Boys' Ski Trip

It was a reunion of sorts. The Holik boys gathered in our house for breakfast before they took a 10-hour drive to Colorado for a ski trip. Well, for some of them it would just be a trip because they weren’t going to ski and at least three of them were merely going snowboarding. So ski trip was really misnomer, but it mattered very little. They seemed to enjoy each other’s company no matter what they did. They appeared to have a good ole time just sitting around the table eating the burritos we bought for them from Josie’s. They were going to leave at around ten, but were delayed until 11, for they had to pick up Trevor from the airport and then pick up the rental van. I was pretty sad sending them away for a few days. Although I coveted my privacy, having the boys home just made everything right again. They took a part of me with them when they went off to college, and my heart was made whole every time they came home, yet they never stayed very long and the constant goodbyes, the patching-up and tearing-away, seems to make my heart more and more fragile as days go by.

Such is life, I suppose. I am terrible at saying goodbyes, just like another poet much greater than I am. “I can scarcely bid you good bye in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”

Belated Turkey Bowl Report

My opponents picked a good time for them to play our annual Sea Family Turkey Bowl, delayed by bad weather and Rob’s absence during the Thanksgiving holiday. It was a good time for them because it was Sunday afternoon when they were well rested while I, being a pastor, was dead tired after preaching two sermons and holding the baptismal service of four new believers. In other words, I was worn out and it was obviously to their great advantage. This was part of their well thought-out gamesmanship, to say the least. Anyway, being a man of great competitive spirit, I accepted their challenge with unsurpassed gusto.

I was a little rusty since I had had to rest my sore arm for the whole year, so my quarterbacking was a little off. The first pass I threw was picked off by Michael for a TD. I was mad at myself but I quickly collected myself and on the next play I had Rob run a crossing route. I hit him on stride and he ran for a touchdown to tie the game. The game went back and forth and was pretty tight all the way through. Rob and I ran a lot of trick plays and they seemed to work every time, even though our opponents appeared to know our game plan. Well, they simply could not stop us. I even caught a long pass behind my back and almost scored, but was caught from behind by William. I must have lost a step. The boys were rough on me throughout the game and one time Michael even threw an illegal block in a running play and laid me out flat on the ground. They didn’t seem to be too concerned about breaking my old bones. Rob and I took a one-touchdown lead toward the end of the contest and seemed well on our way to taking the game, but Michael made a one-handed interception of an ill-advised pass that Rob threw and ran back for a TD. From then on momentum shifted and they took yet another victory. So far my team’s losing streak stands at five. Pretty sad indeed.

We always have a race after the game and this time I came out on top. Pretty good for an old man, right? Although the boys accused me of taking too big of a head start, I won just the same. My opponents talked a lot of trash after the game that annoyed me a great deal. They even accused me of having poor sportsmanship. Well, I was on my best behavior except for one incident when I turned my back to my opponents and shook my backside a little bit. I meant no harm at all, but they interpreted it as something worse. Well, perhaps I lost it a little. I guess after years of practice, I still haven’t learned the art of losing very well.

Dating Guru Lesson of Love #1

Romantic love starts with a powerful feeling and ends with a powerful will. Two must work together in order for it to work and to last. The reason why romances are so short-lived these days is because the later is severely lacking. We feel to love, but not always will to love.

All human loves, eros included, reside mostly in the will, and partly in the feeling. Love is located in the will so that when the feeling of affection is no longer present, people can continue to love; it is found in the will so that people can love their enemies.

Lovers do sometimes turn into enemies. “The more I love you, the more I hate you,” goes a Chinese pop song. With a strong will to love, we can even love the enemies who share the same bed with us. If love is all feeling but little or no will, the Lord Jesus would never had commanded his disciples to love their enemies.

Why go through such trouble just to love? You may ask. Love is to be enjoyed, not to be endured. You are right. But unless you are willing to endure the hardship that comes with love, you will never get to enjoy the sweetness of love. People who give up too easily will never get to taste the fruit of a love relationship.

For romantic love to come to fruition, it has less to do with the person whom you love than your commitment to love itself. The thrill of falling in love is so much like leaping into a cool pond on a hot summer day (credit this idea to C.S Lewis), but after you are in it, you must start swimming, and during the course the fuzzy feeling of love may or may not be there, but you still have to swim just the same, no matter how tired you are. People who continue to seek the initial feeling of leaping into the pond by diving into a new exotic swimming hole will end up not knowing what love really is. Love isn’t just candle light dinners and moonlit walks; it is composed of changing dirty diapers and pushing strollers, sleepless nights and wearisome days, guts and tears, and thousands of apologies and forgiveness. Love is not for the faint-hearted and half-hearted. If you are not willing to suffer for love, you are not sufficient to love.

So switching the partner of your romantic interest may not be the answer, for all ponds are pretty much equally deep and leaping into them basically yields the same feeling. It is what we do after the feeling is no longer there that really counts. If love fails, blame yourself first, for you may not be fit to love. You blame your partner too readily and give up too easily.

What else- for my fifty-fifth

What else is new to see except what I have seen?
What else is new to hear except what I have heard?
What else is new to experience except what I have experienced?
What else is new to embrace except what I have embraced
In this world?
That is getting old at age fifty-five
When youth is no more, neither is passion for all
And days dawn and down as lengthening wrinkles slowly crawl
On my face that looks toward my west
To see if the sunset can again sparkle and leap for joy
Before it turns to a glorious sunrise in another world.

I knew I was getting old when I

Had to nap for thirty minutes after I ran and walked for less than a mile, did nine and half push-ups (I was tempted to count my last a full one, but my integrity wouldn’t allow,) and ten sit-ups.

My six-pack gradually turned into one and I had to squeeze it hard when I tried to bend down to tie my shoes.

When my youngest son took me to the cleaners for the first time in his life in a tennis match and rubbed it in by trying to comfort me, saying “Dad, you are not so bad for your age.” Well, at least I can still beat Mr. Wolfshohl who is about my age, thanks to his bad knees that hamper his movement a little bit. I could tell he was a better player than me the only time we played, but I was in a better shape then. Speaking of tennis, I had to ask my opponent, who was an oldy himself, to decide the game by a coin toss in a 4.0 city championship final. We were both too tired to finish the match.

I have no retort when Michael challenges, which he does all the time: “Dad, you want to fight?” The few times I mustered enough courage to do it, he picked me up and threw me across the living room as if I were a toothpick and caused his mother to scream out loud: “Don’t kill your Daddy!”

In our annual turkey bowl, in which our team’s (Rob and I) losing streak now stands at 3, I caught a ball and took off for a sure TD. Oh, what a feeling to see nothing but green grass before me! But William tracked me down and tackled me from behind, causing me to tumble twice. When I came to, I had to check to see if all my body parts were still functioning. I guess I had lost a step or two. By the way, William probably overdid it that time. His brothers were mad at him. “Are you trying to kill Daddy,” they yelled at him.

I hit a serve with all my might in a heated tennis match against a Chinese girl and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder that knocked my powerful right arm out of commission for the longest time. In fact, it took me almost a year to heal completely. Instead of throwing the football, I had to push it last year in both our Turkey Bowl and the Christmas Bowl, and I think that was the only reason that we lost. I had the unpleasant duty of guarding JD’s dad and I barely touched him one time, but he fell down in a big tumble. I guess he and I are about the same age. Yes, we are getting old. By the way, I went to see a Kungfu doctor, the Chinese version of chiropractor, when I was in Taiwan, but it only made things worse. Michael was right about this.

Well, I will quit here. My posts tend to be longwinded, which is another sure sign that I am getting old. Hey, don’t be giddy about it - you are getting old too. “Old man, look at my life, I’m a lot like you were.” Where does this line come from? Any other geezer out there?

Romancing Aggieland

William is about to graduate and he has decided not to “walk” at the commencement, thus saving us yet another eight hour trip to Aggieland. With William graduating, a chapter of our family history comes to a close. I don’t know when will be the next time Kathy and I will make another trip to College Station.

It was about eight years ago that we set feet on the hallowed ground when we took Rob to visit colleges during his junior year in high school. I knew very little about A&M and being a graduate of Ole Miss I somehow had an abnormal aversion for any “cow college,” which was the label we had for all a&m colleges. It was a hot summer day and the campus did not impress me all that much. It was Rob’s decision concerning his college choice, so I tried to remain neutral by not expressing my opinion. After touring the school and listening to a lot of things that didn’t really mean all that much to me, we left College Station for Austin, thinking it probably would be our last time there, not knowing that Rob had a different idea. For him it was love at first sight. He had made his decision.

Austin might have a bigger name than College Station, but it is not bigger in substance. It was dislike at first sight for me, for liberalism with all its arrogance and pretence really rubbed me the wrong way and I smelled its stench the moment I stepped onto the tu campus. (My apologies to our friends at the state capitol. UT is really a great school in her own right.) Michael was only a year behind his brother, but for some odd reason he was seriously thinking about attending UT. I had a strong sense as I was standing in the square at the entrance of the school that my son would lose his faith in God if I were to send him to that university. For a long while Michael really was thinking about going to Austin and he once mentioned to me the only thing he didn’t like were the school colors. I think it was probably a sibling rivalry kind of thing, but Rob somehow decided that he had a monopoly on A&M and was vehemently opposed to the idea of Michael going there. But after becoming an Aggie, I guess Rob finally came to his senses and softened up his stance. Michael quickly switched his allegiance and, a year later, he became an Aggie himself.

With two boys attending the school, I started to take an interest in the university and came to realize that there was so much to love about the place and the rich traditions that the school espoused were no longer outlandish to me. I learned to hum the Aggie War Hymn and often bellowed out a hearty “whoop.”

Every time we visited the school we took our youngest with us. William, who was three years behind Rob, was a brilliant student and was more inclined to arts and literature, so we really didn’t consider A&M very seriously. Unlike the OU people, who actively recruited William, the office of admissions at A&M only paid him “paper service” by merely offering him a National Merit scholarship and not much more. So he ended up going to OU and it turned out to be a misjudgment on my part. William enjoyed his short stay at the school, but his love lay elsewhere and, after a year or so, he himself became an Aggie, which made everything right again. Three brothers were finally together in their affection for and allegiance to a grand university.

Kathy was pretty self-assured and, being a daughter of a Harvard man and having the privilege of being cared for by a world renowned pediatrician in Boston, she had no need to seek a name school to boost her ego. Not so with me though. I quickly attached myself to Ole Miss after I got there, albeit I was a mere graduate student, and learned to love all her traditions, both glorious and ignoble. (I still fly a little rebel flag on my nightstand.) But I have discovered that I am more and more interested in Aggie sports and even have gone so far as to subscribe to Aggie Yell on Rivals and read Texags diligently every morning.

With three boys graduating from A&M, I think I am entitled to call myself an Aggie, even though I don’t have a ring to show for it. It’s kind of trite, but I can at least make the claim of “my sons and my money went to A&M.” After years of flirting with the school, I can now say with certainty that I am an Aggie at heart. I was shopping at United Supermarket and a guy with a pharmacist’s white coat chased me down and asked what year I was and it took me a while to realize I was wearing an Aggie sweat shirt and he was a fellow Aggie brother. I wanted so much to tell a lie by giving a random year, but thought better of it and responded: “All my sons are Aggies, but I went to Ole Miss.” I felt so bad that I disappointed him and actually was overcome by a sense of shame.

My Dog Katy

Christy was the dog of my choice. She was a yellow lab that I bought with one hundred dollars. It was a romantic idea for me to want to have a dog, really. I thought a real man ought to have a hunting dog, even if he does not do any hunting. Christy wasn’t all that smart of a puppy and I wasn’t smart enough to train her, so I just played “fetch” with her every evening in our fairly large backyard. I was in my early forties then and still had enough strength and energy to keep up with my puppy.

Christy just wanted to play “fetch” and that was probably the only thing she could do except for barking and eating. I had something in mind for her to do, but did not know how to get my idea across to her. She probably had the ability to learn, but her master wasn’t a trained teacher, so we just tried to get by by merely playing “fetch.” Our relationship wasn’t all that bad, but it could have been better.

Then Katy came along and things became dramatically different.

She was a blond stray dog who looked a lot like a golden retriever. Gary, one of our church members found her at his door and brought her over, asking whether we would like to keep her. Much to Kathy’s dismay, I took the offer and all the troubles that came along with having two fairly large-sized dogs. I left Katy in the backyard with Christy the first night, hoping the two retrievers would strike up a relationship, but that wasn’t going to be the case. They didn’t get along at all. What made things so much worse for me was Katy barked all night at our porch door, wanting to come inside and it nearly drove me crazy. Being a Chinese, I believed strongly that humans and beasts should not cohabit under the same roof, but I finally caved in, for it was a choice between us getting any sleep or not. Evidently Katy’s previous owner had kept her inside, for she was house-broken. She has been staying inside with us ever since.

I was relatively young then, but had found it quite difficult to keep up with two dogs, and was becoming increasingly impatient with Christy’s demand to play fetch whenever I went to the backyard. I enjoyed reading under the tree in the yard, but the dog simply wouldn’t leave me alone, and finally a decision had to be made. Christy had to go if I desired to enjoy my backyard at all. Besides, compared to sweet Katy, Christy was just too wild for me to keep up with. I put an ad in the newspaper and a lady showed up the next day and took Christy away. She was overjoyed because her husband was looking for a lab at that time and Christy was available for free.

Katy knew how to make herself invisible. She was truly a smart dog, for she seemed to know I guarded my privacy very closely and she never a single time invaded my space. I even let her sleep on the floor by my bed every night, and she gave birth to three puppies during one of those nights. I was awakened by a strange groaning in the middle of the night and saw Katy licking a puppy in a puddle of blood. She did such a good job cleaning up after herself that there was only a faint blood stain on the carpet after she was done with all her business. I kept her and her puppies in our garage and there wasn’t any cleaning up needed during the first few weeks, for Katy ate whatever came out from her litter, and when the time came, the boys and I took the puppies to the streets and gave them away in a matter of hours. Kathy was home schooling all our boys then and life was good. We were poor, but what more could a man ask than a house full of laughter and a dog that rarely barked and unceasingly wagged her tail.

Katy was an adult when we got her and we had no idea of her real age. While all our boys were doing their growing, Katy seemed to stay the same. She had another pregnancy, for a wild dog violated her when we were in Taiwan. She had eight puppies that time and it was extremely difficult for her to keep up with the cleaning, even for a responsible dog like Katy. Within a week or so after she had her puppies, our garage began to smell and we had to keep the mother and eight puppies outside. Again it didn’t take long for the boys and me to give the puppies away. There was, however, one reject though, and we had to give it away for the second time.

The boys continued to grow and followed their mother to school. By this time Kathy had found a teaching job and all three boys became regular students in a Christian school. Katy seemed to remain the same throughout the years. The boys were preoccupied by their school and new-found friends and paid very little attention to Katy, and I continued to take her for granted. She was such a sweet dog who demanded nothing and gave everything she had to us.

I don’t know how many times we tried to figure out Katy’s age, but her real age remained a mystery. She just sheds more often now and her blond hair has turned paler as days go by. She became quite ill just a few months ago and it got so bad that I was even contemplating putting her down. But she pulled through somehow and remained healthy for a few months before she had a stroke. One time she lay so still that I thought she was gone, but she wagged her tail when I called her. I have never prayed for a dog, but I did several times after she had the stroke. Praying for a dog’s recovery from illness! I surprised even myself. Katy miraculously recovered and is able to function, albeit she might have lost some of her eyesight and some freedom of mobility.

I still walk her twice a day, sometimes in sub-zero weather. Yet I have found it more and more difficult to take her out to the park nearby during the winter time, for I myself am growing old and cold weather bothers me more and more. I often see myself in my aging dog as we stroll slowly along the sidewalk, fighting against the cold wind on the high plains of Texas.

Things for which I am thankful

White thanksgiving. First time ever, I suppose.

Boys are home. Michael showing off his six pack, well, two of them are hardly visible, and William his broad shoulders, easy to lean on for someone special.

Rob not being home saved us from another defeat in the Turkey Bowl. I challenged my opponents, namely Michael and William, to play one on two in the snow, but they declined. No guts and no shame.

Rob called from the Big Apple. Not being home for the first time in twenty five years. I guess he has enough good memories to sustain him during the holiday away.

Thanksgiving meal was very good and I had the appetite to fully enjoy it.

Kathy and the boys are in good health. My dog Katy survived two bouts with severe illnesses in the last few months and came out victorious. She is still alive and kicking, albeit not as vigorous as she used to be.

I can still write and preach, and occasionally crack a joke or two that may or may not draw any laughter.

I can still do ten push-ups, the first five with ease and the last five with gnashing of my teeth. I can run a mile and walk a lot longer than that.

I am happy most of the time when nothing bothers me and the problems that I have encountered didn’t usually outlast my depression.

I have a blog that generates some comments from young people who consider that this ole man actually has something to say.

The Wolfshohl brothers and wjw, my ultimate envy of web blogging.

I still miss Ole Miss and dream about going back to Oxford to retire someday, but I am also welcoming my new love, a concubine who may actually draw me to Aggieland for good.

The Aggie war hymn seems to have the same effect on me as the time when I heard the Ole Miss band plays Dixie. A man is allowed to have two wives in this case, even though Michael tries his best to keep me from loving all things Aggie too much.

Spotted a couple of Aggie rings that I am contemplating purchasing. Ring check, anyone?

The anticipation of getting a new football coach who will take “us” (sorry Michael) to new heights that we have never been before.

I have a son who is a musician and a poet like his dad, and a doctor wannbe son who is a lot of things that I am not, a son who flew first class to China and stayed in a five-star hotel in Beijing and HK where I have never been, and a wife who is beyond compare in beauty, virtue, and grace.

My youngest will soon make a “homecoming” for his dad, TFA in Mississippi Delta.

All these things are made possible by the Father in heaven whose greatest pleasure is to spoil his children, you and me.

Rejection

“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me.”
Ro 10:20

I might have failed once or twice hitting on girls when I was young, but surely this wasn’t one of them. I had no intention of starting anything when I tried to strike up a conversation with a young blond in the student union post office.

“I think I know you,” I said to a co-ed who had just sung in our church choir the day before. I only meant to offer a complement and that was all.

“I don’t think so,” she responded coldly and walked away. She must have done that many times, for she did it so effortlessly. I got tongue-tied a little bit and did not have the opportunity to clarify the issue at hand.

I was both rejected and insulted at the same time. The girl obviously thought I had something fishy in mind, which was a complete misunderstanding. I was probably more than twice her age and had been out of the game since the day I took my marriage vows. It was such an embarrassment and insult that I still remember the incident some twenty years later. In fact, I have grumbled about this to Kathy more than one time.

Is the Lord embarrassed about the stern expression and cold shoulder that he receives when he tries to reveal himself to people whom he loves? His heart must be enormously larger than mine, for the particular affront that I suffered seems to be gnawing at my heart when I think about it.

Being a self-proclaimed “dating guru,” I always spent time calculating the rate of my success before I made my first move of asking a girl out; therefore I was rarely turned down the few times that I made the attempt. I was simply too arrogant to take the risk of being snubbed.

Pride and inferiority go hand in hand. I wasn’t really prideful, for I had very few reasons to be, I was just feeling very insecure and being turned down would deepen my sense of inferiority. People who can take rejection well are usually very self-assured and mentally healthy. The Lord is able to take one rejection after another from the ones who are infinitely inferior to him and he continues to try to woo them. In our case, one failure at courting someone may forever keep us from making another attempt.

“It’s her loss, not yours,” I said to someone who had just been snubbed by a girl. “Had she known how great you are, she wouldn’t have done that.”

It’s our loss, not his.

The Lord is completely self-sufficient in all ways, therefore he loses nothing by our rejection and, by the same token, he has nothing to gain by our acceptance of him as our Lord and Savor. Even so, he continues to figure out innovative ways to reveal himself to us, hoping that we will finally get it and submit to him. We are the ones who stand to lose when we repeatedly turn down his overtures to us, and may never have the opportunity to walk down the aisle with the Heavenly Groom.

Worth

Worth
价值
“All have turned away, they have together become worthless…” Ro 3:12

Our intrinsic value and external worth as people are entirely different things. We should learn to tell the difference so that we will not waste our time seeking things that have no real value.

We can lower our standard of living according to the income that we generate. If we can do this, we will be pleasantly surprised to find out how little we really need to support ourselves. But we will feel that we are poverty-stricken if we live beyond our means and start to feel self-pity. There are quite a few poor people in this world who actually feel rich, but there are more relatively rich people who feel extremely poor. Being rich and poor may have a lot less to do with the amount of money that we earn than we think. It is a state of mind that can be altered by a change in our attitude.

Knowing the difference between the intrinsic and the external worth of things is a good start.

Things that last longer are more valuable that the items that don’t last at all, and the things that last beyond time surely are more valuable that the things that perish with time. We may spend our whole life time earning money, but are more than willing to give it all away to buy more time on earth when we are on our deathbed. We may become a workaholic to give our children a handsome living, but will be happy to give it all up if we are in danger of losing our children. This only goes to show that we should value eternal things over temporal things, and treasure people more than we treasure material things.

God over people, people over things, and eternity over time are the three most crucial principles that govern our lives. Our lives will become chaotic and miserable if we ignore any of these.

My uncle is the richest person in our extended family, but he has gone through one divorce and is dealing with a prodigal son who causes him a lot of pain through his wild living. Under such circumstances, I don’t think the wealth that my dad’s youngest brother possesses has as much attraction to him now as it did when he was making it and he may be willing to give some of his wealth up in exchange for something that money cannot buy.

We become worthless by seeking worthless things, for we are defined by the things that we hotly pursue.

Wealth can be generated to do things of worth, obviously. The monthly stipend that I have been drawing from the church is donated by hard-working people, and more than once I was the beneficiary of other people’s generosity. So the wealth that we have earned can either become valuable or valueless by the way we spend it, and its worth will either increase or decrease by the way we invest it.

May we never turn away from God and become worthless by pursuing things that have no eternal worth.

Dating

A few reminders about dating by the Dating Guru

After experiencing one failure after another when I was dating as a young man, I feel obligated to tell you young people the valuable lessons I have learned so you won’t repeat my mistakes. I earned the title “dating guru” not because of my success on the dating scene, but from my failures. My dating disasters somehow made me wiser, and if I had the opportunity to do it again, God forbid, I would surely do it entirely differently. Anyway, take heed to what the ole wise dating guru has to say to you.

1. “House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the Lord.” Proverbs 19:14

2. Waiting creates yearning and the longer you wait, the sweeter the fruition of your romance will be.

3. It takes will power to love, but the more will power it takes for you to love someone, the shorter it will last, so never force a romance to take place if it isn’t meant to occur. No one can force a rose to bloom. It should happen naturally.

4. Do not fall in love with love. This is something that you encounter in comedy of manners. They are comical and laughable and always end up bad. Don’t trust your emotions at the moment when soft music is playing and candles are burning. Don’t be fooled by moonlight and the tender gaze of the one who happens to be walking next to you.

5. You can’t be truly happy with someone else if you can’t be content being by yourself. Insecurity and low self-esteem have ruined many relationships.

6. Make yourself into someone to whom you would like to be married and be in the places where the girls or guys you like to be with are. You know where nerds are if such people are the objects of your affections. Hey, nerds are indeed quite loveable and actually have something to say about different issues besides sports. You better become a spiritual person if you desire a Godly woman or man as a spouse.

7. A little prayer for your future spouse doesn’t hurt. A good wife, or husband, can make your home so heavenly and life so much more enjoyable. Believe me; I am speaking from my personal experience.

8. Be yourself all the time, but before you can truly be yourself before men, you need to spend time cultivating yourself by putting all the goodies into your own life in private. Keep your body in good shape by exercise and your spirit in top form by practicing godliness and charity. Nothing hurts your self-esteem more than filth in languages and actions. Not many people will like you if you loathe yourself.

9. Outward appearance is overrated. The ones who choose future mates on the bases of physical beauty should be avoided at all cost. You need to choose someone who will become more and more beautiful, or handsome, as years go be, not the opposite.

Well, this piece somehow turned out to be more didactical than I had expected and is loaded with cliché. A preacher can’t really hide himself behind the skin of a guru. My apology and a backbreaking Japanese bow. Ouch!

An Ordinary Heart

“…but Israel, who pursued a law of righteousness, has not attained it.”
Ro 9:31

It’s almost impossible for us to pursue anything disinterestedly, yet such is the key to achieve anything of true value. The people who are in hot pursuit of the pearl of great price should not have the object of their pursuit in mind all the time. To be mindful of our search is to be forgetful about it.

It’s something called an “ordinary heart,’ (平常心) a phrase coined by Lin, the champion of “Go” in Japan, and it means that a chess player should maintain a sense of equilibrium when she or he is competing. The ones who are overly concerned about winning will most likely lose. We all know why kickers who make the PAT routinely miss their crucial kicks when the game is on the line. Under critical circumstances, our minds tend to do strange things that keep us from performing our best physically.

We need to maintain a “ordinary heart” when we pursue the valuable attribute of righteousness.

A lot more than just an apple falling from a tree caused Newton to discover the law of gravity. He had done tons of research and thinking before the discovery was finally made, but in one sense, the natural law was revealed to him as accidentally as an apple falling down from a tree. Newton, being a devout Christian, might have been pursuing his scientific research both disinterestedly and intentionally.

One of the better poems that I wrote, I wrote unintentionally. I was sitting in the front yard one summer at my in-laws’ house and looking at a small pool of water, thinking about nothing in particular; yet in that ‘eureka’ moment an idea surfaced in my mind and a Chinese poem was written almost by itself. It wasn’t even a product of “a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.” The poem was up there in the sultry noonday air, and I simply reached up and took hold of it.

Once, when I was a budding poet in high school, I climbed up a steep hill in the suburbs of Taipei and ventured into the woods to seek inspiration for my writing, yet after several hours of walking up and down in the mist and rain, I walked down from the mountain empty-handed, with head down and a few crumbled pieces of paper in my pocket. What I was searching for became quite elusive, for I was looking for it so attentively and intentionally.

Magical things tend to happen when we aren’t really looking for them. There’s something called “falling in love.” People may easily fall off the deep end if they intend to fall in love at any given moment. Such people can easily fall in love with anyone they meet for the very first time, even if it is a mule, for it makes very little difference whether the object of their affection is desirable or not, they have merely fallen in love with love.

When Peter suddenly realized he was walking on raging water, he started to sink.

All Things

“…how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
Ro 8:32

I thought I had a monopoly on all the fruit of the sole fig tree in the park about a stone throw away from our house until the birds discovered the ripened figs.

“Who do they think they are,” I screamed aloud as I was chasing those hateful sparrows away with a hearty shout.

I have been paying special attention to that fig tree since it began to bud after the snow melted and the weather turned warm, and I visited the small tree at least twice a day as I was walking my dog. I thought I owned the scrawny fruit tree.

I guess I really don’t own it. The tree was donated to the city by one of our church members and the taxpayers foot the bill to hire people to water and maintain the tree. I may be stretching a little bit, but I do consider myself a part-owner of the fig tree, albeit a very small part, since I have been dutifully paying taxes.

My fellow owners of the tree in the neighborhood don’t seem to care all that much about the fig tree. Perhaps they have no idea of the identity of the tree or they simply don’t care for its fruit since it is not sweet enough to suit their American palate. Anyway, I thought I owned the tree by simply claiming it.

The Birds begged to differ, though. They didn’t seem to pay any attention to the bush-like fig tree until the fruit it bore started to turn soft and juicy.

After months of gazing at the figs and occasionally squeezed them to test their softness with my fingers, one or two were beginning to turn from dark green to pale yellow, and I knew my time of harvest was at hand. It took me a while to ponder whether I should consume the first fruit or offer it to the Lord. Not knowing whom to give it to if I were to offer the first fruit to God like the Bible commands us to do, I quickly pulled off the skin and ate it before my overly-sensitive conscience had an opportunity to tell me to do otherwise or to condemn me. I thought I was entitled to eat the fruit that belonged to God since I was God’s servant. The long wait seemed to make the fig so much sweeter. It was indeed heavenly to eat the fruit that the Lord Jesus seemed to enjoy eating while he was in the flesh.

I wasn’t the first one to pay attention to the figs, though. The birds seemed to know by instinct the figs were ready to be consumed. They were quite formidable competitors for the exotic fruit because they set their camp in the park and pecked at the ones that were softening up. I seemed to lose ground by the day and was disheartened. “Don’t they know how much I love figs?” I asked.

What they ate was to sooth their hunger, but I merely tried to satisfy my palate when I tasted the fig. It dawned on me one day. Quite different from the birds, I eat the figs not to survive, but to enjoy the sweetness that lasts but a fleeting moment. I should be ashamed of myself for competing against the poor sparrows for figs. Just because I have been given all things by my Heavenly Father, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I have earned an inalienable right to keep all things for my own personal enjoyment. There are starving birds everywhere who need the figs a lot more than I do. To me, eating the figs is just a matter of brief delight, but for the hungry birds it is a matter of life and death.

Why?

Why?
“Why did you make me like this?”
Ro 9:20

I have never met a single person who is completely happy with him or herself. Some may feel more secure under their skin than others, but most of them have certain flaws either physically or emotionally with which they constantly struggle. That’s something that we label “being human,” I suppose.

Being human is being imperfect and frail, and for anyone to consider it otherwise is either arrogant or ignorant.

Many people who accomplish great deeds in their lives are vexed by many mental and physical infirmities. Abraham Lincoln had to deal with severe depression all his life and was in danger of losing the battle against himself many times. There have been many people of great renown who suffered bipolar disorder, and what drove them to great despair and utter darkness also inspired them to create some of the greatest literature and music in human history. We all know what happened to the hearing of Beethoven, the greatest musician who ever lived, and how the sight of the great epic poet Milton was taken away at a relatively young age.

People with great sensitivity are sensitive to both joy and sorrow, and are creative in creating great works of art and, unfortunately, are also very creative in creating their own sorrow out of the sensitivity of their own hearts. One simply can not have one without the other. We don’t have the privilege of picking and choosing; what we are endowed with by the Almighty is a whole package deal.

I often envy people with great mathematical skill who do well at school, yet as I look further, some of the objects of my envy seem to have great difficulty communicating their ideas and feeling in a clear and understandable fashion, and many of them aren’t communicative at all. They may have sound and logical minds, yet lack the aptitude to appreciate the seemingly illogical and disorderly in the world and fail to see beyond human reason and to venture into the beautiful mystery of the metaphysical.

I am still learning to embrace myself with my warps and flaw, sensitivity and vulnerability and all. What choice do we have really? Can we trade ourselves in for a better one? There was a label attached to us that said “no returns” when we were born, and for better or for worse, we just have to learn to live with ourselves and make the best out of the less than the best.

“I find that I love my baby more and more,” a lady who had just given birth to a Down’s Syndrome baby told my wife a few weeks after the boy was born. To love a healthy and beautiful baby surely takes a lot less effort for a mother than to adore a baby with health or mental issues, but she still needs to learn to love wholeheartedly just the same, albeit one is a lot more challenging than the other.

On the other hand, I cannot imagine what this world would be like if the Lord created all of us perfect, for the seemingly perfect people are all so plastic and unappealing, arrogant and assuming. How can humility, the greatest quality that the Lord covets in his creatures, be forged in the flowery bed of perfection?