|
| I'm going to entitle this entry "Screwtape Letters," because it'll be the starting point of my post. But I have a feeling the content of this post will deviate greatly from just the Screwtape Letters after I start writing ... oh well. :P
As one might guess, I just finished reading the Screwtape Letters. I'd been wanting to read the book for quite a while, since several people had alluded to it over the years. So right before winter break, I decided to borrow the book from Ben. I also wanted to borrow a copy of Mere Christianity, but he'd lent it to someone else.
In short, I really liked the book. :) It was a lot funnier than I expected, but also contained some really deep truths -- I've never tried looking at the world from the Devil's eyes before. On the other hand, as CS Lewis wrote in one of his essays, it's actually pretty easy to look at the world from the Devil's viewpoint, once you set your mind to it. But it's also very scary and can make you quite uneasy after a while.
There's one excerpt I really wanted to include here, since it brought to mind all the stuff I blogged about in my previous post. I haven't actually been thinking much about Catholicism vs. other Christian denominations since the summer (there have been so many other things to think about!), but I think right now, if someone were to ask about my "flavor" of Christianity, I would say that I consider myself a "nondenominational Christian who practices Catholicism." It's taken me a couple months of mulling over the matter to arrive at this statement, but that's where I am now. And I think a lot of Catholics would frown upon this perspective, but that's okay too.
Anyway, here's what CS Lewis had to say. (This is from Screwtape's perspective, writing to Wormwood.)
"... And it isn't the doctrines on which we chiefly depend for producing malice. The real fun is working up hatred between those who say 'mass' and those who say 'holy communion' when neither party could possibly state the difference between, say, Hooker's doctrine and Thomas Aquinas', in any form which would hold water for five minutes. And all the purely indifferent things -- candles and clothes and what not -- are an admirable ground for our activities. We have quite removed from men's minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials -- namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the 'low' churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his 'high' brother should be moved to irreverence, and the 'high' one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his 'low' brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labor. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility" (pp. 84-85).
Wow, I really like that. I wouldn't call it "hatred" that different denominations hold toward each other -- maybe just a complete lack of understanding, and indifference to patch it up. Maybe with some hostility mixed in, too. But hey, when it comes to defining doctrinal differences between Christian denominations, I think most of us would fall into the category of not being able to describe them "in any form which would hold water for five minutes." So maybe we should just understand that we're different parts of the same Body, that our forms of worship may look slightly different on the outside, and leave it at that.
I also really like the part about "high/low churchmen" and genuflecting and crossing oneself. I've brought a handful of non-Catholic friends to church with me in the last couple years, and if you've been to a Catholic church before, you know that there are lots of gestures and lots of symbolism. I've found that there are certain gestures I refrain from when I'm bringing friends to church, even though they're common signs of reverence that we're taught to do as Catholics. On the flipside, the friends I take to church tend to learn to cross themselves and try to genuflect at least once. :P CS Lewis had it down pretty well. :)
*****
This past term was generally quite good for me. (I guess I haven't written since the end of the summer.) It was definitely a very busy term for me -- perhaps my busiest term at Caltech so far. Even after reading over some of my posts from the summer, I can see that I really didn't anticipate just how intense a term it would be for me.
Homeless ministry pretty much took off right from the start, and now it seems to be consuming much of my life. :P I've been serving at Skid Row with the group from Christian Assembly nearly every Sunday morning, and the relationships I've built with some of the residents at Skid Row have really drawn me in to do more, love more, serve more. I see it as being invited in to share their lives, rather than serving them by bringing them into our lives. Each of these people is a precious, precious child of God, and each of them has their own story of heartache that led them to the streets of Skid Row. It's really special to be able to share a part of their lives, earning their trust along the way. I could go on and on about the people I've met at Skid Row, especially a couple of them, but I won't do that here. :P
I've also met some really awesome people on the ministry team. On a given Sunday, there are about 15-20 volunteers, with maybe five of us from Caltech. But Pia, one of the ministry leaders from Christian Assembly, is really an *amazing* person. She's about 40 years old, with a family, kids, and a full-time job as a high school teacher. And she's one of the main leaders of the ministry, coming to Skid Row Sunday after Sunday, always with lots of encouragement to offer (both to the people at Skid Row and to our ministry team) and a heart full of joy. I tell myself that it would be so wonderful to be like Pia in the future -- balancing work, a family, *and* pouring my whole heart into a ministry, as something much more than a weekend "hobby." And I know Pia has her own struggles, too -- she shared with me that her teenage daughter is bipolar, and she herself began her second marriage this year. Wow.
Another thing Pia has been doing is encouraging me and Stephen to consider stepping up even more ... and knowing me, I've been pretty receptive. :P Over Thanksgiving weekend, a group of us from Caltech spent a day making two turkeys with one of the Skid Row tenants (he lives in one of the many low-cost apartments at Skid Row, which is better than living on the streets -- but not that much). Now Pia is asking us if we want to try leading on a Sunday, which would involve preparing the meal for the 200-300 people whom we serve. Hehe ... God will make a way, right? :P But it does make me kind of nervous about homeless ministry next term, especially as Stephen is also considering running for Blacker president, and I know that if he ends up choosing that path, I may suddenly end up quite alone.
So many thoughts, so many things.... CCF council has also been full of its duties. Some meetings are much better than others, but I can't but feel somewhat nervous before most of our council meetings. I guess it comes from me, Peter, and Dahvyd having such vastly different perspectives, and also entirely different personalities. My main prayer request for council is that we would learn to encourage each other more, rather than constantly pinpointing differences and arguing (often purely philosophically) about them. I think God has already done much good through us this past term, especially concerning the unity of Christians on campus, but there's also much work to be done. And I'm trying to borrow Bing's suggestion and gently encourage some of our awesome Christian frosh to step up and lead in little ways ... we'll see how that goes. ;)
| | |
| Hmm, I think I'm going to write a long blog entry now....
I spent about 5 hours talking to Caleb last night. I was baking blueberry muffins and chocolate chip cookies in LFB, and he and Ben came in and started talking to me about grad school and other things. The blueberry muffins were for our excursion tomorrow night -- Stephen, Joel, me, and (maybe) Brandon will be venturing out for the second time in the wee hours of Saturday morning to visit the homeless people who ride the 24-hour bus between Pasadena and Hollywood. It's pretty exciting stuff (something that made my brother Po-Shen look at me with an expression like "... are you crazy...?"). I think the most exciting part is watching how incredibly excited Stephen is getting as this homeless ministry explodes around us, because he knows he's really following God's call to serve the poor people around us.
But I digress. I actually had quite a bit on my mind yesterday evening, which was part of the reason why I retreated to the kitchen for a couple hours. I sort of wanted to talk to someone about my thoughts, but even when I followed Caleb and Ben back to their room, I didn't know where to begin.
A little while later, Ben left to go to sleep, and I decided to start unloading on Caleb. I had forgotten that of all my friends, Caleb has an unequaled talent of having looooong conversations with people. I think my longest conversation with him was during freshman year -- 4.5 hours. Well, we set a new record last night. :P But I'm really grateful that Caleb had the patience to hear me ramble, and then we went on to talk about other unrelated things.
So here's my uncomfortable question. And I would really appreciate if all of you guys would leave me a note saying what you think, because I *really* value your viewpoints and would like to know how you feel.
What do you honestly think about the Catholic Church?
That's a question that will make everyone feel kind of uncomfortable ... since CCF is nondenominational, it's only appropriate that we normally try to avoid disputes between different flavors of Christianity, and focus instead on the common beliefs that bind us together. Even in ROAR, as Caleb pointed out, we tried to steer away from this topic as much as possible.
But it's something that has been bothering me a lot lately. For one thing, Po-Ru hasn't been to a Catholic Mass for months and months, since he's been going to church with Lydia. Even when he was home during spring break, he came to church with us but didn't receive communion, because the teaching in the Catholic church is that you can't receive communion without first going to Confession if you skip Mass intentionally. And Po-Ru refused to go to Confession, because he said he didn't feel he was doing anything wrong by going to a Protestant church.
This summer, I've been doing a good deal of church-hopping. For all the Sundays before I left for Taiwan, I was going to my church as well as another church -- I figured that since it's summer and I don't have much I need to do on Sundays, I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to visit other churches. So I've visited LBC, Evergreen, Epicentre, Mosaic, Hill Avenue Grace Lutheran, and Jed's church in Alhambra. And every week, I've also been going to my own church, because the Catholic church teaches that Catholics are supposed to attend Mass every Sunday. I've sometimes wondered how firmly I believe in the teaching, since I'm not of the mind that non-Catholic Christians meet God any less than Catholics do at church on Sundays. But as I resolved a while ago, if I'm going to call myself Catholic, I might as well be a good one.
Out of all the churches I've visited, I really like Epicentre and Mosaic the most. It's funny, because the first time I visited Epicentre, I was actually taken aback because it was so different from "church" as I knew it. It also happened that the Sunday I visited, Epicentre were having a grand finale in a series on praying for healing, and they ended the service by asking people to come up to be prayed for, which was quite a new concept for me. But I *really* like the way Epicentre and Mosaic believe that church is *not* a place for Christians to come and be comfortable, but a place where we can be energized and inspired to go out and serve the people around us.
In all this church-hopping, however, there was something that bothered me. Since I was a newcomer, people would often ask me if I was Christian and went to a different church. So I'd say, "Yes, I'm Catholic, and I go to St. Philip the Apostle." Almost without fail, I would get a reaction that was tangibly different from the reaction other people would get if they said "I go to a Baptist church in Pasadena," or something like that. It does make sense, since most Catholics and Protestants don't have many opportunities to interact in fellowship. But what saddens me is that the reverse is also true, and when a non-Catholic Christian tells a Catholic, "I'm Baptist" or "I'm Lutheran," the reaction seems similar to the reaction one would get if one said, "I'm Buddhist" or "I'm Muslim." In other words, for a Protestant to tell a Catholic that they're Protestant means, to the Catholic, that the other person is merely a person of faith, but of a faith entirely different from their own.
That's exactly the attitude that I've been trying to change, through my interactions with my friends here at Caltech, and just in general. It's not like I go out of my way to talk about Catholics and Protestants, but I generally become quite agitated when I hear people going on and on about the big gap between Christian denominations and how one denomination is illegitimate.
A few things happened recently that dug pretty deeply into me and left me with a very unsettled feeling inside. The first was actually when I was talking to Kevin right before I left for Taiwan. Our conversation drifted to the fact that I'd been visiting a lot of churches recently, and I mentioned the awkward tension I felt between Catholics and Protestants while visiting churches. Somewhat to my surprise (and no, Kevin, I'm *not* mad at you!), Kevin started telling me about the things he personally has against the Catholic church. Our conversation didn't go much further, because obviously, we didn't end up reaching any kind of agreement. It's the kind of conversation that can never really be resolved, because the disagreements between Catholics and Protestants are centuries old, and for each topic -- like the Pope, or traditions, or Mary -- there's a Catholic explanation (often with a pretty solid Biblical basis) for why it's justified, and an equally strong Protestant explanation for why it's illegitimate. I guess I left the conversation feeling a little frustrated, because I thought that I had made it clear to my closer Christian friends long ago that I *wasn't* a "hardcore Catholic" in the sense that I think Catholics are certainly right and Protestants are certainly wrong. I respect and follow the teachings of the Catholic church, but mostly because I was raised in the Catholic church; and if I had been raised in the Protestant church, I would probably have no problem with Protestant doctrine.
I don't think the difference between Catholics and Protestants is the same as the difference between Christians and Muslims. In the latter case, there's an innate sense of truth that a Christian can feel, which I don't think is present in the same way for Muslims. In the former case, I think (but I could be wrong) that there are few Christians who have an innate sense that their denomination is true, while the other denominations are false.
When I left for Taiwan, these thoughts were all pushed aside. Well, almost. I think partly from my conversation with Kevin, I was shier to bring up the fact that I was Catholic with the other TAs. I'm pretty sure that out of the 40 TAs, I was the only Catholic. And I didn't mind telling other people I was Catholic, especially when they asked about my faith background. But there was one morning when I felt like sharing about an experience where I had connected with a Taiwanese Catholic student, but decided not to, since I was rather hesitant about the idea of announcing to all the TAs and teachers at once that I was Catholic.
The camp spanned three Sundays, and naturally, I asked around a bit to see if there was a Catholic church nearby. I didn't expect that there would be many Catholics in Taiwan, since the whole country is only 1-2% Christian, but I was surprised to read on Wikipedia that there is actually a reasonable Catholic presence in Taiwan. So I asked one of the teachers if he knew about any Catholic churches in the area. Since he didn't, I went to church with all the other TAs. It didn't bother me too much, since I had spent about an hour trying to find out about Catholic churches in Hsinchu; and it was one of those situations where I really couldn't make it to Mass, so it was okay.
The following week, the teacher told me he had heard that there was in fact a Catholic church fairly close to campus. But he gave me the wrong information about the English service, so I ended up going to Mass in Chinese (which was an interesting experience, since I only understood about 1/3 of what was going on...). One thing that bothered me a *lot*, however, was that after the service, a speaker whom the pastor had invited said that the church needed to try harder to reach out to the people in Hsinchu, because the church next door (where I had gone the previous week) was attracting lots and lots of people, since it's "more exciting and more fun" to go there. "But as we know, it's not the real thing -- it's not true Christianity, so we can't let this happen!"
That really bothered me. First of all, it really bothers me when I hear Catholics say things like that (although I know that the majority of Catholics don't think like me); and secondly, in a place like Taiwan, where Christians are so scarce, why is the Catholic church trying to encourage people to turn against Protestants?!?
But I put that behind me. The third Sunday, the day I left, I was toying with the idea of trying to find the other church building with the English service, but decided not to. I definitely didn't want to go back to the Chinese-speaking Mass, where I understood so little; and since one of my students wanted to go to church with the TAs, the choice was pretty clear. So I went with her (and the other TAs) to a different church.
That was fine, and again, I didn't believe I'd done anything wrong. But this past Monday, I was attending a Newman Center meeting with Jamie and two of the Newman Center staff workers. I hadn't intended to go, since I'm barely involved in the Newman Center (and wouldn't be involved at all, if it weren't for Jamie), but I decided to go say hi to the people there. One of the staff workers started asking me about my trip to Taiwan, and I mentioned my experience with the Chinese-speaking Catholic church. We all laughed about that -- but when I mentioned that the following week, I had had no intention of going there again, the staff worker's reaction really surprised me. She's a very soft-spoken, gentle person, so I was quite surprised when she started reprimanding me about how Catholics are supposed go to Mass under all circumstances -- "Jesus misses us if we skip even one week" -- and it's important to mention this in Confession. Even under the circumstances I was in.
To say the least, I was rather taken aback. I was also quite peeved, although I understood it was her duty as a staff worker to teach and reprimand. But I was thinking -- I really didn't do anything wrong! If anything, I've been trying to be a very good Catholic throughout the summer, going to two church services every Sunday because I want to respect the Catholic teaching that going to a different church somehow "doesn't count." In my situation at Taiwan, it really would have been pretty meaningless for me to go to the Chinese-speaking church again, and there was a good chance I would have gotten lost trying to find the building where they supposedly had a Mass in English. And what happened to being "all things to all men"? Because for the sake of my student alone, it was a good enough reason for me to follow her to church, wherever she wanted to go.
At this point, you're probably thinking, "See, that's why I'm not Catholic." But that's not my point, really. I mean, there's a part of me that was thinking a few weeks ago that given my current convictions, it would make a lot more sense for me to be Lutheran. Because after visiting Grace Lutheran, I realized that a Lutheran service is almost identical to a Catholic service, and it's close enough to a Catholic service that I don't think it would make much of a difference to me. And then I wouldn't have to worry about trying to bridge this huge rift between Catholics and Protestants all the time.
But I don't think that's quite the point, either. I feel like I'm standing at the intersection of these denominations, Catholic and Protestant (and you might as well throw in nondenominational Christian, too), feeling the pressure from all sides, and feeling remarkably alone. I wouldn't quite say that I'm standing at a crossroads, in the way Po-Ru is at a crossroads right now, trying to decide which path to follow. Because although I'm having these issues with the Catholic church, I'm still not in the position where I feel I need to leave the church. It's just that ... I used to think there were other people who felt like me. Either on the Catholic side (which really doesn't seem to be the case), or even among my Protestant friends. But is that true at all? Or am I really as alone as I think I am?? I know I've become more and more of an oddball Catholic during my time at Caltech, but my current perspective on Christianity is something I wouldn't trade for anything else. Yet it feels so lonely and frustrating to be the one person who cares enough about Christianity as a whole to be trying to bridge this gap between Catholics and Protestants, even if it's just in the hearts of a small group of believers at Caltech.
I know I've asked an uncomfortable question -- but really, what do you think?
| | |
| Wow, what a day. :)
Today was pretty amazing. I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed to the kitchen to make granola bars for the CCF hike this afternoon. Yup, homemade granola bars. I'd never tried making them, but I think they turned out all right -- or at least, they got eaten up pretty quickly, but maybe because people were hungry. :P
Then I went to the piano room to talk to Po-Ru on Skype, and made spring rolls with Debbie for lunch a little while later. My first time deep-frying, but it went pretty well, and the spring rolls were delicious (albeit rather unhealthy :P :P).
Then ... time to do a bit of work (I went to Moore while my roommates watched Fantasia), and then after a short nap, it was time to prep for the CCF hike.
My stress level has really been bouncing up and down in these last few days, trying to get drivers for the hike. It turned out both Tim and Scott couldn't make it, so we needed other modes of transportation ... I even looked into bus schedules :D but getting up the mountain would be tricky, since buses generally don't run up mountains. First, it looked like Chuck and Peter would be our only drivers, then Bing said he'd come, and then I found out Peter couldn't make it ... in the meantime, I called/e-mailed Jon Gardner and Kevin, and they both said no. Then Chuck got his friend Jerimiah from Mosaic to come along too, so we were up to 3 cars + Skippy, and it looked like transportation would be just right. And then two more people e-mailed me saying they wanted to come -- gah! -- but then Wendy said she'd be able to come after all, so we had 4 cars ... and then Chuck told me his girlfriend (also at Fuller) wanted to come, leading to an excess of cars. Then Jerimiah e-mailed me this morning saying he couldn't come after all. So we were left at 4 cars. Just perfect, for 19 people ... WOW.
I know there are some run-on sentences in that last paragraph, but maybe it's a stylistic thing that expresses the stress and tension I've felt in these last few days. :P One would think that after the first "save" with Jerimiah and Bing both agreeing to come, I would've learned to trust God with these things. Bing is right -- it always works out, somehow. :D But no, after I found out we had two extra people, I started freaking out all over again. Figures. :P
So we got to the trailhead at Monrovia Canyon. I'm going to try to write as much as I can remember about the hike up to the waterfall, because I think it's all pretty memorable, and it also helps me process my thoughts....
On the way up, Chuck had asked us to reflect on two questions:
1) Does Jesus love me?
2) How much?
It's interesting how with both me and Benjamin (the summer student from Iceland), the first question came bouncing right back at us. I asked Jesus, "Do You love me?" and all I could hear was, "Po-Ling, do you love me?" The question reminded me, of course, of the last chapter of John's gospel, where Jesus asks Peter three times, "Do you love me?" And of course, my response was, "Yes, Lord, I love You...." But then I thought more about it -- what does it mean? And I remembered the rest of John's quote: "Do you love me more than these?"
More than whats? My answer was, more than this world. More than the people God has placed in my life, more than the fears I have of what people around me might think, or even what my family might think.
... We had a Caltech alum, Brother Raphael Mary, come speak at Summer Study on Thursday. It got so many of us thinking -- and some of us on very different things. :P :P But what stuck in my mind, and even made me have lots and lots of trouble sleeping that night, was this: What would the world look like if we all heard God's calling and responded -- really responded -- without hesitating, without fear of what our friends or family might think? Even if what we are called to do would be totally ridiculous in the eyes of the world -- whether it's following a religious vocation, becoming a nun or a priest; living in the streets or the inner city, ministering to the poor; or joining a relief organization, and spending the rest of your life there. So many of us are so afraid of what our friends and family might think. But if we heard God's call and answered -- what would the world look like??
So as I was hiking up the mountain, I was thinking about these things. "Do you love me more than these?" More than what those closest to me might think? And I was like, "Yes, Lord ... I really really want to...."
I also had a couple worship songs run through my mind, in the midst of all the contemplation. And I let them run through, concentrating on the lyrics that popped into my head. I sort of shifted gears to "How Great Is Your Love":
No eye has seen and no ear has heard, and no mind has ever conceived
The glorious things that You have prepared for everyone who has believed
You brought us here and You called us Your own and made us joint heirs with Your Son
How high and how wide
How deep and how long
How sweet and how strong is Your love
How lavish Your grace
How faithful Your ways
How great is Your love, O Lord.
Mmmmm ... "Does Jesus love me? How much?" The song is based on a verse from Ephesians that I've encouraged people to meditate on as we discuss heart knowledge in CCF this summer.
You brought us here and You called us Your own and made us joint heirs with Your Son ... I was wandering around on Colorado Boulevard last night with Stephen and Akin, looking for homeless people to talk to. A couple of us (Stephen, Akin, Sunny, Jamie, Brandon, me) have been bouncing around ideas for starting a homeless ministry to the people in the Caltech area. We went and talked to a homeless woman, Martha, who stays across from Pres Thai near the intersection of Colorado and Mentor. Stephen had introduced us to her for the first time on Monday, and in the end, Akin and I were talking to Martha a bit about faith. She asked us, "What form does God take in your lives?" I told her it's really very hard for me to grasp how Jesus can be at the same time our Lord and our brother. That's how much God loves us....
So I kept contemplating. Thinking, thinking ... God loves us so much that even though He calls us to some pretty "crazy" things sometimes, we know He's there to help us follow through, if we just trust Him and step out in boldness and obedience. And even if we mess something up along the way, He's there to catch us, if we're just obedient to Him....
God's love is so great that no matter how crazy the world thinks we are, even if our friends and family shun us for the manifestation of our faith, His love is all we need to carry us through this life of ours.
Crazy, isn't it...?
A little while later, a line from the song "Pass It On" popped into my mind:
I'll shout it from the mountaintop -- PRAISE GOD! -- I want the world to know
The Lord of love has come to me
I want to pass it on.
That's how powerful God's love is. Am I aware enough of God's love, and do I love God enough in return, that I do want to pass on the good news of the Gospel? In my own life, there's so much fear about what my parents would think if they knew the extent of my involvement in CCF, and how fully God is in control of my life. Do I really want to pass it on? To my non-Christian father, to my mother who has really drifted away from her faith in these last ten years? What would my parents think if I went home and said, "Mom, Dad, I have a confession to make. Here's how I've been spending all my time, here's the way I view the world...." But I know I'm too afraid. And why? Do I really love God? How much??
Of course, since I've been listening to so much Newsboys music in these last few weeks, the lyrics to "I'm Not Ashamed" were echoing in my head, as well:
I'm not ashamed to let you know
I want this light in me to show
I'm not ashamed to speak the name
Of Jesus Christ.
I know that every time I hear these lyrics, I think to myself, "No, I'm not ashamed!" And I don't think I'm ashamed of my faith. What are we sneaking around for? No, I'm not ashamed of my faith ... I'm just scared!! Scared of how my parents will respond, what they'll say, how they'll judge....
Thinking, thinking.... Yes, I know God loves me SO much. And His love actually means something, to the point that His Son came to die on the cross for us. We say we love God, but is it more than an emotion? We say we love God, but at the same time, we're ashamed, or scared ... there's a problem here, isn't there?
Telling God ... "Yes, I trust You. Yes, I know that I ought to love You more than these, more than everything else ... help me to love You more!! Give me the courage...."
... A little while later, I got distracted watching Bing edge over to the side of the path and look down into a riverbed. :P :P Then "How Great Thou Art" started drifting into my head ...
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art!
When we reached the waterfall, our silence was broken, and people were talking and laughing together. I joined in a bit at first, and then I noticed Stephen off by himself, sitting on a rock and praying. And I thought, that's a good idea! I've been in conversation with God throughout this hike, and it's a perfect time to pray....
As I sat there on a rock with my head bowed, I thought back on all the things God had been saying to me on the way up. Am I brave enough to do something craaaazy and follow Him? I don't know, I don't know ... but I really really want to.... I sometimes feel like crying, knowing that a huge roadblock in my life right now is my parents. What if I'd been born into a family with parents who encouraged me in my faith, rather than tried to stifle it? But then I remembered ... this is all part of God's plan. Especially with the things, the circumstances that I have no control over -- it wasn't an accident that God gave me the parents and the family that He did, it wasn't a coincidence that He claimed my life and called me to read the Bible and pray in the secret of my room in 8th grade ... it isn't an accident that He's been allowing me to grow and develop and blossom in the environment of CCF in these last three years. He has a plan -- do I trust Him? Do I trust in His love for me?
I wish I could end all this saying that I made a resolution then and there to trust God and step out boldly. But I'm left with lots of unanswered questions -- knowing in my head what the answers ought to be, and how easy it ought to be to trust God and follow wherever He leads me. But there's the heart again -- growing in heart knowledge of God, so that even if these human relationships fail and others' attitudes toward us change, God's love is sufficient to fill our hearts and make them spill over with joy.
... On the way down, we paired up with another person and shared our faith stories. I paired up with Benjamin, and it was a good chat -- a lot of talking and listening back and forth. His path of faith seems to have been a lot straighter than my own, being raised in a Christian family where he was encouraged to develop a personal relationship with Christ. He did say that his dad only became Christian after meeting his mom, although they started dating after he became Christian (it took two years) -- which made me reflect again on my parents' situation. But it's not a coincidence that I've been given the family I have. No, it's not a coincidence.
We ended the day with a pizza party at the Caltech Y, just wrapping up things and sharing a bit about what we've learned. Chuck is an amazing leader, and I think it would be great to develop a relationship with him and the other Fuller students, as they have a lot of perspectives and wisdom to share. But Brandon told me on the way back to Avery that Skippy has some reservations about Fuller students, because they were partly responsible for the divide in CCF many years ago. And I know Dahvyd has some reservations about Chuck and Larry's potential involvement, too.
Oh well. As I told Brandon, I think it's hard to put much weight on me right now, after a day like this. :)
Do I really love God, and how much??
| | |
| I just went running with my iPod! I got an iPod mini at the Siemens competition in 12th grade, but I haven't used it much at all. Just to run on the treadmill at home -- I hook it up to the boom box, since I don't like having ear buds in my ears while I run.
But I asked my mom to bring me some headphones when she came out to LA for the baby, since it's nice to be able to listen to music even while my two roommates are around. And she brought my iPod, too, so I decided to give it a try. :)
It's really awesome! Running with things in my ears isn't so bad after all. And it's nice to be able to crank up the music when I'm running uphill or getting tired -- no wonder iPods have those fancy wheels where you just have to touch and drag your finger. :P
I ran to Lacy Park and saw Jamie sitting on the grass. She's taking a break from everything (including e-mail) this week to finish up classwork from the schoolyear. =/ But it was good to see her and chat for a bit, then run on.
I was listening to "Miracle of the Moment" while running up Rosalind. I was reminded of the time a couple of us walked to Lacy Park for Frosh Prayer, and the lyrics came at a very very appropriate time. :)
| | |
| I watched the sun rise yesterday for the first time in seven years. There's a certain "magic" that I saw in it back in 8th grade, which made me want to wake up at 5 or 6 AM to see the sun rise every day. Then I would sit and wait for everyone else to wake up, maybe doing some Bible-reading (that was the summer I started reading the Bible on my own), or sitting around doing nothing on the days when I was feeling less inspired.
Since then, I've found plenty of other things to occupy my time well into the night and early in the morning, and I think I ran out of energy to get up ridiculously early just to see the sun rise. :P
But yesterday morning was different. Me, Po-Shen, Debbie, Vivian ... we left for the hospital a little after 1 AM, and spent about an hour and a half in the hospital after we got there, until Debbie started really going into labor. At that point, I took my cue and rushed Vivian out of the room in her stroller. Fortunately, she was tired enough that she fell asleep almost instantly, so I just pushed her around for about 20 minutes. And by the time I went back to the room to check on Po-Shen and Debbie, my newborn nephew Vincent was lying in the little baby bed squawking at the top of his lungs.
I have to say, waiting in a hospital room while my sister-in-law went through the last couple hours of labor pains and contractions before giving birth wasn't exactly what I'd envisioned when Po-Shen called me to come over to west LA. I thought I'd be taking a more "backseat" role, perhaps staying home and taking care of Vivian while her parents were in the hospital. But Vivian is quite inseparable from her parents, so I spent most of yesterday amusing Vivian in the hospital room, while her parents took care of feeding the baby, changing his diapers, and so on.
Later in the afternoon, I decided to wander down to do the blood donation center on the second floor of the hospital. I don't know exactly what possessed me to go there -- yesterday was precisely the 8-week mark from the last time I donated blood, so I *had* been searching for blood drives/bus schedules at the end of last week. But I guess it isn't the best idea to donate blood after getting only three or four hours of patchy sleep (i.e., about 20-30 minutes at a time) the night before. Yet I went in anyway. :P The blood donation actually went very well, only took around 8 minutes, which is a huge difference from the 12-15 minutes it took me when I started donating blood about a year and a half ago. And it gave me something to do while Po-Shen, Debbie, and Vivian took a nap. (In spite of having slept so little, I had a hard time lying down and falling asleep for more than about half an hour at a time.)
Fast forward a couple hours, and it was 8 PM. I found myself looking out the large hospital window once again, gazing across LA as the last rays of sunlight disappeared from the sky. From the time I watched the bright orange orb emerge above the horizon with Vivian that morning, to the time the light blue sky faded into darkness, it had been a very long day -- and a much, much longer one for Debbie.
But as Po-Shen was telling Vivian as she drifted off to sleep last night, "tomorrow is another day."
Praise God for a new day, and for yet another new life! :)
P.S. One last landmark -- I finished reading Revelation this morning, which means I'm finally done with my first read-through of the Bible from cover to cover. I started in April or May of 2006, so it's been a looong (but totally worthwhile) journey. :)
| | |
|
