The Race

It appeared innocent enough, really. I might have been joking when I challenged Sahar to a race, but surprisingly, she agreed to it. The stage was set.

I have lost more than a step since I turned fifty and offer absolutely no competition against men my age or younger in a foot race, so I started to find young girls to race and my success rate was amazingly high.
Last time I defeated a girl about forty-five years my junior rather soundly. I was pumped.

So let the trash talk begin.

“Hey, look at this,” I unrolled my trouser and showed Sahar my firm and well-defined leg muscle.

“I am sure you will win,” Kathy assured me repeatedly. I figured she was the one who knew my speed and strength the best.

I made a mistake by playing three on three on the basketball court and exhausted about fifty percent of my energy before the race, but I was still quite confident. The boys and I drove to the Tech campus to race.

Sahar did a perfect cartwheel when she was warming up and my heart sank. It wasn’t a good sign. I had great difficulty learning to cartwheels as a little boy.

I chose Rob to be the judge of the race, which was my fatal mistake. I thought blood was thicker than water, but this turned out not to be the case at all. Romantic love ruled over parental affection. He was hardly an impartial judge, as he became a moving finish line, sidestepping gradually to his future wife while I bit the dust in the first race.

“Not fair! Do over,” I yelled.

I was neck and neck with Sahar the second time, even though my opponent seemed to have jumped the gun and had a considerable head start. Again I lost by a nose, even though Rob kept moving to Sahar’s side and I had to fight for my position by nudging her a little bit as we got close to the finish line, which by the way was Rob’s out-stretched arms toward his fiancée.

I lost both races, and was accused of being a cheater and sore loser.

It was hardly worth it, since at the end I found out I wasn’t as formidable a runner as I had envisioned myself to be and, sadly, I also discovered that I was a big loser as far as competing for Rob’s love was concerned. I could have won had he been more impartial. It was indeed a double-whammy for me and I became rather depressed for the following two days.

For my Fifty-eighth

生日感言

不是逐漸變老
是逐漸被忘記
好像退潮的海灘
沒有人留意
老人空洞的凝視
尋找一方溫煦的陰影
用來暖身的回憶。

直到有一天
也漸漸把自己忘記
忘記曾經活過，愛過
似乎也被愛過
忘記被忘記
那時大概也不會在乎
最後的離去。

For my fifty-eighth

He is not gradually growing old.
Just gradually being forgotten,
Like an empty beach with waves withdrawn,
Footprints all erased
And broken shells echoing no remembrance
Of things past.
A tattered old man he is,
A shadow left on the vacant scène,
Staring into blank space, seeking
A warm and dark shade
To shelter himself from recollection.

Until that day when
He will gradually forget himself:
That he once lived, loved,
Seemingly was loved,
And he will forget being forgotten;
By then he will not mind, perhaps,
Bidding final farewell to all memories.

Gleaning

“So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters.” Ruth 2:3

I thought it would be a fun trip for me as a little boy to walk across the bay to the next village where people were harvesting peanuts, so I managed to talk my mother into letting me go with her to pick peanuts behind the harvesters. My mother didn’t usually do that, for we had our own peanut and rice farm and there was no need for us to pick up leftovers from other people’s fields. I suppose my mother and her neighbors had nothing to do during that particular afternoon and decided to venture out to the next village across the bay to gather some extra peanuts.

I have forgotten a lot of things about my childhood, but I can still recall vividly what happened during that afternoon. It was more a picnic or a field trip for us kids than anything else and we spent most of the time playing on the beach while my mother and her friends were trying to find some pennants buried under the sandy soil. I gather we weren’t all that welcomed by the owner and, with us being there, he made a point to tell his workers to not leave anything behind, and I had a feeling that we were being watched all the time. It probably wasn’t a particularly profitable trip, for as far as I can recall, it was the only time that my mother ever did that.

For a few seasons, my grandfather decided to grow sugarcane on our rice peddle, which provided us kids with an abundant source of sweets. It was specially exciting for us boys during harvest seasons, because grandpa gave us a job to guard the canes from being pulled out from the cow cart by kids from the village. So each one of us, with a sugar can in hand, walked behind the cart, chasing and keeping kids away from getting too close to the precious cargo.

There was nothing glorious or exciting about both jobs, come to think of it, for being a gleaner of pennants, I was looked down; and I looked down on others when I was trying to guard our sugarcane from being stolen. People in our village were just trying to scrape a simple living by doing what was necessary. Being a lad from a poor family, I wasn’t ashamed for being poor, for everyone was on the same boat and not until I went to Taipei as a teenage before I realized I was both poor and uncultured and started to learn to hide my true self and to assume a new identity.

At least it wasn’t a life and death issue for me to pick up leftover pennants from other people’s farm or to steal sugarcanes from behind loaded cow carts. We ate a lot of watering rice mixed with dried shredded sweet potatoes, which was enough to keep us alive. I developed a big tummy caused by malnutrition, but at least I survived to tell the tale. Life was more serious for Ruth and Naomi, though. It was no picnic for Ruth to glean barley behind harvesters, for her livelihood depended on it.

Water Buffalo 水牛

水牛

我家水牛不是寵物
沒有名字
我有名字
無法變成水牛。

水牛不會仰望
只有低頭
水牛的足跡很深
印證沉重的生活。

我常遙望遠山
抬頭看著白雲
描繪生命的景象
夢想沒有水牛的未來。

我更行更遠
留下的腳印很淺
水牛背上的牧童
只能在夢中偶然相見。

水牛早被鐵牛取代
我的童年只剩噪音
牛車道被柏油覆蓋
我找不到回家的路途。

俯首是水牛的姿態
負重依然前行
我越過幾重遠山
望盡變幻的白雲
才知道 離家是繞遠路回家
才知道 水牛無名就是有名。

Water Buffalo

Our water buffalo wasn’t a pet
Therefore had no name;
I do have a name,
Yet long to change into a buffalo.

Our water buffalo knew not how to look up
And his head was always bowed
His feet prints were deep
Witnessing the weight of his heavy living.

I often looked at the hills far away
And lifted my head to the clouds
Trying to paint a picture of my life
Dreaming about my future without a water buffalo on my side.

I have traveled farther and farther away from my past
Leaving many shallow footprints behind
And meet the boy on the water buffalo’s back
Only in my dreams and pensive recollection.

Tractors have taken the place of my water buffalo
What’s left in my fading childhood is only noise
The trails of cow carts are paved over with cement
I doubt I can ever find my way back.

With head lowly bowed in his usual posture,
Heavy-laden, the water buffalo continues to travel;
I have climbed many hills
And look beyond many clouds still;
Finally I have come to realize:
Leaving home is taking a long journey back
And the namelessness of the water buffalo is his name.

The Beauty of Between

介於的美麗

介於暖與熱之間
春末夏初
介於涼與冷之間
秋後冬至
介於露珠與暑氣之間
介於夕陽與幽暗之間
介於睡與醒之間
介於盼望與失望之間
介於澀與熟之間
介於苦與甜之間
介於生與死之間
有許多美麗
那時盼望裡有許多夢想
未來使現在喜歡
寒冬中有聖誕樂音
雪地裡也可以尋梅
夜深時或有蝴蝶飛翔
醒來有踏雪的驚喜
介於兩者之際
有多少想像的空間
燦爛總在葉落之前
淡綠是羨人的年輕
濃豔是美人遲暮
夕照是少女眼波回眸
似醒未醒是作夢的良機
介於是忘懷與記取的時候
是拆毀與建造的經歷
在過程與目的之間
其實有許多美麗

The Beauty of Between

Between warmth and heat,
Late spring and early summer,
Between cool and cold,
After autumn winter arrives;
Between morning dew and noon breeze,
Between dusk and darkness,
Between sleeping and waking,
Between hope and disappointment,
Between sour and ripe,
Between bitter and sweet,
Between life and death,
There is plenty of beauty.

There are dreams in hope then,
And the future makes present rejoice,
When Christmas bells ring in cold winter,
And you seek plum blossoms in the snow-covered earth,
And butterflies dance in your dreams at night,
You wake up glad when your bare feet touch the icy ground.
So much space of imagination lies between the two:
How glamorous are the trees before leaves fall,
When light green is envious youth,
Dark emerald is mourning for beauty lost.
Eventide is a backward glance cast by young Beatrice;
And the best time to dream is between half-awake and half-asleep
Between is the time when forgetfulness and remembrance meet,
Where destruction and erection reside;
Between journey and destination
There is plenty of beauty.

漣漪

“我幾次流離，你都記數。求你把我眼淚裝在你的皮袋裡。”
詩篇56: 8

水珠落在湖心
畫下一個無聲的圓
瞬間波面又如鏡
遺忘曾經的蕩漾
好像慢慢止息的心跳
欲語還休的句點。

有時浪花飛揚
漣漪不能畫成圓圈
不論方圓到底都會消失在水面
記憶都會沉沒
故事無人傳說。

其實淚珠的漣漪寫在天空
藍天賜予湖面顏色
也記取湖心每一波蕩漾
每一聲無奈的嘆息
每一線消失的水徑
每一張紋路漸深的臉。


Ripples
- “You number my wanderings; put my tears into your bottle…”

In the middle of the lake a drop of water fell,
It drew a circle that silently grew
And suddenly vanished from the surface,
Forgetful of the stir it once created
Like a heart beat that slowly ceases,
As a period that can’t quite punctuate.

Sometimes the wave was high,
Keeping ripples from forming perfect circles
It mattered not though, whether square or round
All would vanish from the face of the water,
Like all memories that sank
And many stories left untold.

Ripples of tears were written in the sky
That gave the lake its color
Also remembered were every tremble on the water
Every fainting sound of a deep sigh
Every line of tears that that was dried
And every face with crossed wrinkles
Which were growing deeper still.

Mother

母親

我早起給母親打電話
她已睡著
我的晨曦趕不上她的夕照
無法為她接軌一個完整的世界
彌補日夜之間的殘缺。

我的關心時常把她驚醒
從夢裡帶回實際
不能活在熱鬧的過去
睡眼見到床上隻身的陰影
今夜恐怕又要無眠。

Mother

I got up early to call my mother
She was already asleep.
My morning light caught not up her eventide
Thus failing to pave a full circle of the world,
Patching up the chasm between night and day.

My concern often alarms her from deep slumber
Forcing her back from the dreams of her past
Filled with a life of bustling noise;
Waiting for her is another sleepless night, I fear,
As she gazes at the lone shadow she casts on the bed.

Victory

“…after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power.”
1 Co 15:24

We are free, but are we, really. The Son of God has set us free from eternal condemnation, but we are in many ways still under the domination of the evil one.

We are free, yet we are still in the processes of being freed; we have been liberated, but true liberty is yet to be obtained.

Therefore we groan and mourn, longing to be freed from the bondage of the flesh, yearning for our flesh to be united with our spirit as one harmonious entity.

At least we were consistent when we were entirely in the flesh, when we were free to do whatever we desired and weren’t afflicted by feeling of guilty.

Lord, destroy all the dominions that dominate me, all the authorities that terrorize me, and all the powers that control me. I have tasted the sweetness of freedom being the child of God, but with the sweetness came the bitterness of falling far too short in meeting your expectations for me.

Lord, holiness is what I seek; yet what I have achieved are filth and corruption beyond measure. I know what goodness is, but lack the power to achieve it and am constantly bombarded by a sense of guilt and inadequacy.

My accuser is forever before me, reminding me that I am a hypocrite, an imposter who claims to be what he is not, and who pretends to be what he can never be.

The accuser laughs. I am ashamed of myself.

Am I the only one that feels this way? All other Christians seem to have achieved their goals and are marching merrily to heaven, yet I am still wallowing in the mud. Am I a dog that returns to his vomit and licks what he has thrown up?

Am I as bad as I have described? A lot worse. I can’t possibly expose my entire being and unveil all the filth that is hidden in it. The Lord only know how deep I have sunk and how desperately I need his forgiveness and redemption.

The deeper I have fallen, that much deeper will God’s grace be for me; the farther I have strayed away from God’s love, even farther will he reach down to bring me back. My accuser will try to dominate and to bind me with his chains, but my Savior will deliver me from them all.

I am not as bad as I can possibly be; and I am not as good as I aspire to be. Aren’t we all in the same boat? We have been freed, yet are yet to enjoy complete freedom. We have leaned to soar with the aid of the divine wind, but will always come down to earth.

I am fully assured, however, I will be what God wants me to be in the future; I will be liberated from all dominion, authority, and power and will soar and dance like the angels. What you see in me is not really me, and though you may be disappointed about what I am, give me a little time and you will see the difference. Don’t look at what I am, but behold what I will become. This curled worm trapped in a black cocoon will surely break free someday.

A Softball Game

There wasn’t really a good reason to go to the Aggie softball game against Tech except to prove to my Aggie sons that their father is a true Aggie t-shirt fan. I happened to have two hours to spare on my otherwise busy Saturday, so to the game I went.

I didn’t wear my favorite aggie apparel to avoid putting extra attention on myself, and it turned out to be a good thing. The ticket taker didn’t accept debit cards and I was out of cash, but assuming that I was a Red Raider, the lady let me get in for free. That wouldn’t have happened had I been wearing Tech’s hated Aggie maroon.

While I was walking toward the field, I was pleasantly surprised to run into Carl, Justin and John’s beloved father, who was walking to his car to get a hat. It was almost like running into your old friend in a strange land, which is considered by Chinese people as one of the four happiest things in life (他鄉遇故知.) I sat with Carl and Jana for about an hour, talking mostly about our boys.

The game itself was quite innocent, reminding me a lot of little league baseball games. The dimensions of the field are about the same and the small crowd was quite passionate. I guess a lot of the people in the stands were related the players one way or another so their cheers were loud and personal. The players were mostly adults, but there was still an air of innocence about them, which was breath of fresh air compared to other sports.

“They just can’t help cheering,” Carl said to me, seeming to be amused by the cheering moves our girls were making.

“Well, they are girls,” I responded, but felt a little uneasy about what I had said. Certainly I am no sexist, I tried to assure myself.

Carl told me some other things about his boys, which I am not free to share. We were just a couple of proud fathers, sitting in the stands watching our little boys perform, who couldn’t keep ourselves from cheering for every little move that our boys made, even though they weren’t playing. We were watching the game, applauding occasionally out of politeness, but we were more interested in our boys who had quit playing ball years ago, and would have been embarrassed had they realized we were still rooting boisterously for them. “Good eye, son! O sorry, girl,” we bellowed out after Megan May held back her swing. She struck out.

By the way, the Aggie girls won the game, which didn’t really matter that much to us. We had other concerns.

Resurrection

“…that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” 1 Co 15:4

The seventeen-year-old boy with long dark hair was charged with the responsibility of pushing the bottom that sent his mother’s body to be cremated, which he did with the greatest sadness and reluctance. I walked away from the scene quietly to avoid witnessing the inevitable. It was so final and cruel.

My dad wasn’t there, even though his body was still there in the main room of our country home. I was exhausted when I got home after twenty plus hours of flying and hardly had enough emotional energy to deal with all the things involved in the Buddhist funeral. Nothing was more final than the final moment when the workers lowered my father’s casket and covered it with fresh dirt.

Death takes a thousands forms but its color and texture are always the same. It’s so dark and dense that we hardly can look at it without having a sense of oppression and repulsiveness. I just wanted the whole thing to end while I was there, but it would never end. The ritual was over in a day or two and the sorrow might have sunk to the bottom of one’s heart, but that’s where it would remain forever.

“Jesus wept.” The shortest verse in the Scriptures resonates in our hearts a lot louder and longer than all the other verses. Resurrection was never a doubt for Christ, but the agonizing process of death still caused the Son of God to weep openly. There was no need to weep over the dead man’s death since he was going to raise him up moments later, was there?

Death is death and any effort to beautify it is laughable and unnecessary. Why do we coin it as a “celebration of life,” not a “mourning for the dead?” What is there to celebrate? I wonder. We may be trying to “rejoice always” so hard that we have forgotten how to mourn and, consequently, we do neither very well.

That particular burial wasn’t final at all. In fact, that was the only burial in human history that wasn’t final. He was wrapped from head to toe and was placed in a cave and nobody, even his closest disciples, was expecting Christ would come back to life again. It was all good and interesting when the issue of resurrection was brought up and discussed casually in their small circle, but not a single one of them believed it in practice or in reality. I am afraid we may fare no better compared to all of them. Fantasy and reality will always collide if we consider our belief merely fantastic, which may be the case in many ways.

I sometimes think about the two babies that we lost in miscarriages and wonder whether we will get to see them someday. Unfortunately I have found it very difficult negotiating between theology and reality, theory and practice.

In Vain

“Otherwise, you have believed in vain.”
1 Co 15:2

“What if all these things turn out to be false?” “Will all the time and energy that I have invested in my religion be in vain?” I sometimes question myself.

“What would have been the alternative if I had chosen not to commit my life to Christ and to his cause?” I try to come up with an answer from a purely pragmatic perspective. “Would my life have been more satisfactory and fulfilling had I not followed the Lord?”

There is no possible way for me to figure out all the things that might have occurred had I chosen another course of life, but I can at least make a knowledgeable guess by looking at the lives of some of my peers whose world and life view and ambition for life was similar to mine before I knew Christ and how their lives have turned out. A few of them have become successes in their academic pursuits and, with reasonable effort and luck, I might have turned out to be just like them. They are professors in literature who are most likely similar to most college professors I have come in contact whose lives I had absolutely no desire to emulate. Would I trade my life and beliefs in for theirs? This is a silly question, isn’t it?

Don’t most of us consider our lives ideal? Perhaps not most, but some do. We have no right to place other people’s lives on a balance and determine their value as such. Some homeless people in the city of Los Angeles may be perfectly happy and content and who is to say their quality of life is inferior to that of other people.

If, for some reason, Christ turns out to be false and there is absolutely nothing beyond the portals of death, I am still victorious because I have lost nothing by leading a Christian lifestyle, since I believe being a Christian is the most joyful and fulfilling life, far better than a pagan lifestyle. I know this to be true since I have experienced both. The pleasure of sin pales greatly compared to the joy of the Lord.

Am I intellectually honest? How do you know that you, like millions of people in the world, are merely superstitious and believe in pipe dreams? This isn’t the case, for I have considered the alternative and it is utterly bizarre and discreditable. The Darwinian evolutionist insists that I am material and nothing more. However, I believe, albeit not entirely intellectually, but emotionally and spiritually, that I am far beyond material since I have the amazing ability to love and to write beautiful poetry. This earthen vessel may not be very impressive looking, but it surely can do a lot great things that my next of kin in the evolutionary process have never dreamt of doing, if they dream at all.

You may claim that I have wasted my life by being a fanatic about the Lord, but just let me be fanatically joyful and, contrary to what you may think, I am not envious of your life.

Hope

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Co 13:7

“My son doesn’t seem to care about anything and is so unappreciative to those who try to help him,” a gentleman said to me during lunch after our church service. His son is thirty-one years old, yet doesn’t seem to know how to take care of himself and is relying on his parents for support. “He has no job and is not looking for one,” the man added.

“Don’t lose hope,” I said to him, trying to console him by quoting the verse I have cited for this devotional. “Being able to love is a privilege and, as long as we continue to love, there is still hope,” I continued, trying to say something positive to him.

“Well, I have got to go,” the man seemed to be anxious to leave before our conversation ended, and what I had to say didn’t seem to be making any impact. I think he was feeling quite hopeless about the whole thing, and had very little desire to elaborate any further on his son’s situation.

How can we hold onto hope when there seems very little to be hopeful for? There are so many occasions in life when we are tempted to give up all hope and to lead our lives in utter despair.

Nothing is more cruel and final than death, yet in Jesus we do have hope since he rose again from the dead and those of us who follow Jesus have the same hope as well. Unless there is the hope of resurrection, hope will die with us all and will not outlast our earthly days.

“We still have hope,” I said to a middle aged man who was about to lose his wife to a terminal illness. I drew a blank stare from him, because, even though he was a Christian, the idea of resurrection had yet to sink into his heart and, in the face of death, he appeared to be quite hopeless.

Who has the courage to love if there is no resurrection? I ponder. If love is only confined to this world and nothing more, lovers are the most to be pitied since the more they love, the deeper their hearts will hurt when their beloveds are no more. Take hope away from love, love becomes the cruelest thing in the world. It may bring us joy, but it pales compared to the pain it may generate in the process of acquiring, maintaining, and losing the beloved.

Our flowering quince bush looks pretty dead in the dead of winter, but when the weather gets slightly warmer, it begins to bud. It may appear to be dead, but the hope of life is still flowing freely in the dry branches and, when the time comes, it blooms like a burning bush, revealing the presence of life and hope and, from its glorious blossoms, we may also see the face of God.

Protection

“It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
1 Co 13:7

Truth does hurt. Should we therefore keep it from our loved ones to avoid hurting them? “A truthful word is unpleasant to the ears; good medicine is bitter to the taste.” Truth always brings healing, yet we sometimes are afraid to apply it to our loved ones for fear of hurting them.

A lover’s instinct is to protect and to shield their beloved from sorrow and pain. This is quite a natural thing to do, but knowing when to do so takes great wisdom. We may actually hurt our beloved in the name of protecting them.

My heart was filled with apprehension when Michael told me that he had decided to hike the Appalachian Trail by himself during the break between medical school graduation and residency. My fatherly instinct was to keep him from going, but knowing how stubborn he was, I suggested that I take the trip with him. Fortunately he turned me down, because the protector might easily have turned into a liability for him. I wanted to be protective of my son, but I may be the one who needs to be protected from the onslaught of my own fear.

Fear of loss causes us to become fearless protectors. Being protective of our beloved is a plausible thing, but it is still a form of self-love. We protect our beloved to protect ourselves from suffering the pain of loss. Protection should be done for our beloved’s sake, not for our own sake. Being a grownup, Michael should be able to make his own decisions without his father’s interference. In fact, what I was trying to avoid was the anxiety that I would have to suffer during the time of his hiking trip. I was in fact trying to protect myself in the name of love.

Letting go may just be the best thing we can do to protect our children. The tighter we hold onto them, the weaker they will become and, if we continue to do so, we may greatly lessen their ability to protect themselves and they will be afflicted with insecurity and fear their entire life. Projecting our fear onto our children by being fearful is one the worst things we do to our children, yet many of us do it routinely.

My friend Bill was a fearless man and the way he raised his children was pretty fearless. As far as I know, his two children turned out to be well-rounded persons and one of them is a West Point graduate. Bill was many things I wanted to be and was unable to achieve, for I was a fearful man as far as childrearing was concerned.

Let us be protective of our beloved at all times, but we have to realize that protection often means more of letting go than holding onto our beloved.

Self-seeking

“It is not rude, it is not self-seeking…”
1 Co 13:5

True love is not self-seeking, it’s seeking of others; it’s not self-oriented, it is centered on others.

“I have been seeking a soul-mate in the sea of humanity, I will be fortunate to find one; it’s my destiny if I don’t,” wrote Hsu, the pioneer modern Chinese free verse. He did find a soul-mate in a divorced singer and actress, but the controversial marriage didn’t last all that long and the talented poet died in a fiery airplane crash at a very young age.

I often wonder whether he found true fulfillment in his relationship with his lover or not. What this man left behind were a few good lines and a tragic love story and nothing more. Although he pursued his ideal love with great intensity, it was merely an act of self-seeking for the most part. In the process of seeking his true love, he was in fact seeking fulfillment for himself.

What I tried so hard to find in my love were the things that I was severely lacking. I wanted to look for the attribute of intelligence, which I seemed to value more than any others, in a girl to make up for my deficiency. I thought I was seeking for true romance, but that wasn’t the case at all. My search for love in my youth was in reality self-seeking.

We become disillusioned when we fail to locate the things we look for from our significant others and the disillusionment inevitably leads to a messy break up. It’s unfortunate that so many people end their lives without finding the ones who can bring them true fulfillment and quench their thirst for love. Things would have been entirely different had they changed their mindset a little bit and started to focus their attention on others in their pursuit of romance. Had they done so, they would have found themselves on their journey of finding others, for the essence of love is giving, not receiving. “It’s more blessed to give than to receive” does not apply to monetary giving only; it is equally applicable as far as romantic love is concerned.

How do we seek others in our livelong journey of learning how to love?

The life of the woman at the well was obviously unfulfilled even though she had gone through five different men, for she was merely seeking the realization of her own aspirations and dreams in all the men with she had been. Her life would have been more complete had she tried to meet the needs of others. Why do half of the marriages end in divorces nowadays? There is a simple answer to this: the plague of self-seeking. We claim to fall in love with our loved ones, but it’s really self-love in disguise.

Pride

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
1 Co 13:4

Why do some men seek “trophy wives?” The answer is simple. They desire to have reputable wives to match their positions or to boost their status in society. Dragons should always seek their mates among phoenixes, we Chinese believe. Pride seems to play a vital role in our pursuit of romance.

“Will you still love your children if they are not good athletes?” I asked Michael, who seemed to consider athletic ability premier in his future children. I don’t think he knew what he was talking about since he wasn’t even dating anyone, but there seemed to be an element of pride in his supposed love for his offspring who were yet to surface.

Do we love because the objects of our love are worthy of our adoration, either by their innate attributes or their superb performances in whatever they do? For this reason most of us strive to achieve renown to measure up to our loved ones’ lofty expectations and to make them proud of us.

Love can easily be contaminated by the vice of pride.

This may not be theologically sound, but I often feel that God loves me more if he is pleased with my performance as a Christian, and he will care for me a lot less if I stumble and fall. This appears to be a projection of the notion of human affection into divine love and makes both equally imperfect. I believe the opposite of this idea may be a little more valid. God may leave us alone for a brief moment to enjoy the euphoria of our narcissistic self-importance when we are pleased with ourselves for whatever reason; but he may pour his abundant love on us when we fall flat on the ground. There is not the slightest taint of pride in God’s love for his children and he doesn’t have to be proud of us to love us.

Pride makes it very difficult for us to love the unlovable, to care for the undesirable, and to adore the deplorable, for to love is an act of identification. Our fear is we may become less desirable by loving the undesirable, less lovable by loving the unlovable. All human love is partially self-love, and there is always a trace of arrogance in it. We are who we love, therefore being prideful is inevitable in the process of loving since we all have a certain sense of pride within our hearts.

Peter found himself denying his Master before a servant girl because he was overcome by fear and shame at the moment. His pride in himself had kept him from identifying with Jesus and it was also his pride that made him weep bitterly afterward. His love for the Lord was by no means perfect, which was actually the way most of us love. We do need God’s help to love right. Even our noblest acts are in need of purification by the blood of Christ to make them acceptable before the throne.

Boastfulness

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
1 Co 13:4

“It was good that you felt free to share with the congregation your feelings toward your wife. Most Chinese men don’t do that,” a lady said to me after church. I don’t remember saying anything from the pulpit except mentioning that it was our 29th wedding anniversary. In fact, I was a little embarrassed to even mention that to the people since I believe private matters should be kept private. Don’t we all feel at little awkward when we witness PDA of any sort?

Public displays of affection among lovers are in fact a form of boastfulness, which often causes people to feel uncomfortable. Why do couples even feel the urge to tell the entire world how much they love each other by their overt displays of affection? Couples who parade their love before the watching world often end up in separation or divorce. The fairy tale wedding picture of Princess Di and her prince has forever been etched in millions of people’s minds, yet we all know how the marriage ended. It was just a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal that created a noisy scene of artificial romance that evaporated a lot sooner that we had expected.

Boastful romances aren’t always that long lasting. True love doesn’t usually make a scene or a declaration and its existence absolutely needs no validation and its being requires no proof of any kind. Romantic love is the only sort of love that needs various tokens to sustain its fragile existence and vows and sweet talk to vouchsafe its survival. Only the people who are insecure about their love find it necessary to speak incessantly about their love. We don’t usually boast about our parents’ love for us or how much we love our children, do we?

I do boast about my love for my wife, not so much to outsiders but to Kathy herself. I have become more and more boastful about what I am doing for her lately, which may be a direct violation of the apostle’s teaching. I speak about what household chores I do, as if they weren’t really my jobs. By doing those things I really am trying to do my wife a favor, not knowing that the expression of love should never be overly expressive or boastful. I was merely doing myself a favor by doing her a favor, since genuine expressions of love does have an absolute certainty of reciprocation.

My marriage may be in trouble if I feel the need to tell people that it is a happy one. Boastfulness is, in essence, a form of covering up the areas in which we feel insecure and insufficient. The expression and receiving of romantic love should always be as natural and spontaneous as trees budding and flowers blooming in the springtime. It does not call attention to itself, yet it commends all attention by its sheer disinterestedness

Envy

“It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
1 Co 13:4

Romantic love is possessive by nature; therefore the relationship is always one to one, not one to many or many to one. There was perfect reason in the Lord creating for Adam only one woman. Does this mean that erotic love is envious in essence?

One of the most esteemed wives in the history of Chinese literature was Yin Liang who once spotted a beautiful woman and suggested that her husband take her as a concubine. This may sound repulsive to many people, but it was actually considered a virtuous act and lauded by many men.

To love is to have the best interest of the one whom we love at heart, and bringing a third party into the marriage surely isn’t in anybody’s interest. Sarah created a long lasting family feud by introducing Hagar into the family. Her love for her Abraham might not have been envious, but it was possessive just the same, since her goal was self-serving.

Envy is something that guards the sanctity of marriage and keeps it from the intrusion of bad elements. If this is the case, can we then assume that it is necessary for the survival of marriage love? If so, romantic love ceases to exist if envy isn’t present. Shared love isn’t romantic love at all.

Love does not envy, but since the vice of jealousy is forever present within romantic love, can we therefore conclude that romantic love isn’t pure love since it is contaminated by envy?

It’s really a modern phenomenon that people of our age are so obsessive about erotic love. This wasn’t really so in the days of old. The ancients seemed to value friendship, which was commonly considered more of a disinterested and honorable love, more than they treasured romance. Romance seemed to have been taken for granted, but friendship was pursued with great passion.

Procreation is one of the main purposes of marriage, and couples who are not passionately in love can still produce perfect children together. This seems to render romantic love unnecessary, doesn’t it? Over thousands of years, most marriages have been matched by matchmaking, yet they appear to have worked out just fine, finer than most marriages of our time.

Romantic love is overrated and perhaps it’s about time to put it in a place where it truly belongs. It’s a kind of possessive love and the Lord Jesus made it clear that he will render it unnecessary when we get to heaven. “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage,” stated the Lord. Shouldn’t we give heed to his word and not place romantic love on a pedestal and idolize it as if it were the most precious thing in the world?

Kindness

“Love is patient, love is kind…”
1 Co 13:4

Love is to be enjoyed, not to be endured; yet it’s hard for us to appreciate the pleasure of love if we have to suffer through it all. Patience and kindness don’t usually go hand in hand. Love suffers long, but not usually with kindness.

Out of our commitment to God and faithfulness to our marriage vows, we may remain in the marriage with our countenance downcast and temper short. We may suffer long within the relationship, but our kindness toward our partner may be in short supply.

Love is patient, love is kind…”

Kindness is what makes love sufferable; and love is what makes kindness possible. These two must complement each other to make a love relationship enjoyable. When the feeling of love is absent, kindness must be present to make the love relationship long lasting. When youthful passion is strong, lovers can treat each other passionately; when it is not, at least they can deal with each other kindly and thoughtfully. Powerful emotion isn’t self-sustaining and it must come down from the peak; kindness is something that keeps the flame of love burning in the valley.

Lovers should be friends also, and friends tend to treat one another with kindness.

“Husband and wife in youth, companions in old age (少年夫妻老來伴,)” goes a Chinese saying. When the flame of passionate love dies down, friendship between husband and wife is the oil that keeps the fire of love smoldering. By this time love is less of the body and more of the soul, less of the physical and more of the spiritual.

A little bit of kindness goes a long way in a love relationship.

We may think courtesy and respect are no longer needed within a marriage relationship, since physical and emotional barriers between the two have been swept away by romantic love and the couple are encircled or entrapped by a ring. The key to a happy marriage, which I have heard often among Chinese people, is for couples to respect each other as if they were guests (相敬如賓.) Don’t we Chinese people always shower our guests with great kindness and esteem no matter who they are? I believe our marriages will become much more tolerable and enjoyable if couples learn to treat each other that way. It seems reasonable that we should treat our lovers with even greater respect than we show toward our guests, doesn’t it?

I believe Paul placed the attribute of kindness behind patience strategically in his discourse on the essence of love, for one can hardly love rightly apart from both of them. May we never forget to always show kindness to our loved ones to make them feel comfortable and secure within a loving relationship.

Patience

“Love is patient…”
1 Co 13:4

Love is the point where eternity and time make a connection; it is the precious thing that gives meaning to time and makes it stretch into timelessness. All things instant are confined in time and will vanish with time. Love is patient because it is eternal, which is the only thing on earth worth keeping. The thing that is worth keeping does take great patience to keep. If we consider love valuable, we will devote time and energy to its upkeep.

“Love is patient…”

We seem to spend a lot of time and energy earning what we can’t keep and taking the things that we can’t lose for granted. “I need to work hard to advance my career and make a good living and, as far as my wife and children are concerned, well, they will always be there.” This is true to many people.

We seem to have a great deal of patience working on a project or pursuing a deal, but we appear to have a short fuse in dealing with our loved ones. We always treat our guests with courtesy and are quite impolite to the ones in our own household. We may build a great career in the end, but end up losing the ones we love.

What’s truly worthwhile is worth cultivating. We will leave all things behind except love and we will take nothing with us but love at our death. How much time and energy do we spend daily in building up love with our loved ones? Very little indeed.

“What is there to cultivate?” you ask.

“We see, but we don’t perceive.” I heard this from a radio program. Love seems to be so abundant; therefore it becomes less valuable. Is this so? Can we deem oxygen and water less valuable because they are so abundant? Love is vital to our existence and a total necessity to our well-being. Shouldn’t we invest our intelligence, time, and energy cultivating and developing it?

“We are just an old married couple,” somebody said to me when I encouraged him to put more time into nurturing his love for his wife. Love waxes cold within a marriage not by nature, but by negligence. Gold shines just as bright even if it ages, but it may rust for lack of polishing. People are bored by love for lack of true understanding and appreciation of love. God is love. Will we ever be bored by God? If so, heaven will be a very boring place and eternity will indeed be giant slum of boredom and disappointment.

Love is patient because it is timeless. I may not be able to bring it to complete fruition, but I can always wait; I may never be able to make it perfect, but I can continue to work on it even when I am no more. May we all be patient in cultivating love, for the best is yet to come.

Long time no see

What makes people insane is reason, and what keep us sane is art and poetry. I stole this idea from G.K. Chesterton, who I consider one of the most intelligent people of the previous century. Even the great C.S. Lewis borrowed some ideas from this man who was built like an “upside down P.” This genus will continue to speak to us for years to come. Make sure you read his “Orthodoxy.”

Well, I just want to keep in touch and let you guys know I am still here, trying hard not to grow old and not to grow up. I have been attempting to stalk my sons as usual, but things have been pretty quiet and there is nothing exciting to be discovered. Guess it’s about time to find a new hobby.

I just published a book of poem entitled “ Living Sacrifice - Voices from the Ashes.” I will give a copy to those who are interested and, more importantly, are able to read Chinese.

Anyway, just to say hi and come back to the blog to meet this old and unwise guru. You may learn a thing or two.