dance

It was nap time. I sang our usual twinkle twinkle little star as my son slowly relaxed his little body. His head was nestled snuggly at the nape of my neck, and I could feel his warm breath. He seemed exceptionally contented today, and I couldn't resist singing another song.

"Let's dance, sweetie," and we began swaying, "I could've danced all night, I could've danced all night and still have begged for more..." Here he was, my own little Dali clock draped over me in perfect trust. We gently waltzed and twirled here and there, having an absolutely splendid time.

Then it occurred to me that one day, by God's mercy, this little boy will become a strong and able man. We might dance again. Only this time, I will have to look up to see his sparkly eyes, and he will be the one leading, gently and lovingly.

Tears welled up. God is so good.

forgotten

Almost half a year has passed since the last entry. The past few months have been filled with joy brimming over. I was like those in Psalm 126 who dream. My mouth too was filled with laughter, my tongue with shouts of joy, because the Lord has done great things for me. I didn't think I would experience so much happiness and joy on this side of heaven. Innocent, youthful joy, not calculated, not intellectual, not philosophical or even ethical, but carefree, instinctive, welling up from the prehistoric depths of our nature. The joy tickles up giddy laughter, and eyes are brightened to the manifold contrasting brilliance of life. I had stopped brooding over the days of my life, because God has kept me occupied with the joy of my heart. (Eccl. 5:20)

Last week, my wise and trusted friend observed warningly, "You're different this semester." That comment jarred the running melody like a discordant minor 7th intrusion. I probed a bit more, but she didn't say much else. She didn't need to. I think I had known all along. There was so much personal happiness I didn't have eyes for much else around me. I didn't even have eyes for my past experiences, for other eyes wet with tears, or dry with dehydration. And I only had ears for walloping laughs, but not ears for wimpers and for mourning.

Today, I received a newsletter from a young friend who will be embarking on her first medical missionary journey. She will be working in the same hospital which has blessed me with God's love. On her newsletter, among the many photos which symbolized Africa, there was one of an utterly malnourished child, with head slightly bent backwards due to the weakness of neck muscles. He was sitting up, which is already better than most of the children I had seen while I was there. But the likelihood is that this little child is probably dead now. If he is lucky enough to have survived, there would've been hundreds who had already taken his place in graves.

I zoomed in on the photo three times. Yes, a very familiar picture. It could be a picture in medical textbooks, or on humanitarian pamphlets. They all look the same to our desensitized eyes. Yet each little child has a name, and each name is a unique and beloved. Each little child is a human being, like me. And each little child is beloved of God, though forsaken by the world.

In merely five months, I had forgotten Jean's departing admonition. I had forgotten the deep concern of God for His world.

O God of mercy, as I enjoy this season of joy with which You have blessed me, let me continue to have eyes of sight, and ears of keen hearing, and feet ever ready to walk in the direction of Your voice.

remember

We had a farewell party yesterday for Jean (pronounced John with a soft J--French) and his son and daughter.

He came here four and a half years ago, with his son. A doctor in his own country, he became nameless here. Worse than nameless, because his colour screamed "outsider" in a homogeneous tinged with residual Anglo-philic society like HK. He became a rufugee, despite knowing English, French and Mandarin, despite being a western doctor, familiar also with Chinese acupuncture. For four and a half years he could not work. His first Christmas dinner in HK was a dry packet of noodles; his son had a banana--courtesy of the hostel landlady. She said there wasn't any hot water available for the noodles.

Most of this history I learned yesterday at the farewell party. I hadn't been in HK that long. I met Jean in January. His happy countenance at church made me feel comfortable. There was connection, perhaps because I also felt like a foreigner, though my appearance was Chinese through and through. The connection was instant, on my part anyway. It was like I saw family. I think I scared him at first with my eagerness to shake his hands, because afterall, I was the one with the neon yellow name tag of a first-time visitor at that church.

His daughter was finally able to join them this past February. Only the Mom was still far away. Daily prayers and daily waiting. Many closed doors. In Proverbs it says that hope deferred makes the heart sick (Prov 13:12). But Jean didn't strike me as being sick of heart. I'm sure he's shed a lot of tears, but when he tells his story, there is a gleam in his eyes. There is a sparkle of confidence. He trusts his God. Seems like he knows Him well. And his brilliant white smile punctuates his sentences like accents graves and accents aigues. So he had dried noodles that first Christmas, but he didn't have self-pity. The next year, he had met Pastor Scott, and had a sumptuous turkey meal with his family. He laughed happily.

As a church member shared, we thought God had given us a refugee family to help, but it turned out that he was the one helping us. He never tooted his own horn, but others told us that he basically "ran" the church, fueled by his servant heart. He cut up the bread into little cubes and poured the grape juice into the teeny plastic cups, in preparation for communion. He was in charge of typing out and putting together the bulletins each week. When the church needed help, they knew they could always call on him. He helped, he shared, and boy, he certainly prayed, and taught us the importance of prayer. He also asked for continued prayers, revealing humility and brotherhood. He is honest and frank, confessing his weaknesses, and boasting only about God.

And now, the time has come for his prayer requests to be answered magnificently. The time has come for celebration of our faithful God, whose plan is good and perfect. They are moving to Canada, to be joined at a later time, by his wife too. The family will once again be united after having been apart for four and a half years. In the interim, he has learnt what it means to have nothing--no name, no status, no money, no job, no friend, no complete family. Nothing but God. And God met his needs, and then some. What is more, God made him a blessing to us, over and over again.

I went up to him at the end of the luncheon to shake his hand and say goodbye.

He said, "Remember Africa. I cannot go back, but you can."

The rapidity of tears welling up in my eyes surprised even myself--it was out of my control. He struck a deep chord with those few words. He gave voice to my almost snuffed out burden. He understood. He legitimized my passion, perhaps my calling. He didn't accuse me of going out of guilt, nor elevated me for going as if I were a saint. He knew, and he let his blessing fall on me. God had said to Job, "Should I not be concerned?" Jean blessed me by intimating that it's OK for me to be concerned too, and to go simply because I became concerned when I heard God was concerned.

Jean, may God strengthen and keep you and make you thrive in Canada. Canada will be richer for your family's presence in her midst. You will be such a blessing to people there as you have been here.

And yes, I will remember. And God willing, I will go.

the 28th

The difference between a young person and an old person is that the old person knows he's young.

playing dead

Today the sky is beautiful. Bright sunshine sparkled through my room and onto my face at 7 this morning. I was all scrunged up in a tiny ball because of the cold night. The warm massage was welcomed.

DH and I both wanted to go to the library, but it was still closed for another half hour. We went to the pagoda. Saw a little insect with a black body and a red head. Funny looking thing, just keeping guard right in the middle of the step leading to the pagoda. I bent down to examine it a bit. DH's sandal inched ever closer to its little black body. The sandal touched it, and it toppled over.

"Ha ha!" I exclaimed, "DH, you know what? The insect's playing dead!" DH looked at it and said in a solemn voice, "No, it IS dead..." "Noooooo! They always do this, so that we will lose our curiosity and go away. Then they'll flip over again, and scurry back home."

We both sat down and opened our books. He was reading a Beginner's English book, I had my Bible and journal open. Five minutes later, I peered over at the toppled insect. And there it remained. Only now, it looked almost dried up. The legs were all curled rigidly over its body, in a rigor mortis way, if there is such a thing for insects.

"Oh," I let out. DH looked up. "You're right, it IS dead. Must've been dead for a while, and you just knocked it over with your sandal."

With the typhoon and the wet weather recently, we've had our share of dead insects on campus, and live ones too, especially mosquitoes. I had a preying mantis on my door frame for two days. It went from the side frame to the top one, and finally teetered on the doorknob. So I challenged my right of entry with a broom. Boy, did it fight fiercely, even after it was being transported by the bristles to the balcony. Then there were the two green-leaved insects. Their bodies were like two fresh green spring leaves stuck together, complete with all the intricate veins found on leaves. Absolutely stunning, but they certainly weren't camouflaged against our beige tiled floor. Both of these insects had lost one of their back jumping legs.

DH went over to the insect. "Aiyawwe. Too bad." Dead as dead can be. And we both went back to our readings.

The clock struck nine--time to pack up for the library.

DH gave a whoop, and pointed to the wall. There was our red-headed black insect, merrily making its way up the white pillar of the pagoda. I whooped too! Boy, we were both fooled, even when we knew insects played dead when threatened! We laughed and kept looking at the little beetle mosying non-chalantly up the stuccoed paint. Incredible!

It's good to be outsmarted occasionally by God's one inch creatures!

Oh yeah, and guess what happened yesterday? I ate Italian spaghetti bolognaise with green chopsticks. Just thought I'd share that too.

hilltop cross

There's something about a big cross on a hill that moves the soul. There are two big crosses here at LTS. One in the seminary, one in the retreat centre. I was astounded by their monolithic whiteness when I first visited the seminary, but now, after 8 months of walking up the 121 stone steps to reach the campus marked by this cross, I've grown blinded to its testimony.

I discovered another majestic big cross recently on my travels in Italy. I was on a bus, winding around the hill road from Sorrento to Positano, deep in thought and mulling over the events of recent days. And there before my glazed eyes rose the familiar crossed beams of ancient Roman torture. It was the only structure on the flat mountain top which the next turn of the road brought to view. It was a lonely structure, on a lonely hilltop raised on vertical rocky cliffs. The columned plateau of vertical rocks jutted out like a sore limestone thumb. And the cross was right at the edge, overlooking past the severe drop to the gentle lush valleys dotted with bright scarlet shingles and white-washed walls. The villages and towns were lively with lights and colours, vibrant with music and laughter. And they covered the gentle valley like happy cobblestones on a giant's path.

I'm not sure when the cross on the hilltop was constructed. Had it been there for centuries? For a millenium? Was it placed there for special commemoration? Did a saint die in that area? Was it a symbol of the townsfolks' allegiance to their Christian heritage? Did it witness all the ups and downs of the towns' happenings? The perennial tufts of yellow zucchini blossoms and clusters of baby green figs? The ebb and flow of the Mediterranean tide that brought livelihood in the dancing nets of fishermen? How many generations of newly christened babies grew, married, lived and died under the persistent gaze of the cross? I have no answers to these questions.

The cross stands as witness, not only to life all around it, but to itself--a symbol of an eternal truth for anyone who dares to believe its message. The cross testifies to the unchanging in the midst of constant change. And for those who believe, the truth is astounding, powerful enough to shatter all falsities in life, powerful enough to re-invent life itself, and eliminate death and its smell wherever it is in the world. Yet, with all that power, it chooses to be just a cross on a hilltop...to be gazed at, wondered at, laughed at, and perhaps to leave behind. So much power yet in such humble vestments.

I looked at it, and kept searching for it after every bend, to see if I could catch a glimpse from some other angle. From all angles, the cross remained the cross. No surprises. Just two beams juxtaposed in acute angles. Nothing fancy. Is it all real, what happened 2000 years ago? It seemed so banal, this structure. The world seems so bad, people so fallen, even (dare I say especially?) people bearing the sign of the cross, and evidences of a good God seem only convincingly real in the imagination. Tears brim. Sometimes it's easier not to believe. And even then, the cross holds to its duty of silence--a brutal silence for one who wants an audible answer... but perhaps with a welcome within, when one listens to the silence:

a gentle welcome to come to the foot of the cross,
and a generous invitation to see majestic humility for myself.

laughter dyspnea

It's been a long time since I'd laughed so hard that I couldn't breathe properly.

We were on the moving walkway at TST underground, and Annie and I were alternately doubling up from belly howls like a very creaky see-saw. And that was before I even got to the punchline. So I tried to continue, and my voice just went higher and higher, totally out of control, managing at best only huffs and sprays of evanescent sounds. I couldn't speak. I could hardly breathe! The cackling continued and tears were coming to my eyes. I finally splurted out the rest of the story in one big breath and we howled again. If I told you the culprit story now, you wouldn't think it was funny at all. We were drunk with humour it seemed, drunk with mirth, drunk with delight, drunk with joy...drunk with...well, Annie did have a German wheat beer, but I only had blackforest cake...

"Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones."
~Proverbs 16:24

Thanks Annie for sweetness and healing! You are a great sister!