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| On the Eve of a New Academic Year
Aug 30, 2008
Correspondence
"It's hard to believe the summer went by so quickly. Although I've been back home all this while, for some reason I just don't feel rested. The default state of my existence is... tired. I take a long while to fall asleep these days, sleep maybe 7-8 hours a day, but when I get up I still don't feel rested. I could, of course, come up with many reasons. For one, I found that it's quite difficult living at home, esp. having been away for such a long while. Uncertainty about the future is another: all too soon I find myself at crossroads of my life again.
"But perhaps above all: doubt in the providence that brought me to Fuller, that I have sought to entrust my entire existence with. You'd think that attending seminary would be a tame, subduing, placidly restorative and *nice* experience. But no, the more revelation pierces into your being, the more it exposes and intensifies your hidden enmity against God, your self-will. Just like how a cancer must be diagnosed for what it is before it can be cured. Just like what Israel did to all its prophets, to Jesus.
"When God comes to us in a form that we do not expect or like, we say, let us kill him, let us deny him his existence. Perhaps there are a multitude of other good and utterly valid reasons to doubt, but somehow, I still have enough faith to suspect that that it what it boils down to at its core. No. In contradistinction to the study of academic religion or philosophy, theology cuts against the grain of your naturalistic existence. It dictates that the inquirer must conform his/her very life to the nature of the object of inquiry. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God; without holiness none shall see God. Because he has elected us, to make himself known to us and through us, we are ruined for naturalistic life. He comes as the destroyer of your ersatz happiness, the plunderer of your worldly goods. You may try to run away, to renounce, to quit - like Lucifer, saying, non serviam - but you are forever his. Immutably, irrevocably. Yet in the bankruptcy and desperation of your natural estate, the supernatural comes, brings life from death. That is how it has to be, always. Grace presupposes helplessness. Without coming to the end of yourself, the miracle that melts your heart to grateful tears does not happen. Why does it have to be so? Simply because. And all this while, what you cannot run away from is the fact that you are a sinner, and that the Other who summons you to confrontation is the fount of forgiveness, grace and peace himself. There, there is rest."
Sep 9, 2008
OAK - LAX
I have come to Pasadena, I have responded to your invitation to come to
this valley, to know you. You called me, and I responded, co-operated
with your will in my life. You are my God, my lord, my Adonai, so
invisible, so mysterious, so hidden and secret, yet beautiful, as I see
you through tear-stained eyes of faith.
Dear God, it is an existential gamble that I am on. I have, in whatever
small and timid ways I know how, put my life in your hands. I am so, so
afraid. Alone, lost, in the dark. My prayer to you today is this:
please do not let me down, please…
These tears, they fall for you, this heart, it beats, it bleeds for you. Come into these arms again, and lay your body down.
A body of broken bones, a heap of broken images. Everything I once
aspired to be, I am not, every road I did not expect to tread, I have,
for you.
As I waited, those lines from Angel wafted in the
terminal, by the gate. I am on a journey – a journey that started with
this song that fateful day ten years ago. A journey to the west,
contrapuntal and comparative. So today I continue on this journey. I
will be brave, I will be strong, for you are with me, and somehow,
against all my intuition and desire and intellect, beyond all my inner
tyranny and turmoil, that is enough.
Sep 13, 2008
Alone
Hesychastic mantra: dear God, dear God...
Sep 28, 2008
On the Eve of a New Academic Year
With this song, I walk into a new year: 《庆幸还有你》
失去和拥有 刹那的感动 To lose and to own – the momentary instances that touch us
人生有时候像一场梦 Sometimes, life seems like a dream
醒着的时候 睁开了双眸 While awake – opening both eyes
不如意的很多 There are many things that have not gone as wished
朋友和情人 来的来走的走 Friends and lovers – they come, they go
反反复复寻寻觅觅为了什麽 Over and over, searching and searching – to what end?
要多少时间 才能够了解 How much time must pass, before I can understand
其实有你就足够 That really, having you is enough
握着你的手走过快乐和难过 Clasping your hand, walking through joys and sorrows
黑夜白昼我们都曾经拥有 The dark night and the light of day – we have all had our share
(黑夜白昼每个人都会拥有 The dark night and the light of day – everyone will have their share)
人生是没有定律的一种节奏 Life is a kind of rhythm bereft of regularity
不如用心去感受 Why not just take it in with the heart
(不必在乎得太多 No need to take it all too seriously)
快乐的一刻胜过永恒的难过 A single moment of joy triumphs over an eternity of sorrow
黑夜过后就有日出和日落 After the dark night has passed – there will be sunrise and sunset
两个人走不会寂寞 Walking together, the two of us, it won’t be lonely
(只要和你一起度过 As long as I pass my days with you)
每一刻都会珍惜都会把握 Every moment we have – I shall cherish it, hold on to it
(人生没几人懂我懂得把握 In this life, there is hardly anyone who knows me – oh, to hold on)
庆幸有你爱我 Blessed – to have you love me
失去和拥有 泪水和笑容 To lose and to own – a tear and a smile
人生有时候像一场梦 Sometimes, life seems like a dream
累了的时候 闭上了双眸 When tired – closing both eyes
谁在回忆上游 Who is it that visits your memory
多少的朋友来的来走的走 How many friends there have been, who have come and gone
聚散从来都不给任何的理由 Coming together and parting – a reason has never been given
转过身以后才忽然感受 Only after turning around do I suddenly realize
你一直都在背后 That you have always been behind me
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| Everything That Is, Is Holy
"Some men seem to think that a saint cannot possibly take a natural
interest in anything created. They imagine that any form of spontaneity
or enjoyment is a sinful gratification of "fallen nature." That to be
"supernatural" means obstructing all spontaneity with cliches and
arbitrary references to God. The purposes of these cliches is, so to
speak, to hold everything at arms length, to frustrate spontaneous
reactions, to exorcise feelings of guilt, Or perhaps to cultivate such
feelings! One wonders sometimes if such morality is not after all a
love of guilt! They suppose that the life of a saint can never be
anything but a perpetual dual with guilt, and that a saint cannot even
drink a glass of cold water without making an act of contrition for
slaking his thirst, as if that were a mortal sin. As if for saints
every response to beauty, to goodness, to the pleasant, were an
offense, As if the saint could never allow himself to be pleased with
anything but his prayers and interior acts of piety.
A saint is capable of loving created things and enjoying the use of
them and dealing with them in a perfectly simple, natural manner,
making no formal references to God, drawing no attention to his own
piety, and acting without any artificial rigidity at all. His
gentleness and his sweetness are not pressed through his pores by the
crushing restraint of a spiritual straight-jacket. They come from his
direct docility to the light of truth and to the will of God. Hence a
saint is capable of talking about the world without any explicit
reference to God, in such a way that his statement gives greater glory
to God than the observations of someone less holy, who has to strain
himself to make an arbitrary connection between creatures and God
through the medium of hackneyed analogies and metaphors that are so
feeble that they make you think there is something the matter with
religion.
The saint knows that the world and everything made by God is good,
while those who are not saints either think that created things are
unholy, or else they don't bother about the question one way or another
because they are only interested in themselves.
The eyes of the saint make all beauty holy and the hands of the saint
consecrate everything they touch to the glory of God, and the saint is
never offended by anything and judges no man's sin because he does not
know sin. The knows the mercy of God. He knows that his mission on
earth is to bring that mercy to all men.
When we are one with God's love, we own all things in Him. They are
ours to offer Him in Christ His Son. For all things belong to the sons
of God and we are Christ's and Christ is God's. Resting in His glory
above all pleasure and pain, joy or sorrow, and every other good or
evil, we love in all things His will rather than the things themselves,
and that is the way we make creation a sacrifice in praise of God.
This is the end for which all things were made by God.
The only true joy on earth is to escape from the prison of our own
false self, and enter by love into union with the Life Who dwells and
sings within the essence of every creature and in the core of our own
souls. In His love we possess all things and enjoy fruition of them,
finding Him in them all. And thus as we go about the world, everything
we meet and everything we see and hear and touch, far from defiling,
purifies us and plants in us something more of contemplation and of
heaven."
- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
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| The Suffering of God / The Religion of Slaves
For a long time I knew that God is not the impassive, unresponsive, unchanging being portrayed by the classical theologians. I knew of the pathos of God. I knew of God's response of delight and of his response of displeasure. But strangely, his suffering I never saw before.
God is not only the God of the sufferers by the God who suffers. The pain and fallenness of humanity entered into his heart. Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God.
What does this mean for life, that God suffers? I'm only beginning to learn. When we think of God the Creator, then we naturally see the rich and powerful of the earth as his closest image. But when we hold steady before us the sight of God the Redeemer redeeming from sin and suffering by suffering, then perhaps we must look elsewhere for earth's closest icon. Where? Perhaps to the face of that woman with soup tin in hand and bloated child at side. Perhaps that is why Jesus said that inasmuch as we show love to such a one, we show love to him.
God is love. That is why he suffers. To love our suffering sinful world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave up his only Son to suffering. The one who does not see God's suffering does not see his love. God is suffering love.
So suffering is down at the center of things, deep down where the meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world. For Love is the meaning. And Love suffers. The tears of God are the meaning of history.
But mystery remains. Why isn't Love-without-suffering the meaning of things? Why is suffering-Love the meaning? Why does God endure his suffering? Why does he not at once relieve his agony by relieving ours?
- Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son [Pastiche]
Christianity exists for slaves. It is the religion of the oppressed, of
those marked by affliction. It concerns itself with their needs. People
are pronounced blessed not because of their achievements or their
behavior, but with regard to their needs. Blessed are the poor, the
suffering, the persecuted, the hungry. [Simone Weil] speaks about
suffering, but above all it expresses a boundless affirmation of life,
even the life of a slave. Those who are amazed when they are addressed without brutality, when they are not used and treated as commodities - the religion of slaves exists precisely for them.
- Dorothee Soelle, Suffering
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Through the prism of my tears I have seen a suffering God.
As I sat by my table alone in my apartment today, slurping on a bowl of instant noodles, my tears started falling, drop by drop, into the soup. And like a wound, it just would not stop. I mingle my food with tears. That I have food before my eyes, and another elsewhere doesn't...
MY GOD, why does it hurt so much? No - the pain I feel, these tears that fall, they are not mine. I have not the depth of existential suffering to ache to this magnitude. It is your pain, as you see the suffering of the poor, the hungry, the lonely - all your children - all over the world.
Everyone, everywhere, whatever their station - suffering. No, it doesn't have to be dramatic, for we all have our own crosses to bear. The station of our lives is the station of our cross. Our very human existence: there is enough pathos there. Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt - the world is a world of tears, and mortal things touch the soul:
I think of the little waitresses who gathered around me at the campus Japanese restaurant all those summers I was in Beijing, who came from the villages to the city to make a better living, who would never be able to attend the church services I told them about because they worked 7 days a week, whose only leisure was cycling around the school during the couple hours between lunch and dinner shifts.
I think of hunched old Malay security guards guarding with their frail frames the endless condominiums of Singapore, sitting unnoticed in their tiny air-conditioned guardrooms half-listening to scratchy radios, whose only job is to press a button for cars as they passed them by.
I think of a prostitute in Thailand, for whom "all in a day's work" means spreading her legs to some stranger, then taking a shower to wash herself clean, if only for a while before waiting for the next one to come - simply because it's a way of life, the only way of life she ever knew.
I think of the taxi drivers in every Asian city, skulking the streets to make ends meet - talk to them, you'll find they say the same thing
here - whose day starts out in deficit, slowly recouping their losses
with every curt silent customer they ferry, hoping that if the
customer's Japanese businessman or caucasian expat he might leave a
little something more for tip.
I think of the Filipina maids who throng the shops of Lucky Plaza every Sunday, all dressed up with make-up and perfume to boot on their only day off from serving mum or sir, the pious ones coming from meeting mother Mary at mass in the morning, the less pious ones to meet their Bangladeshi boyfriends for a meal and their weekly afternoon romp.
I think of the black clown standing in Old Town Pasadena two evenings ago, head bent-down silently fumbling about with his balloon animals, getting screamed at for what must have been five minutes straight by a teenage white trash sticking his head out of his car window at the curb-side, YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A FUCKING CLOWN, THAT'S ALL YOU'LL EVER BE YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE, YOU FUCKING FUCKING CLOWN, but who hardly even bothers responding because "you ain't seen nothing yet."
I think of the dutiful housewife, neither beloved nor loveless, after decades of marriage, standing absently by the kitchen sink washing dishes and wondering what to cook for the next meal, only to remember that her children no longer live at home anymore.
And I think, and I think, and I think...
Everyone, everywhere, whatever the station - suffering. Life is hard. Life goes on. Gotta get by. One day at a time, just one day at a time. Christianity as the religion of slaves - we are your people, you are our God, the God we pray to in unspoken unspeakable groans, everyday.
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| Ivan, Alyosha, and Theodicy
There are two possible answers to extreme suffering in
which the afflicted person is struck dumb and learning no longer
possible. Dostoevsky has given examples of these answers in The
Brothers Karamazov. The chapter with the decisive conversation between
the two brothers has its heading "Rebellion." Ivan speaks of the
suffering of the innocent, of children. "Of the other human tears with
which the earth is soaked from its crust to its center, I will say
nothing... All that my pitiful, earthly, Euclidean understanding tells
me is that there is suffering and that there are none guilty...." He
will not accept the explanation that this suffering serves a "higher"
or "future" harmony and is thereby justified. "Besides, too high a
price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to pay so much for
admission. And so I hasten to give back my ticket.... It's not God that
I don't accept, Aloysha, only I most respectfully return him the
ticket." To which Aloysha answers gently, looking down, "That's
rebellion." //
Ivan wants to be no rebel. "One can hardly live by rebellion, and I
want to live." But as he ponders the suffering of the innocent he is
led to rebellion. He, like many of Dostoevsky's characters, is an
atheist for love's sake. Alyosha points him to Christ - to the
suffering of the one innocent one.
Ivan rebels as he considers suffering, but even Alyosha rejects the
idea of purchasing the harmony, the peace, and the rest, at the cost of
the death of torture of even one tiny creature. "'No, I wouldn't
consent,' said Alyosha softly."
How is Alyosha's position to be understood? Heinz Robert Schlette has
characterized it as "piety," as the position of traditional faith: "the
silent, no longer questioning, no longer understanding, but
nevertheless humble obedient submission to the incomprehensible.," But
is this characterization correct? Nowhere does Alyosha express an
absolute agreement, and a future harmony that is paid for with the
tears of even one child tortured to death is rejected by him as well as
by Ivan. The difference between the two brothers lies in the direction
in which each is looking. Ivan rises against the God who causes or
allows such suffering. He wants nothing to do with his harmony. His
gesture is that of accusation, rebellion. Alyosha directs his attention
no to the power above but to the sufferers. He puts himself beside
them. He bears their pain with them. During this conversation he says
almost nothing. He listens in agony as Ivan introduces examples of
suffering he had assembled as witnesses against the compassion of God.
Later Alyosha arises, goes up to Ivan, the rebel and insurrectionist,
and kisses him silently on the lips. It is the same gesture with which
Christ departs in the legend of the Grand Inquisitor. He is silent, he
shares the suffering, he embraces the others. Alyosha's strength is the
silent sharing // of suffering. I don't believe that it is accurate to
describe it as "humility" or "submission." God is not over Alyosha, so
that he has to submit himself to his incomprehensible lordship.
Throughout the whole book Alyosha represents the behavior of Christ. If
one can speak of humility, then it lies in the fact that his
relationship to the sufferers is so strong that all other questions
become subordinate. The humility is not over against God. It is the courage
to serve others without question or condition.
- Excerpted from Dorothee Soelle, Suffering, 174-6.
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| The Gift of Tears
"[Tears] are a sign that we are struggling with power of one sort or another: the loss of ours; the entering of God's... What God does is God's priesthood reaching across the abyss of illusion we create by presumption to control. As God's image we seek to mirror God's outpouring. God creates with self-abnegation outpoured, continues and sustains this creation by going to the heart of pain that dwells within the Creator's self-restraint and is inherent in creation's freedom, and from this total self-denudation God generates new life, hope, and joy."
- Maggie Ross, Pillars of Flame: Power, Priesthood, and Spiritual Maturity
"The tears... they streamed down, and I let them flow as freely as they would, making of them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested."
- St. Augustine, Confessions
These days, I break down easily. Whether singing This is My Father's World at the start of our Christ and Culture class; whether that realization one night, after three months of hardship (how close I was to giving up), that I was actually reading the first eight verses of Genesis in the original without aid; and even at meals, simple fare before me, saying like a child, "dear God, thank you for food to eat, for clothes to wear, for a bed to sleep on..." - as my heart brims, the tears start falling.
I was never so given to crying until I became a Christian ten years ago. In that sense, I guess it does count as what some call the "gift of tears." I hardly understood the gospel of grace then - hearing, I did not hear - but for some reason, whenever I went to church and sang those songs and listened to those sermons, I just could not stop sobbing. Sometimes, I would return home and feel oddly cheated, thinking what had gripped me as but some emotional high induced by mass histrionics. But often, there would also be a deep sense of inner tranquility, as if something had been set to rest within, even though I hardly had any words back then for what it was.
In retrospect, I might now able be to articulate a little more of why those tears poured forth (cf Augustine, Confessions, Book VIII.28). You had been drawing me to yourself all my life, but at that point, my soul stood before you, called to existential decision - being before Being. Mysterium tremendum. Perhaps I was weeping for the wounds of your incarnate Son, sharing in his sorrow for the world, for me. Perhaps, for all the brokenness and sin within that I hardly knew was there. But what emerges most as I consider that season of my life is what you said of Paul: I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake...
So why do my tears fall, these days? I refrain from attempting too much of explanation, having learnt by now that you work over vast stretches of time, that things are often only discernible long, long after they have passed. With distance comes clarity, said Proust. For now, I would just conjecture that the reasons aren't too different from the ones limned above, particularly the last. Who would have known all that this road would have been laden with? All I have to bring before you these days, Adonai, are my tears.
"I used to preach a sermon on Samson... and I always had to hold back a tear at the
last line of it, at the fact that Samson, who fell so short of all he
should have been, is in the cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11. If there
is room for Samson, there is room for you and me. And in this book I
have referred to a number of occasions when I have found myself in
tears. I have wept because I was afraid I could not sustain the demands
that my job placed on me. I have wept at the reminder of the commitment
I made to let God be my only desire. I have wept when talking students
through the story of Job. I have wept when becoming overwhelmingly
aware of God's love. I have wept when saying good-bye to people, at
losing people. I have wept when recognizing my loneliness of the
journey and the number of rivers there are to cross" (John Goldingay,* Walk On).
My heart says of you, if I die, I die. The way down is the way up, the way down is the way up. Let it be, my Lord, that I may say these words, and mean them...
May it be an evening star shines down upon
May it be when darkness falls your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh how far you are from home
[Tongues of elves] (Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
[Elvish tongues] (Darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now
May it be the shadows' call will fly away
May it be you journey on to light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun
(Enya, May it Be)
==========
* A specialist in Isaiah and the Psalms, Goldingay is an extremely popular professor at Fuller. This is no doubt due to his academic expertise, but to a large extent it is also due to his deep, personal (for lack of better terms) understanding of Scripture, made real by experiences in his own life. About ten years or so ago, his wife became a vegetable from multiple sclerosis. He speaks candidly about the pain - and joys - behind his tears in Walk On.
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