Friends in Conversation - A Quiet Revolution of Hope

Brian McLaren in Malaysia! That must have been the main draw for me. But I was looking forward to listening to what the conversation partners, comprising of some of the top Christian minds in Malaysia, had to say too. It’s exciting to think about what such a conversation can lead to, and I hope that this event will launch the Malaysian church into new adventures with God in the years to come!

I need to get the DVD to listen to the session recordings again though. There were just too many thoughts and words flying all around the sanctuary in CLGC. Some of them really got me thinking hard. But I’ll need to listen carefully and prayerfully at least one more time to be able to digest them. I have to acknowledge that I learned more from the local partners in conversation, with the likes of Sherman Kuek, Dr. Ng Kam Weng, Tan Soo In, Dr. Voon, Rev. Fr. Dr. Jojo Fung, Dr. Herman Shastri, and Elder Tan Kong Beng among them, more than Brian McLaren himself. I guess it’s all down to the fact that I’ve already read quite a number of his books, and most of what he said was already quite familiar to me. Maybe I’ll write more about the contents of the conversation another time, at least after a second listening when I get the DVD.

I believe that this conversation has impacted me in many ways. And it’s not just about the things that were said during the event. Firstly, I have to admit that in listening to Brian and the conversation partners, as well as in mixing with many of the other participants in the conversation, I have been taught a great deal of humility. There is just so much more that I do not know; so much more that I have not experienced or even begun to put into practice in my own life. And there are so many people from whom I need to learn and follow even as they follow Christ.

It was through this conversation also, that my own faith was affirmed. After struggling with it for quite awhile, listening and engaging with people who think mostly (not entirely!) alike in terms of how we understand the gospel and what it means to follow Christ has given me the encouragement that I need to carry on. Maybe I’m not going down the wrong road after all. Maybe I’m not that heretical! Yes, I realize how much I need a community that can affirm my faith in this particular way. Maybe I should participate in more of these conversations with brothers and sisters from Emergent Malaysia. It will also help me to sharpen my own understanding and correct any maverick ideas that I may have!

Through the worship sessions, the songs that we sang inspired me to continue my own journey in carrying the cross daily and following Christ wherever He may lead me. It is time to live out the gospel of love, redemption, reconciliation and justice – the kingdom of God – in the context of my workplace in MMU. Praxis calls…

Of all the experiences during the conversation, the one that has left the deepest mark on me came at the closing of the event. All the participants stood in a large circle in the sanctuary. A huge candle was lit and passed around. And we shared a meal of bread together, just as how Jesus shared a special meal with His disciples on that fateful night before He was arrested. What made the experience so unforgettable? Why did it leave such an indelible mark on me? The session was led by Rev. Father Jojo Fung, a Roman Catholic priest. Every time I think about it, that same sense of awe that I had then returns to amaze me. In that short moment, it felt as if the body of Christ was one and undivided. It gave me hope for the Church in Malaysia and in the world.

Watchman, What of the Night?

There is this very interesting passage in Isaiah that caught my attention the first time I came across it last year. In chapter 21, Isaiah, on behalf of YHWH pronounces oracles of judgment against Babylon, and then Edom. In the oracle concerning Edom, there is this imagined conversation between a tower watchman and an inquirer:

He calls to me out of Seir,
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”

The watchman said,
“The morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
Return! Come back!”

The picture is of someone calling out to a night watchman, asking for the time. Is the night coming to an end soon? Is the day coming? This picture becomes a metaphor for the darkness that will befall Edom. People will be asking when the night will end. Will the day come soon? Will the darkness pass? The watchman replies that the day will come. But night also. ‘Come back and ask me another time!’ he says. Although this passage originally concerns Edom, I believe it applies as much to Israel in exile, crying out for the dawn of YHWH’s kingdom and homecoming. It applies as much to anyone who may be living in darkness, searching the horizon for the first signs of daybreak.

What about us Christians? We observe that the world is in tatters. It would seem that we are still living in darkness and that we should be asking the same question: Watchman, what of the night? Yet, we believe that on that first Easter morning, dawn has broken into the world. New creation has begun. We live in the age of Advent, as we await the coming of Christ. The first Christians were on watch. But they were watching for something else. They had witnessed the dawn. They were waiting for the full light of day. Saint Paul proclaims in Romans 13:12 – the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. Jurgen Moltmann notes this from early drawings of praying Christians:

The early Christians prayed standing, looking up, with arms outstretched and eyes wide open, ready to walk or to leap forward. Their posture reflects tense expectation, not quiet heart-searching. It says: we are living in God’s Advent. We are on the watch, in expectation of the One who is coming, and with tense attentiveness we are going to meet the coming God.

It is quite interesting that nowadays, we pray with our eyes closed. We want to shut the world out so that we can search our souls, and focus on the Lord. There is a time for contemplative and mystical prayer as we seek to draw near to God in the present. But there is also a time for us to pray messianically as we wait expectantly for Christ to come from the future to meet us. We watch and pray with our eyes open as we watch for the Advent. We also pray with our eyes open to witness the world groaning in pain, as we cry for God’s kingdom to come. We now play the role of the watchman. As the world cries out ‘What of the night?’, we who have glimpsed the light of day answer, ‘the day is at hand.’

In prayer we wake up to the world as it is spread out before God in all its heights and depths. We perceive the sighing of creation, and hear the cries of the created victims that have fallen dumb. We also hear the song of praise of the blossoming spring, and feel the divine love for everything that lives. The person who prays, lives more attentively. Pray wakefully – that is only possible if we don’t pray mystically with closed eyes, but messianically, with eyes wide open for God’s future in the world. ~ Jurgen Moltmann, In the End – The Beginning

Science and Theology

Science does not have a privileged route of access to knowledge through some superior ‘scientific method’, uniquely its own possession; theology does not have a privileged route of access to knowledge through some ineffable source of unquestionable ‘revelation’, uniquely its own possession. Both are trying to grasp the significance of their encounters with manifold reality. In the case of science, the dimension of reality concerned is that of a physical world that we transcend and that can be put to the experimental test. In the case of theology, it is the reality of God who transcends us and who can be met with only in awe and obedience. ~ Sir John Polkinghorne

Drinking the Cup and Thoughts on Vocation

My parents and my brother have come and gone during the long weekend that became too short. Now that I am all alone here, I find myself in melancholy mood again. I miss my family. I miss the past. I miss home… wherever that is. I’ve been thinking the whole night. I’ve been thinking about my relationships with people, and I feel guilty about all the times that I have been so selfish. I’ve been thinking about Penang and Jelutong Methodist Church. I wonder if I will have the chance to go back and stay there for awhile, to be with my family and to serve in the church that I grew up in. I wonder if there is anything that I can give in return to the community that brought me up as a child. I’ve been thinking about my mom and dad, who will be retiring in a few years’ time. I wonder if they are happy with their life right now. I wonder if they have joy and a purpose in life. I wonder if they will be happier if I moved back to Penang. I’ve been thinking about my own life. I wonder where the road will lead me. I think I need change. I need a fresh start, or else I’m going to rot here in my laziness and complacency. What is my vocation? What have I been called to? I’ve been thinking about God. And as I did so, I broke out in song as I drove from Kota Kemuning to Sri Kembangan. I believe I need a fresh injection of discipline in my relating to Him.

Some thoughts from Henri Nouwen to digest while I continue to reflect about my own calling and my vocation:

Jesus drank the cup of His life. He experienced praise, adulation, admiration and immense popularity. He also experienced rejection, ridicule, and mass hatred. At one moment people shouted “Hosanna”; a moment later they cried, “Crucify him”. Jesus took it all in, not as a hero adored and then vilified, but as the one who had come to fulfill a mission and who kept his focus on that mission whatever the responses were.

Busyness has become a sign of importance. Having much to do, many places to go, and countless people to meet gives us status and even fame. However, being busy can lead us away from our true vocation and prevent us from drinking our cup.

It is not easy to distinguish between doing what we are called to do and doing what we want to do. Our many wants can easily distract us from our true action. True action leads us to the fulfillment of our vocation. Whether we work in an office, travel the world, write books or make films, care for the poor, offer leadership, or fulfill unspectacular tasks, the question is not “What do I most want?” but “What is my vocation?” The most prestigious position in society can be an expression of obedience to our call as well as a sign of our refusal to hear that call, and the least prestigious position, too, can be a response to our vocation as well as a way to avoid it.

Drinking our cup involves carefully choosing those actions which lead us closer to complete emptying of it, so that at the end of our lives we can say with Jesus, “It is fulfilled”.

Is There Room?

No room at the inn that night. May our hearts have room for Him this Christmas.

I sent this message out to some of my friends last night. This is the question asked of me this season: Do I have room for Jesus this Christmas?

Joy to the world, the Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and nature sing

After singing this carol for years and years, its meaning dawned on me this year, and it captured me.

Lifting the Cup - A Toast to Life!

I lift up the cup of my life for all to see…

Cheers everyone! A toast to life!

I celebrate my life… I celebrate 2006… with all of you – all you who made a difference, all you who inspired me, all you who loved me, all you who cared for me, all you who thought about me, all you who prayed for me, all you who were there for me, all you who chose to give, and all you who allowed me to give what little I had to you in return. I acknowledge with much gratitude that even though this is my life, it is the fruit of the hard work of many people like you. Indeed, the year 2006 is worth celebrating, worth remembering, more so because of you…

I lift up the cup of my life for all to see…

I lift it up in celebration…
I lift it up in gratitude…
I lift it up as an invitation for you to join me in lifting your cups, as we share and affirm our lives together in community. To life!

I lift my cup to You, Heavenly Father, in awesome wonder, in thanksgiving, in love and in humble submission.

Holding the Cup of the Past Year

I hold the cup of my life in both hands and I look into it, wondering what I will find in there. Looking back at 2006, I see a year filled with fear and anguish. I see my own journey through depression, slowly clawing out of the darkness, hoping to see the light of day. I see the false dawns teasing me with glimpses of light, but it is a light that cannot be reached. And then I tumble again into the night. Yet, even in the darkness, I see pockets of grace and joy. I see memorable moments spent with friends and family. Fraser’s Hill, Bukit Tinggi, Palau Payar, a spa experience on my birthday, even a family retreat! I see God’s grace in the beauty that He showed me in creation. Like songs breaking out in the stillness of the night, they helped me hang on. Most of all, they gave me hope. And slowly but surely, I see myself emerging from the shadows inside a pupa, out into the daylight again, changed and as unrecognizable as a butterfly is from a caterpillar. I am transformed, but a butterfly is not necessarily more beautiful than a caterpillar. From a distance, a butterfly flapping its wings in the sunlight looks gorgeous. But up close, one can see its horrifying ugliness, still a bug with a million eyes.

I see my own transformation as part and parcel of my own growth as a follower of Christ. My theologies, ideologies and faith bear not much resemblance to what they were before. It has been a lonely and a painful process, some of them self-inflicted. There were times when I wondered if I should have remained a caterpillar. I wondered if I should go back. And I still do wonder. I do feel once in a while the wonderful exhilaration of being a butterfly, and then suddenly I catch a glimpse of the ugliness within – the arrogance, the pride, the anger – and I would wonder where they’d come from; the erosion of love, joy, even faith – and I’d wonder where they’d gone.

As the wings on my back dried up and hardened in the sun, the wind of the Lord lifted me off my perch to explore this beautiful world in a fresh perspective. Near the end of 2006, even as I was being dragged out of the darkness, the Lord was already bringing me places strange and new. Preaching training? Bible study retreats? Every experience was an adventure filled with surprises, and it culminated with an unforgettable sojourn in Sarawak. I gaze at the last few months of the year and I see that the hand of God continues to shape and prune in the midst of the excitement. There are still dark corners hiding in every part of my life, remnants of the dark night of my soul. There are yet journeys to be made – among them journeys from pride to humility, from confusion to mystery, and from fear to acceptance.

And out of the year that was, I hear a voice. This voice calls me by a new name. This voice calls me to leave the oppressive comfort and security of Babylon to follow Christ with reckless abandon. This voice reminds me to trust YHWH, who led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert into the Promised Land; who caused water to flow out of the rocks for them. Isaiah 48 still murmurs in my heart. What this Babylon is, and where He wants me to go, I still do not know. But I have a feeling that I may not be pleased with the answer.

This is my life. This is 2006 for me. It is filled with both sorrow and joy. “Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?” Jesus asked James and John. The cup that Jesus drank too was filled with sorrow and joy. Like Henri Nouwen says, before we can even begin drinking from the cup, we must first hold it. And to hold it means to know what is inside. Looking back at my own life, am I able to not just hold the cup of my life, but to embrace it in all its ugliness, pain and agony? Will I be able to accept it as the cup from which I have been called to drink, one that is different from everyone else’s, but yet connected to theirs in its similarity to the cup of the Lord, in that it is a cup that contains both grief and glory?

Just as there are countless varieties of wine, there are countless varieties of lives. No two lives are the same. We often compare our lives with those of others, trying to decide whether we are better or worse off, but such comparisons do not help us much. We have to live our life, not someone else’s. We have to hold our own cup. We have to dare to say, “This is my life, the life that is given to me, and it is this life that I have to live, as well as I can. Nobody else will ever live it. I have my own history, my own family, my own body, my own character, my own friends, my own way of thinking, speaking and acting – yes, I have my own life to live. No one else has the same challenge. I am alone, because I am unique. Many people can help me to live my life, but after all is said and done, I have to make my own choices about how to live. ~ Henri Nouwen, Can You Drink the Cup?

A Reflective Christmas

We are six days away from Christmas. And I would like this Christmas to be a reflective one. As Henri Nouwen writes in his book, “Just living life is not enough. We must know what we are living. A life that is not reflected upon is not worth living. It belongs to the essence of being human that we contemplate our life, think about it, discuss it, evaluate it, and form opinions about it. Half of living is reflecting on what is being lived. Is it worth it? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it old? Is it new? What is it all about?”

This Christmas, and leading up to the new year, I hope to be able to reflect upon the past year. I hope I can find enough time to even read all my diary entries in the last year to gaze upon the roads that I have traveled. I hope that I can be honest with myself and look at my own life critically. And Nouwen is right to say this, that it “requires great courage, because when we start looking, we might be terrified by what we see”. I also hope that by looking back, I may be able to find some of the answers that I have been seeking for some of my questions. Have I made a wrong turn somewhere with regards to my faith? And what is that sacred task that I have been called to fulfill? I would like to contemplate all these together with a careful and reflective reading of “Can You Drink the Cup?” And I believe that I can say with quite an amount of certainty now, that this is what I want for Christmas this year. I wonder if I can go out and get myself a nice looking chalice for my personal reflections! :)

Endless Forms so Beautiful and most Wonderful

Many scientists have found it necessary to speak or write about God, regardless of the views that they hold, be it theistic, agnostic or atheistic. Atheists like popular science writer and prominent zoologist Richard Dawkins are certain that evolutionary biology demonstrates the non-existence of God. Listed as one of the top intellectuals of the world, the ideas of this Oxford professor and writer of many popular books such as ‘The Selfish Gene’ and ‘The Blind Watchmaker’ are sure to carry much weight in the minds of the general public.

So here we have two Christian scientists attempting to write about God and science, with particular emphasis given to their respective fields of expertise. Owen Gingerich, Research Professor of Astronomy and Science History at Harvard University, and author of many books on astronomy as well, comes up with a little book called ‘God’s Universe’. Kenneth Miller, a cell biologist at Brown University, author of many Biology textbooks and well known Biology lecturer, writes about God and evolution in ‘Finding Darwin’s God: A Scientist’s Search for Common Ground between God and Evolution’. The fact that both authors feel the need to speak about the other person’s field shows the interconnectedness of the different scientific fields. Indeed, it is in these fields of cosmology/astronomy/quantum mechanics and biochemistry/evolutionary biology that the discussion of God often enters the fray.

Gingerich draws upon the fine-tuning of the cosmological constants necessary for the forming of life as evidence for the possibility of a Creator. Nothing really new, but I am impressed by the way he reconciles both science and religion, both as separate spheres of knowledge defined by Aristotelian divisions of efficient causes and final causes in explaining phenomena.

There are multiple levels of explanation for any phenomenon. God’s role as Sustainer can be described in Aristotelian terms as a final cause, the ultimate teleological reason something happens. Today, scientists play by the rules of a game of coherence, putting together an integrated picture of how things work, without recourse to the miraculous or to ultimate reasons. Essentially, scientists’ quests take place in the realm of efficient causes, thus, much as I might believe that the universe is best understood in terms of intelligent design, I don’t think that would get a spacecraft to Mars or explain how the laser in the grocery store checkout line works. With regard to final causes, intelligent design make a good case for a coherent understanding the cosmos. But they fall short in supplying any mechanisms to serve as the efficient causes. As a philosophical idea, intelligent design is interesting, but it does not replace the scientific explanations that evolution offers. ~ Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe

Religion and philosophy seek to answer the ‘whys’. Science seeks answers for the ‘hows’. He is also quick to criticize those who elevate the theory of evolution into the sphere of final causes, as if it could tell us why we are here, when such views only reflect the proponent’s own metaphysical stance. Kenneth Miller takes the same stance:

Materialist science, even in principle, cannot tell us why the universe of matter is structured in a way that prevents us from understanding it fully. Or why nature forever entangles the observer with the system we seek to understand. Or why we should concern ourselves with seeking the answers to such questions. The ultimate physics of nature did not complete a chain of cause and effect. It left an open window on events, a break in causality that is significant not because science cannot master a few tiny details of the physical universe – but because it cannot even address the question of why nature should be constructed along such elusive lines. Absolute materialism does not triumph because it cannot fully explain the nature of reality. The tools of science itself have discovered that scientific materialism has a curious, inherent limitation. And we are certainly left to wonder what to make of that. It could be just a puzzling, curious fact about the nature of the universe. Or it could be the clue that allows us to bind everything, including evolution, into a worldview in which science and religion are partners, not rivals, in extending human understanding a step beyond the bounds of mere materialism. ~ Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin’s God

I found both books to be very enlightening and refreshing on different matters; Gingerich’s on the multiple levels of explaining phenomena; Miller’s on the beauty of natural selection and evolution. The only other books that I have read on evolution are from the ‘young-earth creationist’ viewpoints, which I now agree is seriously flawed.

We already know that we live in a world of natural causes, explicable by the workings of natural law. All that evolution does is to extend the workings of these natural laws to the novelty of life and to its changes over time. A God who presides over an evolutionary process is not an impotent, passive observer. Rather, He is one whose genius fashioned a fruitful world in which the process of continuing creation is woven into the fabric of matter itself. He retains the freedom to act, to reveal Himself to His creatures, to inspire, and to teach. He is the master of chance and time, whose actions, both powerful and subtle, respect the independence of His creation and give human beings the genuine freedom to accept or to reject His love. ~ Kenneth Miller, Finding Darwin’s God

Purpose rather than design, intention but not a universe worked out in exquisite detail from a celestial blueprint. A world ordered to God’s purposes could be achieved in any number of ways, not merely through a preordained design. Surely the existence of fossils of extinct creatures shows not a universe laid out according to a plan for instant perfection, but a universe that makes itself. This recognition suggests that in some fashion the powerful transcendence that brought the universe into being, and which sustains it, has self-imposed limitations. ~ Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe

I will never look at the world around us in the same way again. When I walked out of the house on Monday evening, and looked up at the sky covered with gray clouds, I could sense that the world has become a much more beautiful place to me. Can reading a few books do that to you? After a long sojourn in theology and biblical studies (having read quite a large amount of related material), I find my love for science and the quest to understand the natural world springing to life again! My childhood fascination with dinosaurs and the living world, as well as my later passion for astronomy and cosmology have now been reignited. Maybe its time to pull out Hawking from my bookshelves again! It’s quite interesting to note that Gingerich and Miller both quote the closing of Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ in their books.

Clearly, we live in a universe with a history, a very long history, and things are being worked out over unimaginably long ages. We live in an incredibly vast cosmos, something that goes hand in hand with a long history. Stars and galaxies have formed, and elements come forth from the great stellar cauldrons. Like the little bear’s porridge, the elements are just right, the environment is fit for life, and slowly life forms have populated the earth. As Darwin wrote at the end of On the Origin of Species, “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms so beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” ~ Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe

The Pope in Turkey

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I

Pope Benedict XVI

I’ve been following the Pope’s controversial yet ground-breaking visit to Turkey in the local news for the past few days. There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Pope Benedict’s first visit to a Muslim country ever since his words caused a major stir among Muslims all over the world. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, the current pontiff visited a Mosque in a gesture of goodwill to the Muslims. And according to the media, he spent a few minutes praying alongside senior Muslim clerics in Turkey. Despite all the protests and anger aimed toward him and his visit by many parties, I must say that I really respect him for the unwavering courage that he showed. And I am really proud of what the Pope did and said in his efforts to bring about much needed reconciliation between the Muslims and the Christians. It must be really tough to be performing this great balancing act where one needs to be so very careful in whatever one says and does or risks offending certain groups of people on either side. I have been wondering if Pope Benedict would be able to live up to the standards set by his great predecessor, and I was quite disappointed when some of his remarks led to Muslim anger all over the world (even though his words were taken way out of context by the media). But since then, I can say that I am impressed and am thankful for him!

Not only that, but Pope Benedict is carrying on the work of his predecessor in reaching out to the Eastern Orthodox Church. His landmark meeting with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, the leader of the Orthodox Christians, gave us a glimpse of the power and beauty of Christian unity. I like what Pope Benedict said during that meeting – The divisions which exist among Christians are a scandal to the world. Indeed. Even though disunity among Christians has caused much pain in the Church itself, such disunity is not only a bane to the Christian community, but to the world at large as well. Because if we Christians have been called to be the salt and the light of the world, so that through us the world will be blessed, then disunity points to a very big failure on our part to live up to that calling as God’s people for the world. And the world suffers as a result of that failure. I really hope that through the current leaders of the Church, God will bring together again what the Fourth Crusade tore apart, leading to the great schism between the Western and the Eastern Church. And I pray that one day, God will also heal the deep wounds caused by the Reformation that led to even more pain and division in the Western Church. Kyrie Elyson… Lord have mercy…