At the End of the Journey

I’ve been a Christian pretty much all my life. My parents, born and raised in Hong Kong, immigrated here decades ago; while studying at the University of Toronto, they met a group of loving and compassionate spiritual mentors in residence who were key to bringing them to Christianity. Over thirty years later, they have continued to be dedicated, faithful Christians.

My childhood upbringing was typical of the diligent, ambitious Chinese parents—strict and protective. It was important that I achieved the best possible grades; in addition, perform well in extracurricular activities—piano, swimming, Chinese school, etc. Not performing “my best” meant that more discipline needed to be enforced—the removal of TV privileges, more time spent reading books, less time playing outside with the neighbourhood kids (until I finished all my tasks).

On top of that, my parents encouraged my sister, brother, and I to persevere in our Christian life. At an early age, my dad encouraged me to memorize Bible verses. They always supported my enthusiasm to bring my grade school friends to church—and they were happy to pick them up and drive them to church on Sunday’s. During holidays such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, we had family prayer time—and this family gathering to pray continued well into our twenties whenever one of us in the family faced conflict or we were on vacation and the five of us being in a hotel, were nowhere near a church, so my dad would initiate a time of “worship” with God—by taking out a Bible or singing a popular hymn.

Of course, there were times when I, as a kid, did not enjoy the discipline required of being raised a Christian. Whenever there were birthday parties on Sunday’s, my parents did not allow me to attend—no matter how much I begged. Attending church could not be compromised, they told me. I remember how angry I felt and how resentful I was as I sulked in my room, imagining all my friends who were busy having fun.

My Christian faith was my saving grace when I entered adolescence. Not realizing yet that I had a melancholic temperament (later on, self-awareness also helped me), I fell into multiple depressions in high school and early university. I was never happy with my performance in all areas of my life—be it grades, my looks, my weight, my piano playing, even my driving (had a serious car accident at age 17)—and constantly felt that I was better off not existing. One year I will not forget is when I was in grade 11, my depression lasted about a yearlong. The thing was—I had the amazing ability to hide my chronic sadness. I went to school with a smile, but when nighttime arrived, I closed the door to my bedroom and cried myself to sleep—every night.

I started an official journal when I was 16. Once in a blue moon when I have a "free" weekend, I’ll read my hundreds of pages of journal entries—and even though this period in my life was such a long time ago—tears would start to trickle down my face as I recall those days of melancholy. Sometimes, I feel detached from the girl being described on paper. Sometimes, I want to comfort her. Now—I use this story when I’m teaching the teenagers in my Sunday school classes to remind them that we all go through trials and we all have weaknesses and vulnerabilities—but have faith, God will pull you through.

Without my parents’ persevering in instilling in me the Word of God and the knowledge that He loved me, I, during those moments of incredible despair, would not have had any hope to go on.

This is also the same reason why I can never be convinced that there is no God—or that we are here on this earth living solely for ourselves. If such were the case, I would not know how to go on in this life—or see the reason why I should. What would I be aiming for?

Now that I’m in my adulthood, I have tried to do God’s Will—though one thing I learned since graduating from university is that it’s a lot harder once you begin your independent life. Stuck with a 9-5 job and paying the bills—it’s hard to invoke that feeling of awe and wonder of knowing God. In my younger days, circumstances and emotions were always up and down—and it was almost natural to turn to God. Now that I’m older, it’s more natural to rely on myself to solve life’s problems. Finance, job stability, career opportunities—they are all a product of hard work and ambition, are they not?

Because of this quotidian way of life, I find myself more appreciative of the days when God appears unexpectedly. On most days, however, I am pushing and pushing to see Him, and I find that so much of my behaviour and the words that come out of my mouth are not always pleasing to Him—even when I am whispering a prayer every morning to God, “May what I do today please you…” The words seem to effortlessly slide off my lips out of habit of saying them. To be honest, the guilt and consciousness of my own sinfulness have not been as sharp as they should be.

When I applied for seminary this past winter, something changed. Pursuing a Master of Theological Studies, and knowing that I will one day write essays on Christian-related topics and even preach in the coming year—the sharpness of my guilt and the consciousness of my own sinfulness have become much more glaring.

This is essentially why I am writing this entry. I recently recognized an irony in my Christian life: even though I should have been striving to be a good Christian testimony all this time, I am now feeling more compelled to do so now that I have seminary status. Though subtle, I have noticed it in the way I think and what I do. Granted, part of it is fear of giving God a bad name once people know of what I’m studying in the fall; the other part is the fear of being a hypocrite. Please don’t point fingers at me: I’m trying. Really.

As each day unravels, I am praying to God that He open my eyes to the opportunities to testify to his love and grace. I am praying that I not fail Him—too often. I am praying that whatever potential He has endowed me with—will not be wasted simply because I have somehow let my ego take over once again.

Then again, maybe it isn’t seminary status. Maybe we all just need something in our lives to remind us of what is at the end of our journey. The past few years, maybe I've spent too much time staring at the wrong thing: stop focusing on the rocks on the path, the tortuous road, the long and difficult trek, the possible shortcuts: look straight ahead. When all is said and done, what is at the end of your journey?

If you want to be a writer, keep your rear end on the chair

Didn’t sleep well last night. It’s 9 a.m. and I’ve got awful bags under my eyes. I’m guessing it might have been the post-adrenaline rush after having played (and won!) two intense softball games in a row yesterday or my downing one too many cups of Chinese tea during dinner with the Anointed softball team. Today’s my writing day, however, and I was determined to get up to write whether I got sleep or not—so here I am.

On my writing days, my condo often ends up very clean after a few hours of “writing.” Every time I face writer’s block, I get up to do something that’s “equally” as productive so I don’t feel guilty about getting out of the chair (in explaining the reason for their success, writers have often said, “by keeping your rear end on the chair”). By the time Lee is home, the condo’s thoroughly vacuumed, the dishes washed, toilets cleaned, shower and sinks scrubbed, and the furniture dusted. This morning, imagining heading to the computer, I wound up tossing dirty clothes into the hamper and picking up the vacuum cleaner—I had to stop myself and march myself here. “You can clean if you can churn out one or two pages first,” I say to myself.

Early this year I picked up Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories. After reading “A Father’s Story” I fell in love with his writing. His characters are so real and his writing so lyrical—I am so impressed by how much he makes me feel in one sitting. I am currently reading his book of personal essays entitled, Meditations from a Movable Chair. In 1986, while walking along the road, a car had hit him and he ended up losing both his legs. In some of his essays he describes the pain of his loss in a compelling and vivid way—one of the most moving descriptions was his attempt in making a sandwich for his kids while being restricted to a wheelchair. Each movement, each swivel was trying—and in reading about his pain, I realized how much of that was portrayed in the character of Luke Ripley in “A Father’s Story.” Here is an excerpt from the short story:

“It is not hard to live through a day, if you can live through a moment. What creates despair is the imagination, which pretends there is a future, and insists on predicting millions of moments, thousands of days, and so drains you that you cannot live the moment at hand.”

In learning more about Dubus’ life and his writing habits, I am learning more about how I should personally tackle my struggles in writing. Having read so many of his stories already, and then finding out what elements of those stories really happened—I am trying now to better understand how to draw that line between truth and fiction. Writing a short story is harder than anything else I have attempted to write. With essays and such you are pooling together ideas from other sources and analyzing a work that already exists. In writing a story you are essentially creating something out of nothing. So how do you know what parts of yourself to trust and what ideas in you are worth pursuing?

It was comforting to encounter this statement while reading Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life:

“Writing every book, the writer must solve two problems: Can it be done? And, Can I do it? Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles… And if it can be done, then he can do it, and only he. For there is nothing in the material for this book that suggests to anyone but him alone its possibilities for meaning and feeling.”

On my writing days, I have to try to fight that “intrinsic impossibility” of my ideas. I have to press on even though I am loathing every sentence I write, feeling cynical about the scenes I’m conjuring up (will the reader really believe that this story could possibly happen?), and imagining all the writers that I admire and how silly it is that I am trying to emulate them—because I am so far from where they are and where I want to be.

My faith in God helps. I have always been thankful that God has instilled in me the passion to write because my journey in becoming a writer parallels so closely with my spiritual one. Both entail struggle—and neither can carry on unless I truly believe in their possibilities. Ultimately, I write because of what He has chosen to instill in me, and even when I am treading the waters of discouragement and hopelessness, I know I cannot and must not stop—my faith in God does not allow me to. In yesterday’s sermon, Dr. Dennis, my spiritual mentor, had preached, “How do you discern the will of God for your life? Know your passion. Know your gifts. Gifts are given by God.” When I write my stories, I try to be true to the character's story and feelings, but the underlying inspiration is God—whether He appears implicitly or explicitly in the story. As Flannery O’Connor states in Mystery and Manners:

“It makes a great difference to the look of a novel whether its author believes that the world came late into being and continues to come by a creative act of God, or whether he believes that the world and ourselves are the product of a cosmic accident. It makes a great difference to his novel whether he believes that we are created in God’s image, or whether he believes we create God on our own. It makes a great difference whether he believes that our wills are free, or bound like those of the other animals… The artist penetrates the concrete world in order to find at its depths the image of its source, the image of ultimate reality.”

I should stop with this blog now. My writing instructor in my short fiction course last fall offered a lot of practical advice in helping me to become a better story writer. One of the pieces of advice she gave was to stop journaling. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it, but I knew she was right. By journaling I end up channeling all my feelings, inspiration, and ideas into everyday language and experience rather than using them to create characters and forceful images. But, of course, having read up to here, you know that this blog entry was my feeble attempt to put off getting back to the story I’m currently writing.

Time to write—but first, I’ll go make some tea...

Yet another year…

Given that this year’s birthday brings me yet another year closer to being 30, I am surprised that I am not more depressed. Being the melancholic, birthdays are tough for me. My husband knows. Recently, he began to grow apprehensive about the imminent date, and had asked me several times in the past couple of weeks, “Are you happy this year?” He then stuck his hand up and began to count the number of accomplishments I had this year. He ended up with six fingers raised in the air. “Is that good enough for you?” I chuckled and nodded.

You see—one of my biggest weaknesses is my constant need for external validation. Without the A’s in some course I’m taking, without the certificates or awards, without a degree or diploma of some sort, without the commendation from someone on some personal undertaking, without the milestones of getting engaged, married, having children, etc.—I am left, every year, most often on my birthday, feeling inadequate—as if, without these things, the year was wasted.

I call it a weakness because this feeling of emptiness and inadequacy counters what I know the Bible teaches—what God wants of me—and that is to be content without these earthly rewards. To know that inwardly, and outwardly in my relationships with family, friends, even acquaintances, that I am doing His will—pursuing excellence in whatever comes my way, loving whomever comes my way, and relishing in wherever He puts me—must be enough. No, it must be more than enough. Because in the end, should my life be cut short, and even if I have the blessing of living a long life—I can’t take any of that stuff with me. And that stuff, at least with the people who matter most in my life, will not be what is remembered.

It’s easy to say—even easy to pretend that I live it—but I know that every day, I struggle.

Last fall, I quit my job as a Technical Writer (after 4 years, 2 months, and 5 days). Started a part-time tutoring business. Committed two days a week to writing. Through the encouragement of my spiritual mentor, enrolled in seminary for the coming fall. These decisions, of course, had their costs, including taking a “hit” to our household income, my giving up the status of being identified with a respectable profession, and my delaying our family’s dream of purchasing a bigger home to hold, God wiling, our future children. Yet—after I went through with the decision, I finally felt like I was moving closer to what I’ve always wanted—even though I don’t know where writing stories and studying theology would eventually lead me (in the pragmatic sense, professionally and monetarily). After all, there are no guarantees. But, ironically, it is in this uncertainty that I feel God’s assurance and affirmation—that all I have to do is work hard at what I am most passionate about, and God will lead the way.

Eric Liddle in Chariots of Fire makes this powerful statement: "God made me run fast, and when I run, I feel his glory.”

Its truth burns in my soul. And in the tiny moments when I can at last offer my self to God—that is, without my desperately clawing the earth brimming with its golden riches, I do, indeed, feel his glory.

This past Sunday my husband and I attended People's church. There were instrumentals and a choir on stage, and the charismatic worship leader had us all stand up to sing "Be Unto his Name." When it came to the part, "Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty..." with the harmony, hundreds of prayerful hearts, and the holy expectancy commanded by the melody and words of this chorus, my eyes teared up, and once again, I was brought back to thankfulness and joy--just simply because I knew God and I knew he knew me.

Ask me how to explain glory to someone and that's how I think of it. That's how it feels. And when I feel it, I don't want to be anywhere else.

Marriage

Last Sunday evening my husband Lee and I attended a workshop held at my church entitled “Leadership Development,” led by Henry Wildeboer, an Associate Professor of Tyndale Theological Seminary. In passing, he had mentioned something pertaining to the Bible that struck me only because it rang so true in my one and a half years of experience in being a “wife.”

Just follow the principles of marriage taught in the Bible and you’ll unearth enough evidence to confirm the truth of Christianity. This was Wildeboer’s bold assertion, though I’m paraphrasing him because I don’t remember his exact words.

I might have at first understood such a statement in theory, but entering my second year of marriage, am now finding myself living it. Though I will not disclose the roller coaster of events that have already taken place in our “new life” together, I can only say that I would have been so lost—exasperated—worn— if my husband and I did not have a God to turn to during this journey, as brief as it has been thus far.

Whether it was knowing that every Sunday morning, even in our sleepy state, we had to get up bright and early to attend worship service and later discuss amongst ourselves over lunch the insights into the week’s sermon, or at one time or another we had to put aside our selfishness and our egos to consider the other’s needs not simply in the name of “love” but because that was what our Creator wanted of us, or that in our most vulnerable, volatile moments, there was nothing else we could do in our incredible weakness but to pray and surrender all of our uncertainties to our Father.

And then there are all the unspoken, unseen moments in-between, the ones that no one else would know of except my better half, and sometimes not even.

The times when I worry about my own spiritual journey, and then his; the times when I worry about the choices I make, and then his; the times when I worry about the person I will become, and then who he will become. These, as the Bible teaches, are not in my control: I am not my husband's keeper, God is. And therein lies my peace.

As with contentment. When God removes me from the deception that marriage is about the big house, the x number of kids, the dream car, the rising of our status in the affluent circle we inhabit--and teaches me through the most trivial moments of my life that true contentment is about now. The absolute beauty intrinsic to marriage is seen in the moment when two people who love each other aspire to love God--in their individuality, in the tiny and subtle way in which they show each other grace, and in their belief that every one of these moments is a gift, a manifestation of the Creator's goodness.

And thereupon I realize, or rather I am reminded of once again, that God is the ruler of my marriage—the model of love, the source of hope amidst despair, and the only way I can place my trust, my entire being, everything that’s at stake, in another person’s hands—because as Christians, Lee and I, we are not here living lives solely for ourselves or even for each other, but for something greater, something beyond who we both are.

In spite of everything, I can attest that God has been our guide, the shining star in the nightfall of our marriage.

And in such moments, I can’t help but wonder, what is marriage if not sacred?

The Paradox of Blogging

Typical of me to always be the last one to keep up with the latest trends: blogging. I hesitated for the longest time (and still have my doubts about this medium) because I am a traditional "journaller" and have always kept my insights and most personal thoughts in my own notebooks, which in the past decade, have formed quite a substantial pile on my bookshelves at home. Would this steadily growing pile eventually be neglected if I started this whole blogging thing?

And, if I were to start blogging, which is essentially for the purpose of publicizing my thoughts, would they no longer cease to be private, and therefore what would be the point? Would it not catapult me further into covering up or disguising my inhibitions and secret musings (being the complacent introvert that I am, the conservative Asian, the secret melancholic)?

Or worse, by blogging, would I not begin yielding to the temptation of putting a ME out there that would seek to be acceptable, respectable--loveable? And if such were the case, would I somehow risk losing myself along the way because I have failed to remain real, once again, in my writing, having tried too hard to please an audience I do not know nor should try so hard in pleasing. (Why do we itch to put ourselves "out there" in the World Wide Web, conjuring a persona that's punchy and impressionable enough that people will notice and spend a good few seconds of their day assessing and then quickly forgetting?). After all, trying to be real is hard enough when done in the comfortable, beautiful solitude and seclusion of my own home.

Then why start? Because, I guess, it shall be another way to force me to keep writing. As much rambling as this blog is fated to exude—it shall be another diversion, hopefully a more productive one than turning on the tube or washing dirty dishes—every time I fall into the pit of frustration, fear, or despair when I make yet another effort to write a scene in a story or come up with an inspiring enough line to put in a poem, essay, or potential sermon. A perceived audience, whether it exists or not, shall do the trick. Which is the same reason why I pay $500 every term to attend 10 sessions of writing workshops at U of T--because without the expectation of some organization or institution, I am often rendered, sadly, indolent and fruitless. Hence blogging shall be my frivolous attempt to impose structure, coherence, and habit on my writing whenever the more serious attempt disappoints.

Now back to the tube…