In a little over a day I would be three decades on this planet…Three decades of breathing and dreaming, falling and failing, waking and waiting. I never thought it would, but it did surpass my previous year. There is now more chaos as there is greater clarity. The 29th year was anything but a mere prelude to the next chapter. Yet as with most things, these are easier written than done.
Distraction from Distractions
So this is what it’s like to be a grown up. It seems that just as childhood is rife with dreams and goals, adulthood can be replete with uncertainties and disappointments. As people grow older, some try harder to make it; some just pretend to look put together. I don’t have enough stamina to climb the steep ladder of worldly success; neither am I gifted with stellar acting skills to carry on the charades of success for the years ahead. The external picture speaks volumes: I’m falling apart and I’ll never make it. And there are certainly instances when it feels that this is all there is to it—that the noise is all the music that we will ever hear and the somber skies is all the light I will ever see. We eat to go hungry again. We fix things only for them to get broken once more. We begin endeavors with the best intentions and they end up hijacked in the middle of nowhere. We invent machines and methods to have better communication but individuals have become more isolated than ever.
So I cover my ears and close my eyes. And then I start to hear and see more clearly. I shun food, and I feel more nourished. We embrace other people and ourselves amidst the mess we made, and everything feels more in order. I walk or sit in lonely repose, and then I begin to feel closer to those whom I love and those who love me.
Letting God be God
Often, God is not the god we would have chosen.* We want a God who is faithful to us in ways we can easily comprehend and anticipate, who expresses faithfulness in ways that we specified.^ I wonder if the disbelief or bigotry of many people is not due to God’s absence in their lives, but rather the disappointing and disdaining prospect that the true God might indeed be nothing like the god of their own definitions.
We grew up thinking that, with the proper education, we will have amassed theoretical knowledge in almost everything by the time we reach adulthood, and that we will know more in experience as we get older. But the only thing I came to know after all these years is that I don’t know anything at all. Absolutely nothing. With every candle added on top of that sugary icing or pastry, I just feel older, not much wiser.
Which is why I need Wisdom herself to be my teacher. And one of the things I now recognize that no one in this world—not the “powerful,” “knowledgeable,” “wise,” “lucky,” “moral,” or “rich”—is in control. Certainly not me.
Oh yes, we do have choice, which is a form of control. But all choices boil down to just a couple of things: One, we take everything into our own hands, thinking that we know what we need and want and the best way to get it; we decide to play god in our personal universe where every effort is spent imagining and conniving to make things orbit around us. Two, we recognize that we are not the main author of this story; we are not the artist of this piece called history; that we are deficient and fallible stewards; thus, we loosen our grip in faith, give the reins in trust to the only one who can handle it with grace and redemption, and open our arms in loving embrace to everyone and all of life.
Choosing, once and daily, to be the solution instead of the problem, to let love be the anchor of justice, to wrap mercy with the shroud of grace—are among the scariest yet most liberating things I’ve ever attempted. I am responsible for my decisions, but not accountable for other people’s choices or the consequences. I try not to play to anyone’s rules anymore. I discontinued making up my own rules to live by. Because there is only one able and rightful Ruler and I chose to let him be. He may be unpredictable, seemingly frustrating and elusive at times, but no one else is as good, as loving, or as promisingly satisfying as the one true God.
The Other Cheek
Not all are convinced that this is so and God is such a God.
For all we know, God is working on something else, something other than trying to become our pie-in-the-sky god. Just maybe he is up to a more mind-boggling, logic-defying miracle than we ever could have asked for or imagined. The God of the universe has meant to do a work in and through (but not for) us.^
I don’t think of myself as burdened with the proof of the truth, although it may feel that way sometimes. God is God and he can handle everything. I think the only way I can be part of how God “proves himself” is by truly loving him back with all of me, with all of my life.
And loving God back, as far as I’m able to comprehend, is why I am, as much as the love of God is who I am. What I mean is that my identity is intrinsically linked to God’s name as Love, and my reason for existing is closely connected to the rationale behind the relationship of God with every human being. The purpose in relating to others is learning to love them the way God does and to receive God-empowered love from them.
Nonetheless, loving God back can sometimes feel like provoking death. This comes from the fact that, from the human perspective, God is usually a most unconventional lover. Or it may be because we are not as good and passionate lovers as he is. After all, it was he who defined love and is the very definition of love. We, on the other hand, often can’t even begin to spell love, whether with our motives, deeds, or words.
This is mostly excruciating. Love is not a natural human reaction to someone who stands on our way, blocking our paths towards immediate gratification or earthly happiness. Many don’t acknowledge their anger or hatred for God out of pandering piety or rigorous religiosity. But real love is unflinchingly honest as true love is free from fear.
It often feels that instead of benefits raining down, there’s a downpour of disappointments, which does not attest well to the kind of love God has for us. Therefore, the calling to love God in all its nuances comes with the avocation for faithful obedience as we trust in his strong love and his perfect wisdom. Loving God also means practicing obedient faith, which is necessary for a thriving inner life because we humans tend to be limited by the concreteness of evidences to back up our beliefs and perceptions. Sometimes loving God feels like it requires turning the other cheek to Him, which at first seems absurd or paradoxical. But when given further thought, the One who sculpted those cheeks into my face can do anything with it as He pleases.
I have set out in this search to truly know about the one true God whom I chose to worship and serve. It may seem irreverent and cavalier, but beyond becoming a God-worshiper and God-server, I have turned into a God-wrestler. I flood him with tears. He showers me with grace. I shirk in fear because of my limited vision. He stretches my viewpoint’s horizons. I twist his arm for a name. He embraces me with arms of assurance. I shoot questions in doubt of his love. He unfailingly gives me endless second chances to accept his love as the best answer. On and on goes the long list of his gracious responses to my belligerent temerity and rebelliousness.
The Cost of Being Free
God’s love is strong. It transcends failures, mistakes, and flaws. I am deeply loved with this strong love. I knew it and therefore I know freedom. I am free.
On the other hand, any kind of knowing enslaves. Because you can no longer think, act, and feel in opposition to what you already know without some considerable nagging from the head or a tug from the heart. A respected author rightly declared that we are all slaves—slaves to instincts, desires, ideals, delusions, other people…It seems that we have limitless choices of gods and altars on which to offer our time, energy, money, attention…
But if love were among these choices, who would choose such exquisite pain? It appears that love is both an involuntary compulsion and a conscious decision. When I tried not to care, it doesn’t work any whit, like me trying to stop the sun from rising and setting. There are times when I feel free from the addictive grip of devotion and passion. But even just by doing the most mundane things—like watching little children play in a park, listening to a song, or riding a bus—can draw me back to the arms of love. And before I knew it, I’m back at it again. Because I’m too much of a fool not to. Some friends made the observation that I am capable of great courage. But really, I’m only one part brave and then three parts fool.
Pissing Off the Enemy
I always wanted to be a hero. From my early years, heroic tales and individuals—real or imagined—never failed to enthrall me. I relish the feeling and the thought of me playing a part every time good conquers evil. I crave real adventures. I want to give God the delight of pointing me out to His foe as someone who is always on the side of goodness and love, charity and justice, truth and peace; who is a true lover, friend and daughter.
I still want to be a hero. But what are the chances of being a David Livingstone, etc?. I’m painfully average and my life is almost ordinary. And in the ordinariness of many of my days, living can sometimes feel like I’m just cleaning up the mess I made, that I’m just trying to undo my past mistakes, wishing for a do-over to whitewash my regrets. Then at the end of the day, when it’s time to rest in the bed I made, I can’t sleep in it. With all my flaws and errors, I don’t see myself as deserving of a break to savor the fruits of my hardships.
I’m definitely one who is not content with just passing through. I’m more comfortable cutting others considerable slack while being hard on myself to toe the line and be on fire all the time. Yet with all these efforts, I still end up in dead-end roads and at the bottom of the morass. Many sincerely good people never reach their rainbow’s end; many deceitful and apathetic people continue to thrive well in their sprawling concrete cribs and Ducati wheels. I’m supposed to be in the middle of these two categories but it appears that what the “good” do not deserve and what the “bad” should get tend to befall me on a regular basis.
With all the glitches in my soul, there’s nil chance that I would rise to the rank of general in the war against evil abroad and within. It appears that the only way for a mere foot soldier like me to be a hero for love and goodness is to not let the tormenting, ironic adversities get to me. I saw how hopeful resilience (as opposed to apathetic jadedness) can be such a potent weapon in the invisible battlefields of the heart and the cosmos. So I will continue to suck it in, “raw deals” and all, and even relish the fact that, with the right kind of hope and long-suffering, I could be pissing off the enemy and gaining heart and soul ground for the coming kingdom.
The Only Fuel
I am typing these words and they are pointing at me with a hypocritical finger.
Now and then, on those frustrating days, it crosses my mind to “teach” others a lesson, get even, or drag them with me on my way down to the gory mire of revenge and hatred. I pretend that the justice I mete out will be more fulfilling because it is more tangible and swifter than the excruciating process that ensues out of the decision to turn the other cheek out of “bold love”. We think we will like things better in our own terms.
In time and by degrees, I came to own the fact that I am not here or out there to prove myself right or to prove others wrong. My existence ceased to be about me as I see it. I try to be energized by no other fuel apart from love; I join no other movement besides charity. Because ultimately, there is nothing to prove. There’s only the truth of lasting love to rest on.
My eyes may now be a tiny bit jaded, my pace slightly dragging, my soul scarred. But more than ever, my heart is dared to move by love and in love. I have become more willing to live even after what seems like a thousand deaths; I have become more welcoming of death that I may live tomorrow and see the day that will wipe out the remembrance of every sorrowful tear and lament.
I wait.
“I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the LORD. Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.” – Hosea 2:14-15
∞ 15 March 2009
* Walter Brueggemann (2003) in his book of prayers, Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth.
^adapted from author, Bible teacher and musician Michael Card’s article, God’s Disturbing Faithfulness (2005)
