Dinner With A Politician

The year is 2004. George W Bush is running against John Kerry in the US presidential elections where Bush is hoping to be re-elected for a second term. The war in Afghanistan has been raging for about three years now.

I was talking to the boy halfway across the world whom I was dating, and he wanted my perspective on the political climate in Anderson Indiana since I had recently moved there. All I said was, "What's wrong with Bush? I don't like change, so he can remain in office for all I care."

The response I got was one of gentle mockery. "You can't make decisions based on whether or not you like change. That's not very rational."

Fast forward a couple years. I'm sitting in Convocation, listening to student candidates running for Student Government elections. They're making promises about stuff that I wasn't even sure were within their control. My inner child is rolling his eyes and has already made the decision not to vote that year.

Most folks whom I've spoken candidly with about politics know I'm cynical. Sure, I may appreciate one side a little more than the other(s). But the way it's been presented to me, it always boils down to the same thing: everyone's talking and nobody can tell who's lying or about to lie until they've been elected. Then everybody has an opinion of whether the elected's policies are working as promised, and nobody really wins.

I'm not saying you shouldn't vote or pay attention to politics. You definitely should; it is your right and civil duty after all.

But in a lot of ways, I'm really glad that in my nearly 27 years of life, I've only been in the right place at the right time to vote once. The candidate I ended up voting for seemed almost to good to be true (as most of their party members do), but the others needed too much work with their talking to not sound like fools. Even though I no longer lived in Singapore, I wasn't ready for the country that owns my passport to be represented by a fool--even if they only sound like one but are actually highly intelligent.

Especially not after one of my favourite politicians had just been voted out that same year.

The 2011 General Elections in Singapore was something I watched more closely than ever thanks to social media. Of all the talking going on, there was one politician that emerged my favourite even though I tried really hard not to like him. His brother was a former colleague of my mother's so he really had to convince me to work through my emotional bias (I can't just like the guy because I kinda/sorta know someone who knows him).

George Yeo was foreign minister at the time of the 2011 elections. Part of my interest, admittedly, was caused by the fact that I was about to move halfway across the world again. It made me realise for the first time the importance of an effective foreign minister for a nomad like me whose passport will probably always belong to the Republic of Singapore.

But his effectiveness as foreign minister wasn't quite what impressed me. He struck me as really down-to-earth for a politican, humble and willing to admit the faults of the government, but also very much in touch with the grassroots. He's always had a keen interest in the youth of the nation, recognising "they have to rebuild a world that is corroding," and was the first Singaporean minister to engage in social media. That he was a good ol' Catholic boy didn't hurt as well (although faith backgrounds have MUCH less presence in the political scene in Singapore than in other parts of the world).

Yet what impressed me most was the way he conducted himself throughout the elections. He stuck with his party even though the closer they got to the elections, the more it became apparent they weren't going to win. Word on the street was that most folks would vote for him if the others weren't involved. When they eventually lost, his Facebook page was flooded with folks asking if he would run for the presidential elections.

2-cents worth says he probably would be president of the Republic now if he had decided to run. While it would be nice to have a president as connected to the grassroots as he is, I found myself empathising with his decision not to run for presidency. I don't know that this is his reasoning for not running, but I've found that grassroots people work better collecting information for someone else to pass policies and make other decisions to effect change.

So why the heck am I randomly writing about George Yeo, you ask?

Well, I came across this today and thought of the dream I had the other night where I had dinner with him. Grassroots people networking, doing what we do best. It made me realise there are so many things about how he functioned as a political minister that I want to emulate as a religious minister. But if I didn't also add that that was an intimidating dream, I wouldn't be telling the whole story. It was one of those that you wake up feeling like the dream was real and you can't shake off all the carry-over emotions.

At the same time, it was the nudge I needed to kick-start a new project that I'm calling "Operation Third Place." More to come on this at another time when it's not 12:47 am.

Hey, all you kids in the US of A, go vote on Tuesday. Ok? Ok.

On Shopping

I've never been much of a shopper.

It used to be that my mum and I would hit the stores once, maybe at most twice a year, spend a day or an evening there, and that would be our shopping for the year.

Then when I took on an office job right after college, it meant more shopping because my wardrobe needed a massive overhaul from the college kid's sweatshirt and jeans combinations. Part of why I'm not crazy about shopping is because I've never cared much for fashion as much as I have for comfort, and what's comfortable isn't always available or affordable when it's not also trendy. But it wasn't so bad because I had learnt where to find the good deals, and learnt about seasonal clearances. Best part: they had LONGs in their pants and jeans departments in the States.

And then I did this crazy thing called moving halfway across the world in 2 suitcases. Most of my stuff had to be either sold or left behind. Which wasn't a big deal until now that it's getting cooler here in Auckland. Because I wasn't sure how cold it would actually get here and didn't have much luggage space to begin with, most of my cold weather clothes had to be left behind. And nobody warned me about central heating--or the lack of it. And it's been too many years since I've lived without a dryer that I've forgotten that when it gets colder and wetter here, laundry takes a much longer time to dry.

So off we go shopping again. If they had Kohl's, Marshalls or even H&M here, it would have been a matter of simply zipping in, finding what I needed and moving on with my day. I wouldn't have felt like I wasted my day-off spending way too much time trying to find a pair of pants that would fit because they didn't have longs.

I got home that night more homesick for the cornfields than I had been in a while.

Now, I can handle grocery shopping. It's not so bad when I've done my meal planning for the week and have a list of exactly what I need to get. I'm learning that there's a reason why fruit and vegetable shops exist: they do actually have much cheaper fruits, vegetables, milk and eggs. And that Pak n Save is the place to go to get things in bulk, otherwise your friendly neighbourhood Countdown is still your best bet.

But send me back to Singapore, and I have a mild anxiety attack every time I get sent to the store to pick up cucumbers for Mum. I can usually figure out where most other things are, but it's been maybe 3 years in a row now that I've gone to the store not knowing where to find cucumbers and feeling absolutely ridiculous.

A grown woman who's used to living on her own, managing her own groceries in giant supermarkets in other foreign lands unable to find cucumbers in the land where she was born.

Days like these, or these make me wonder if I've ever grown up or if I ever will. Grocery shopping in Singapore make me feel like I'm 18 all over again, never stepped outside of the world of school, band, church or my parents' home. And learning the ins and outs of living in a new place all over again isn't really that big of a deal. But I cannot help wishing that after 8 months, a day would go by where I don't feel like I'm having to learn something new all over again.

Not that I'm complaining, since this is all part of the adventure. But something familiar every once in a while would be nice.

Of Coloured Pencils...

I have a confession to make. (There seems to be a lot of those lately. Hmm...)

I may or may not have a slight obsession with coloured pencils.

I'm by no means a talented artist, more likely a wannabe-dabble-here-and-there-in-this-and-that noob by any standards. But ever since I was a kid, the one thing I loved most about Christmas (before the whole Jesus thing got in the way became more important, of course) was going shopping with my mum for school supplies for the new year. Every year, we would comb the aisles of Popular Bookshop, looking for new pencil cases, pencils, and then when we got a little more grown-up, pens, mathematical sets, and when we got EVEN more grown-up, calculators (gasp!). I would then be given the task of wrapping all my brother's and my school supplies up and putting them under the tree to be opened on Christmas day.

But my favourite of favourites would definitely be the coloured pencils. The kind I loved were the ones that had two different colours on either ends. There was the the one with light green on one and brown on the other, the cliche baby pink and baby blue one, the steady black and white one, and the pretty one with lilac on one end and lavender on the other that you only got in the box of 48 colours.

My favourite "getting ready for school" thing to do was, of course, sharpening the pencils. They had to get just sharp enough that the could be used, but not too sharp so that the ends would break off too easily. And if they were just blunt enough, it makes colouring so much easier because the texture is more consistent to work with. (If you don't understand what I'm talking about, you may just have to try it out yourself.)

So of course, when we were making cards and doing some colouring at Kids' Church on Sunday and Phoebe came to me and asked for a sharpener, imagine my delight when I realised I would have to go through our bags of coloured pencils to make sure they were sharpened.

Last night, I dumped out all three bags of coloured pencils and sorted through the colours. I had to make sure there were enough of each shade in each bag as I sharpened the pencils and put them back into the bags.

One of the last colours I sorted was white. I had half the mind to just throw them out, especially as I was thinking about something I read recently (that I thought my fabulous artist friend, Joe Watkins had written, but I couldn't trace back the original source) about how white coloured pencils were essentially a rip-off.

Who uses white coloured pencils anyway?

I remember an art class I took as a kid where we experimented with water-colours. One of the things the teacher suggested we could try was to use a white crayon to mark out rain drops on our sheet before using a darker shade of water colour to go over it. The different mediums made the white crayons useful, but white coloured pencils, I could think of no use for.

That was, until I realised at least one of the white coloured pencils in our supply had been used.

Which made me curious.

How would anyone use a white coloured pencil?

Maybe I'm just too silly to have realised there are practical uses for the white coloured pencils and I'm just too stuck in my ways to give them a further thought.
Maybe I'm completely missing out on what folks who know the trick to putting white coloured pencils to good use can do.

Which made me think even more.
Do I sometimes stick "white coloured pencil" labels on people I interact with?
What am I missing out by doing that?


Hey, if you're one of those who know how to put a white coloured pencil to good use, will you please share your tips?

Of Chinese Legends

Ok, let me begin by asking forgiveness for my nerdsplosion in this entry. You were warned.

Even though I grew up speaking two languages (and two other dialects), in my relationship with God, we've only communicated in Chinese on the rare occasion. (Usually that involves God REALLY trying to get my attention).

But to give a little variety to my lectionary readings, I decided this morning I was going to read in Chinese.

Talk about contextualizing.

Even though I'm fluent in both languages, my command of the Chinese vocab is limited to day-to-day communication. Sprinkle in a few spiritual terms and a few of the Chinese classic phrases or idioms and I get thrown for a loop.

Part of the problem is that I only understand the Chinese classic phrases because of the TV shows I watched growing up. Words like 公义 (which translates quite literally as public/community righteousness/justice) as used in Isaiah 61:10, or 差遣 (which means to send on a mission) as used in Galatians 4:4.

Emperor 乾隆 (Qian Long)

It isn't that I didn't understand the words as I was reading. It was more that I hardly read or hear these words outside of the context of the ancient Chinese royal courts as seen in TV shows. Sure, I come across the words "righteousness" and "justice" in theology everyday. But when I read 公义, I think of the Emperor 乾隆 (Qian Long) made famous by the 還珠格格 TV series about the long-lost daughter of Emperor 乾隆 who was born to a peasant whom the Emperor had an affair with on one of his incognito trips out to the country. The story revolves around 紫薇 (the "princess") trying to make her way back to the palace to be reconciled to her father after her mother dies. Along the way, she runs into 小燕子 (a peasant girl called Little Swallow). Because the journey is long and tiring, and 紫薇's body is too weak, she convinces 小燕子 to make the rest of the journey for her to tell the Emperor her story.

The plot thickens when the Emperor mistakes Little Swallow for his daughter. The thing that sticks out to me about this story is that while I'm not sure whether the whole 還珠格格 story is fact or fiction, the Emperor 乾隆 is known to be one of the more well-liked Emperors of China. He is portrayed in the story to be a righteous man, but still merciful after he finds out that Little Swallow is not actually his daughter.

Ever since my introduction to Emperor 乾隆, I've had great respect for simply out of my love for ancient Chinese history and culture. To think of my God in that context, except far greater since 乾隆 was human...

Righteousness and mercy got a little more personal today.

I was looking for pictures of a Chinese warrior prince because that's what 差遣 (sent) reminded me of. In one scene, Emperor 乾隆 sends his son on a dangerous mission. I found myself asking the question today, how many times have I read the words, "God sent his son," and went, "Oh yeah, that was the Christmas story. Angels, shepherds, mangers, Mary, Joseph, King Herod and the Wise Men."

But the words 差遣 (sent) made me think of an emperor sending his son on a dangerous mission. That was what "God sent his son" really meant, aye?

Princess Warrior

And since I couldn't find a picture of a Chinese warrior prince that I liked, I found a picture of a lady warrior instead. True confession time, I guess, and I'm slightly embarrassed by this one (mostly because it's so stereotyped). I've always wanted to be a sword-wielding, martial-arts expert Chinese princess. The jewelry and even the cosmetics from the ancient martial-arts era have always fascinated me, but even more so, the ability to conceal secret weapons in their garb. A pearl hairpin could just as easily be a murder weapon.

Taking it full-circle, this week's NT passage from Galatians 4 talked about how we are heirs in the kingdom because of adoption. If the Emperor 乾隆 was my imagery for God today, I guess that makes me a sword-wielding martial-arts expert Chinese princess, aye?

And taking it another step further with 差遣 (sent). I'm not just a sword-wielding Chinese princess. Something about missio Dei comes to mind for whatever reason.

(I warned you. Nerdsplosion.)

And then taking it yet another step further, if reading the Bible in one of my other native tongues led to this nerdsplosion, I wonder what it would be like if this contextualization happened for someone else...?

Happy Guy Fawkes Day

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, friends.

Tonight, Doug and Danette hosted a thank-you barbecue for the folks who helped out at the Holiday Programme. This get-together happened to coincide with Guy Fawkes day, a celebration of the day this guy, Guy, tried to blow up the parliament (at least, according to the few people who tried to explain it to me).

Kiwis celebrate Guy Fawkes day with fireworks. I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the universal code for holidays is that if they aren't big enough to celebrate with a ton of food or fireworks, they aren't big enough of a deal.

The strange thing is, as I watched a bunch of the youths light the fireworks on the Beisleys' front porch, my mind drifted back to Fourth of July in St Helen's. I know I'm not a US citizen, but there's just something about how things become a tradition that transcends nationality or political boundaries. Kinda like how I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving with the American community here, or how the Chinese New Year steamboat reunion dinners became a tradition with the Chinese community in Anderson.

I've had a few interesting conversations recently about roots and what those mean. A big part of my story comes from having deep roots in many places, and having the permission to celebrate the traditions that come with those roots. As much as I try not to stick out in the dominant culture every time I move to a new place, I'm still not much of a conformist. Truth is, there are some things about tradition that I'm uber nerdy about.

Like, if I could go back in time, I would have convinced my dad to work with me more on my Chinese calligraphy, even if my siblings weren't interested.
Or contextualizing the Eucharist to today's society. Unleavened bread and wine? How 'bout pita bread and olive oil? (Thank you, Ralf Schwarz)
Or learning the proper native way to pronounce words in every new language/dialect I learn (I'm still working on the Kiwi English. Give it some time.)

Point being, I'm noticing again how much beauty I find in tradition. Sure, go ahead and be skeptical or cynical about everything we can possibly be skeptical or cynical about. But there still is a lot of beauty in tradition, if we can dig through all the cynicism to find it.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day, y'all. I don't know that this will become tradition in my story, but who's to say no?

The Human Mind and Other Musings...

The human mind is something that I've always been fascinated with. It's not so much the science of it as much as it is the amazement at its ability to be manifested in so many different ways. If we think of it is as an equipment for the processing of life, then whatever it might be that caused the existence of this equipment must have been ingeniously creative. (And probably one of the biggest reasons why I personally find it hard to not believe in a Creator God. But... that's just me.)

See, here's the thing. While it is true that life experiences are a great cause for the nurturing of certain personality traits, there's still this thing called the human mind through which these experiences are processed. So even two kids that share similar experiences growing up can turn out to be two very different people because their minds are wired to process life differently.

That. Blows my mind.

And maybe, just maybe, because my mind is wired to process life through the lenses of fascination with the human mind, this might just be why I can sit so comfortably with the idea of post-modernity.

On the other hand, I'm also blown away by the fact that it's nearly 2am and this mind of mine is keeping me up because of the way it is still actively searching for the right words to articulate all of this fascination. Hmm.


On a somewhat related note, this human mind of mine has also got me thinking about the cyclical nature of time. Now if you've been in MaryAnn Hawkins' Biblical Foundation of Missions class, I didn't exactly steal this idea from her. But I think I'm choosing to take comfort that I'm not completely insane for having stumbled upon this upon my own musings about life because there has been some scholarly work done on this prior to my own musings.

Here's the thing. In my last blog, I wrote about endings and beginnings and all of that stuff. I've been thinking back to all the endings and beginnings that I've had in the last few years, and it seems that each time something is ending, I can't really say that I see it as a "keep going, don't look back" thing. Yes, I do know what Paul said about "forgetting what lies behind and straining towards what is ahead" and all of that. And it has its validity, but that's not really what I'm talking about here.

More than anything else, these endings and beginnings feel more like, each time a chapter ends, I'm closing up a circle and drawing another one that starts from the same point where this first circle closes. Except, this new circle doesn't overlap much of the first circle, but takes its own direction. And all these endings and beginnings just create more and more circles around this same first point until this point becomes the center of all of these little chapters.

See where I'm going with this? (If it wasn't 2am, I'd actually produce a picture and post it here to help you visualize what I'm talking about. Maybe mañana...)

But I keep coming back to the same "starting point," and starting to slowly let these circles of each chapter shape the life story until I find that this "starting point" has become the center of the entire story. And I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words what this center is or will look like until the day my physical existence on this earth is no more.

And that... is ok.

Alright, it is officially past 2 am. Enough musings for now.  Update on the New Zealand process to come soon. Prayers appreciated.

One Of These Days...

One of these days I will learn my lesson that caffeine after 3pm is generally a bad idea. Unless, of course, there are other substances consumed to offset the caffeine effect.

One of these days I will do better with living the tension between finding healing from the hurts of the past and finding grace to let go.

One of these days I will have the courage to accept that good things do happen in life -- in my life, and I don't have to feel bad about that.

One of these days I will learn that transitions are a normal part of life

One of these days...

Sure, there are a lot more things I need to learn about how to simply live life. But given all the (mis)adventures I've had in my life, I think it's fair to say I'm doing well enough. And for only having lived a quarter of a century long, heck, I've accomplished a lot in my life. And by no means is this a, "hey look at all the things I've done!" but rather a, "holy crap, Someone must believe in me a heck lot more than I believe in myself to allow me to deal with life to this extent."

So yes, I have an exciting and adventure-filled life. But the journey hasn't been all glamorous. In fact, the dark seasons seem to have done a fair job of keeping up with the joyful ones. But I've come a long way too, to find joy -- and hope -- even in the dark seasons.

So one of these days, maybe I will learn that even with all the joys and the pains, Life is now. And it won't be "one of these days anymore."

One of these days.

Now if the caffeine-effect would just wear off...

Irony of Ironies...

Today I'm wondering why I gave up on a career in music.

I'm trying to write a paper on Bonhoeffer, one of my favourite theologians whom I will probably marry if I could be polygamist and also marry Nouwen at the same time. Well, it might help if they were both still alive.

Anyway. I've been sitting here for the last four hours or so, and I only have half a page written. And somewhere in the middle of writing that half a page, I was briefly interrupted for twenty-minutes to explain online, the differences between perfect, imperfect, plagal and interrupted cadences to my cousin.

And then it hit me. I could have made it big teaching music theory. (Ok, so maybe not THAT big, but still.)

So why am I doing this??

Sigh.