takes charge of enforcing the One Child Policy within a local work unit. It is not until she accidentally becomes pregnant for a third time while living in the US with her husband that Chi An wrestles with her deepest longings and deepest guilt. The couple decide to fight to keep this new child alive and in the process are forced to separate all ties with their homeland. Better than any educated argument or theological belief, Chi An's words from the heart reveal a universal longing for life and the guilt that ensues when it is prematurely ended. Growing up in a world where logical and practical arguments for abortion abound, Chi An continues to be plagued by the human desire to conceive and bare children and when in the end, she becomes complicit in the forced termination of a generation, she and her colleagues suffer from nightmares, recurring sights and sounds, and emotional torment all oriented around the "little hands" that will come after them for justice in the next life. There is no reason Chi An should suffer from guilt considering the positive environment towards abortion in which she came of age, and yet something inside her refuses to accept the actions both committed against her and by her as innocent. What finally intrigued me most about her account lies within its closing chapters as Chi An retells her first experience with Catholicism. In a beautiful reflection on why people would worship a "dying God," Chi An simply and movingly describes the apologetics of the cross from an outside and Asian perspective. I am doubtful if Chi An took time to catch up on John Stott or Tim Keller's theology before writing down her thoughts on a couple pages (nonetheless predating Keller! ;-), and yet she sums up all of their grand arguments and thoughts through the layman's lens of a Chinese woman who has lived through hell and for the first time ponders what kind of God would be so real that no person could dream him up. And yet, Chi An falls short of reveling in the grace that lies waiting for her. She senses that there is a vast significant meaning to Christ's death, but she cannot find what it is. Instead, she finds redemption and hope through confession and a new calling in life to set right her imbalanced scales of justice. She declares to have found redemption, but she dares not hope to have found mercy and grace. The whole of A Mother's Ordeal is well worth reading, but if you never pick it up, at least read below. It will save you the gruesome operating table scenes, but fill you in on one woman's heart full of fear and hope. Fear of a Heavenly justice that she cannot understand and hope in the value of life that she has both betrayed and protected. "Two hours later, after I had been moved from the recovery room to a regular hospital ward, my baby was brought to me. As Wei Xin looked on, I stretched our my arms to take her from the nurse, suddenly aware of the significance of the moment. It was for the sake of this tiny human being that I had endured so many months of long-distance blackmail and personal torment. I drew my infant daughter close to me, thankful that Wei Xin and I had chosen to defy the authorities, exulting in our triumph. ..."'You are safe now, my little 'illegal' daughter,' I whispered. 'Whatever happens now, no one can ever take you away from me.' "By the time I returned from the hospital, the first article written by Steve about our case had appeared in Catholic Twin Circle magazine. It closed with an appeal for concerned readers to appeal the INS on our behalf. A surprising number did... "I was moved to tears of gratitude by these letters, even as I struggled to understand what had motivated their authors to write. Why should these people, strangers all, care what happened to us and our baby? What did they hope to gain from such an act? I had grown up in a culture where only people who knew you well - kinfolk, coworkers, classmates, or close neighbors - exerted themselves on your behalf, and even they expected favors in return. And yet hundreds of Americans from across the country had taken time to petition their government on our behalf. I did not know what to make of such generosity of spirit. 'The American people have good hearts,' Wei Xin and I told Steve wonderingly. "'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,' Steve replied. 'Americans would not like to have their government forcing them to abort their unborn children,' he added, 'so naturally they sympathize with you.' "This 'Golden Rule,' as he told us it was called, had a familiar ring to it. The Analects of Confucius contained a similar precept: 'Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.' But the more I reflect on the two formulations, the more I realized how different they in fact were. Confucius had merely forbidden people to wrong one another, not encouraged them to perform positive acts of charity. Living under such a rule, no wonder so many Americans had written letters on our behalf - and with no expectation of a return. "The awareness of what others were now doing for me convicted me anew of what I had earlier done to others. Not just once but a thousand times I broken both this new rule and its Confucian variant. I had done to other women what I did not want, and had finally not allowed, to be done to myself. The horror I had hoped to leave behind me in China came back to torment me anew. What good is your regret? I sneered at my reawakened conscience. How does it help the troubled and despairing women, now forever barren, whom you tortured, aborted, and sterilized? I abandoned myself to the care of my tiny daughter in the weeks following. Holding her in my arms, I could finally let go of the memory of the other little girl or boy who had been taken from me twelve years before. But the joy that my ‘make-up’ baby brought to me was not untempered by sorrow. She was both balm and wound, consolation and accusation, for her very presence seemed to speak to me of all those other children who were absent, who would never be. I had won my struggle to give birth, but how many hundreds of women had lost theirs? I was able to hold my daughter, but how many others would never hold theirs? What right do I have to this child, I thought bitterly, after what I have done? “One day Wei Xin, looking rather abashed, told me that he wanted to go to church. ‘I know that we were taught by the Party that all religion is superstition, but a lot of my friends at work go, and I would like to find out what it’s all about. Besides,’ he said wryly, ‘if the Communist Party is against it, maybe we should be for it.’ “Wei Xin’s suggestion came out of the blue. There were no Christians in either of our families. My parents had been atheists, while Wei Xin’s had been Buddhists. I had been force-fed Communism, which was virtually the state religion of the People’s Republic, since I was old enough to talk. I was not about to submit myself to some new cult, however pleasant sounding its rules. I didn’t know whether the benevolent heaven of Chinese folklore existed or not, but trying to find out had never seemed to me worth the trouble. I thought Wei Xin foolish for even suggesting that we make the attempt. “It was by appealing to my concern for Tacheng, who would be entering the sixth grade that fall, that Wei Xin convinced me to go. As far as I could tell, he was receiving no ethical instruction in the public schools at all. Teachers in China placed a heavy emphasis on learning right from wrong, even if it was confounded with Marxist ideology, but all that was missing here. Wei Xin told me that it was in America’s churches, not in her schools, that such things were taught. “Walking through the doors of Saint Michael’s Church the following Sunday, I had a strong sense of trespassing on forbidden ground. Attending services in China was either discouraged or entirely banned. I had never before been inside any religious edifice, unless one counts the Buddhist temple I had helped a horde of fanatical Red Guards demolish during the Cultural Revolution. The only Christian church I knew of in Shenyang had been converted into a warehouse in the fifties by the government. “I looked over the hundreds of people present with interest. Mixed in with the Anglos were Mexican Americans, Filipinos, Korean Americans, African Americans, Vietnamese, even a Chinese family or two. No one had ordered these people to come. Like Wei Xin and me, they were all here because they wanted to be. As we sat down I was struck by the realization that this was the first time I had ever taken part in a meeting not organized by the Communist Party for its own purposes. But for what purpose had these people voluntarily gathered here? To practice the Golden Rule? To improce themselves? To socialize? To adore the deity of love? “I understood almost nothing of what followed. It hadn’t occurred to me that there would be so much chanting and singing, so much standing and kneeling, and so much invoking and summoning in a religious service. I followed as well as I was able, which was hardly at all. I caught only the odd phrase. ‘As it was in the beginning, is now…’ What was in the beginning and is now? ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ “I was fascinated by the painful figure on the cross that hung over the altar. Why would anyone worship a dead God, I thought to myself. Chinese god images were always robust and happy – fat, laughing Buddhas without a trace of suffering in their features, or sturdy figures of Guan Gong, a famous general whose body carried no scars from his numerous military victories. Of course they were also easy to dismiss as mere excrescences of human desires – happiness and success embodied in little wooden divinities. But the idea of a dead God was simply absurd. Surely the fact that this man had been killed proved that he wasn’t God at all. Who would want to kowtow before a defeated creature, I thought, unless he was not a mere creature at all but the Creator? But then why had he allowed himself to die?It was almost beyond belief, certainly beyond the human imagination. The wildest dreams of human beings, I was sure, could not have begun to conjure up a dead God. Perhaps there was something to all this after all. “I remembered the hundreds of women I had forced to have abortions, how they had writhed and screamed and cried. And I remembered my own abortion, and how I had writhed and screamed and cried. If this tortured figure was God, then surely he understood the pain and suffering that I had felt and caused. Was there in his death some larger meaning? “From the time I was a small girl, I had been eager to help others. It was for this reason that I had become a nurse. At time, I had allowed myself to be twisted by selfishness into acts that I regretted, but my one true desire was to serve, to love. How could I have gotten to be thirty-eight years old and not realized this? That I had hurt and injured others was a failure to love. “Wei Xin and I enrolled in adult classes, Tacheng in catechism. Months later I made my first confession – and felt at peace with myself for a long time. The little hands that had been clawing at me could no longer reach me in the new place where I lived. My mind laid to rest the little-boy-who-wouldn’t-die to his rest. From now on the only baby’s cries that would wake in the night were those of my newborn daughter. “I was forgiven, but justice demanded that I do more. I would spend the rest of my life doing good to others – a goal I happily adopted, for it corresponded to my own deepest wishes. I did not know which way the scales of justice would tip when I had completed the course; I would only try to weight them in favor of mercy. In caring for others, I would be atoning for my past crimes. But how could I help women still in China? I resolved to begin by telling my story to Steve, however painful that might be, so that he might write it.” "Knowing that the journey of faith will not be easy, they do not become discouraged when difficulties come. Knowing an adversary will oppose their efforts, they are not surprised or unprepared when the enemy attacks. As they set out on their way, they expect the early going to be difficult, but they know that the end of the journey will be great.
It is not without merit that those who pursue authentic faith in this manner are called pilgrims and strangers. A pilgrim is one who is on a journey. When the journey transcends his normal borders, he becomes a stranger. He is like a businessman who is sent into a new territory with the task of executing his job with diligence and tenacity and then returns home as soon as possible. Whatever pleasures he enjoys along the way, he enjoys with moderation. He is thankful when the weather is pleasant but is not diverted from his task when storms come. He is a traveler. He expects the unexpected. But as he travels, he knows he traveling to 'a better country' (Heb. 11:16). He can observe the practices of this strange land and associate with its inhabitants. He even attempts to speak their language and where appropriate adopt their fashions, but he makes sure that he is not sidetracked or delayed along the way from accomplishing what his master has sent him to accomplish. He has business to which he must attend. He knows there will be temptations and distractions. He knows the enemy wants to delay and derail his advancement. This means that he must maintain his focus and direction. To make sure he is on the right track, he needs periodically to stop and take stock. Is he traveling in the right direction? Has he become distracted? Often he has the sense that he is making good progress. At other times he feels as if he is getting nowhere. All the passions of life are experienced along the way. ...This is no dreary duty! This is challenge and excitement. This is the ultimate adventure. This is what life was meant to be." "What is good in only a matter of opinion in secular society. Using society's own standards of goodness, careful observation of the bigger picture of the bigger picture may reveal that a particular good has been outweighed by general evil. When a society defines its own morality and then applies it to itself, that society can justify its own serious breaches of character. It is able to lower the standard to the detriment of all.
Even in the best of cases, the fundamental problem still exists that the motivation for life is still man-centered instead of God-centered. Goodness is no substitute for devotion. In its culturally defined forms, goodness can exist where love of God and passion for His glory do not." "Life is war. The casualties are millions, and the stakes are eternal. What we need today is not a call to simplicity, but a call to war. We need to think in terms of 'wartime lifestyle' rather than a 'simply lifestyle.' I have used the phrase 'necessities of life' because Paul said in 1 Timothy 6:8, 'If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.' But this idea of simply necessity can be misleading. I mean it to refer to a style of life that is unencumbered with nonessentials - and the criterion for 'essential' should not be primitive simplicity, but wartime effectiveness... Life is war. All talk of a Christian's right to live luxuriously 'as a child of the King' is this atmosphere sounds hollow - especially since the King Himself stripped for battle."
"Jesus did not ask us to be indifferent to whether we are destroyed. On the contrary, He assumes that the longing for true life will move us to deny ourselves all the lesser pleasures and comforts of life. The measure of our longing for life is the amount of comfort we are willing to give up to get it." This world is just a shadow of a stronger, more real time to come;
In this lies my hope. "I surrender all to the promises you made and I will give it all to the maker of the day No one knows your heart and no one knows your fears When no one solves the mysteries or even wipes away the tears Can you hear the sound of laughter from the other side of life? There are days when I feel like a stranger sometimes Tell me, are there any other fools like me? This reliance on another world has a great effect on this world This conscience of another world has a great effect on grace recollection He doesn't love us 'cause of who we are He only loves us 'cause of who he is We all were children once so will we return So let those days return let us all return" |
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