City of Palms

“…Eglon came and attacked Israel, and they took possession of the City of Palms.” Judges 3:13

Happy, Texas is just a small town some forty miles from Amarillo. There isn’t really anything to be happy about when one beholds the small town from I-27. There isn’t a whole lot to see except some tall grass and short scrubby trees scattered on the high plains. In fact, it makes me depressed looking at it from afar and I can’t help thinking that the first settlers gave the town that name because they were anything but happy at the sight of the bleak landscape.

At least the name of the place has one particular purpose. It serves as a reminder to the town’s people that they ought to be happy, even though they may have very little to be happy about. That’s the place they chose to sink their roots and make their homes, to raise their young and bury their dead. When there are homes and family, there is happiness.

There were only a few palm trees in the City of Palms.

There were some Canaanites there who had been there a long time before the Israelites arrived. They didn’t bother to give it a name, for many of them probably were nomads and it was just a place with fresh water and a few palm trees where they pitched their tent. It might just have been a piece of semi-barren land to them. Not so with the Israelites though. It was a land flowing with milk and honey, the land that was given to them by God. They named it the City of Palms and considered their new home extremely promising.

God’s chosen people were indeed quite industrious. They all rolled up their sleeves and started working as soon as they got there. They built their houses with bricks and sticks and erected their homes with love. They planted their olives on the hills and their vines in the valley. With cheerful hearts and unyielding spirits, they settled in the new land and proudly called the City of Palms their home.

Their aspiration was to settle on the land for good, for after years of wandering they had become weary of moving. So they scattered their seeds and planted their trees, waiting patently for the coming harvest, not realizing that even the city filled with palms wasn’t really their permanent home. When they became complaisant and forsook their God, the pagans would quickly emerge and drive them away from their vineyards and their hearths. The Promised Land would become less and less promising because of their lack of love for the Lord and their negligence in observing their promises to God.

We name our cities Fairfield and Greenville; we call our places Happy and City of Palms and believe that we will be there for the long haul. I have grown so attached to our little house that the thought of moving away may bring a tear to my eye. My house does have a classical style and a resounding name and it is surrounded by pecan trees and cemented by love. This is my fortress and my city of Palms, isn’t? Don’t we all have our City of Palms that we have been building and will not let go that easily?

Don’t we have any idea that perhaps underneath our towering walls and in the shadow of the slender palm trees, Eglon and his troops are laying siege? This will eventually take place if we continue to attempt to build an eternal city with streets of gold on the shifting sands of the City of Palms.

Purity Pays

The title is obviously a turn-off, but it will do you a lot of good if you suspend your dislike and continue reading. “Honest words are averse to the ears and good medicine is bitter to the taste,” (忠言逆耳，良藥苦口) goes a Chinese saying.

“Having a good laugh everyday will prolong your lifespan by over ten years,” says a TV commercial. “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushing spirit dries up the bones,” we find in the Scriptures. Happiness is the key to good health and longevity, but what is the key to happiness?

Purity is the key to a happy and joyful life. Don’t believe this? Just put this to the test. I have found this to be true through my own experience. Find me a miserable person and I will find you a person who is addicted to sin of some sort. God created us to be instruments of righteousness and goodness and the more we fulfill this purpose, the more joyful our lives will become. This idea is hardly new, but it is time-tested and true.

Doing the right thing can be very exhilarating and life-redeeming. Succumbing to sin may bring fleeting pleasure to our flesh, yet the aftertaste is quite bitter. Some of us have experienced the feeling of emptiness and remorse the morning after whatever we did the previous night. Unnatural sweetness often has a bitter taste to it. A cup of water tastes good after we have had a piece of cake or an ice cream sundae, doesn’t it.

I may be oversimplifying it, but some forms of depression may be caused by our dissatisfaction with ourselves and our low-esteem, and one of the main causes of self-loathing is our inability to remain pure in our daily lives. I tend to get depressed if I don’t do what I should do and do what I ought not to do.

What is purity? You may ask this and not stay for an answer. “Love God and follow your heart,” suggested one theologian. Don’t do what your heart tells you not to do. That’s our conscience, the place where we hear the voice of God.

I have been trying to be funny in my posts, albeit not very successfully, but I would do my young readers a great disservice if I didn’t get serious occasionally. I will come up with a more light-hearted one next time, if I don’t lose all my readers by posting this solemn blog.

On Friendship

Grandpa is quite a content person except he had one discontentment that he mentioned to me quite often in his younger days when I visited. “I wish I had friends.” I found it difficult to understand, for being a self-proclaimed Byronic hero and a loner who held disdain for the world, longing for male friendship was the last thing that entered my mind. I thought I didn’t need any friends because I didn’t have any close friends.

“Kathy is my best friend.” I derived great comfort from the fact that my wife and I are in many ways great friends. Romantic love must be built on the warm bed of friendship. I have found this to be true and have been telling my children so repeatedly. Romantic love will not last unless there is a strong friendship behind the relationship. “Married couple in youth, but companionship in old age,” goes a Chinese saying. When the fire of romantic love dies, old couples can still warm themselves with the embers of friendship. “Darling, we are growing old, silver threads among the gold…” I found myself singing this often to my best friend lying next to me.

Even so, a longing for male friendship seems to be rearing its ugly head as I grow older. I long to have someone with whom I can have a long walk and with whom I can share the secrets of who I am. The soul mate whom we have been passionately pursuing may be found in our male friends a lot more easily than among our girl friends. One of King David’s greatest loses in life was the loss of Jonathan. After his bosom friend died, David was deprived of a friend for the rest of his life. Bo Yia, a renowned musician in ancient times, broke his violin after his best friend Chung Tz Chi passed away, for from then on, no one would truly appreciate his music.

“I long to have a friend who can appreciate my Chinese poetry,” I said to Kathy the other day.

“Why don’t you contact your high school friend who is a now a literature professor,” Kathy suggested.

Kathy showed herself to be a true friend of mine, for this professor friend is a woman. Contrary to romantic love, true friendship is disinterested and un-possessive. I guess I should be content with having a true friend under my own roof and be thankful.

Saying Good-byes

None of us is all that good at saying good-byes, yet it’s such a big part of our lives and we can hardly avoid it. Keats wrote in a letter to a friend while he was trying to cure his consumption by absorbing the Roman sunshine,“I can hardly bid you good bye even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow.”

Asians may all look alike and perhaps one can hardly tell them apart, but I am no Japanese who seems to bow at all occasions, especially bidding one another farewell. I only wave and walk away to reduce the pain of separating from my loved ones. I think my dad was the same way when he saw me off so many times while he was still alive. I think he said his good-byes to his elder son so abruptly to avoid becoming too emotional and making the separation so much more gut-wrenching. He came to the bus stop to say good-bye to us for a brief moment and then rode away in his bicycle when Kathy and I were visiting a couple of years ago. That was the last good-bye he said to me.

Saying long good byes merely prolongs the agony of separation. I prefer to wave and walk away. Shedding tears over good-byes only deepens the pain and makes us drown in our sorrows. So I choose to smile and start counting the days before we meet again.

As I anticipate bidding farewell to both my son and wife in the coming days with apprehension, I suppose I am merely trying to figure out the best strategy to say good-bye to them with the minimum amount of pain. I guess I will just give them an awkward hug and turn my back to them to hide the tears in my eyes and walk away. No matter how you slice it, there isn’t really a good way to say good-byes.

My Dog Katy

In Memoriam

It was hard for you to keep up
As the old legs failed
But, being an old friend
I always waited for you
And took an occasional backward glance,
Making sure you were still there
Dragging your weary body forward
For yet another day, another walk
And another roll and tumble in the park.

I traced the route back to the plot for another visit,
With grass freshly mowed,
Erasing the scent of old yeller
Who used to pounce and dance in the sun.
I went home alone slowly
As if you were still staggering behind
But the path behind me was empty.
Should I have waited for you a little longer, my friend,
When age finally caught up with you
And the luster of your eyes had all but vanished?


My Dog Katy

We must open our wounds to treat them and make them heal. If we don’t deal with them properly, they will remain fresh and they will hurt just as bad as the day we were afflicted every time we think about them. Speaking or writing about our hurts is actually quite therapeutic. So bear with me and listen to the hurt that I recently experienced.

I knew the day would come, but it was still way too soon when it happened. Katy had a couple of bouts with serious illnesses, but being a resilient dog, she pulled through both times. She had serious food poisoning one time and a stroke at another, but she lived to fight for another day. But the situation became irredeemable when she had trouble walking. I didn’t want to give up, so I still urged her on and took her to her favorite park twice a day, but she simply could not make it. I knew it was time for me to take action when she had difficulty getting up one morning and hadn’t been eating for several days. I knew I had to bid farewell to her for the last time. We had her for over thirteen years and her real age might have been over fifteen. Quite old for a large dog.

I managed to get her into my Buick and drove to the vet. There was nothing they could do and I had a choice to make. Katy could no longer be a dog and I was the one to bring her misery to an end. Katy lay on the floor in the waiting room while I was doing the paper work. I could not make myself look at her for the last time and rushed to my car and drove away with the profound sadness of losing her and thirteen years of happy memories with my English Golden Retriever who was so much beloved by her family and friends. She will be dearly missed.