Aug 24, 2012 | Life Reflections
…is the view I get when I head home from campus. I have come to associate it with the peace of homecoming, the quietness of a day’s end, and the coming rest. It is especially precious on Fridays. On this particular Friday, this certain poem seems to match the mood of my day, my week.
Intimate Hymn
From word to word I roam, from dawn to dusk.
Dream in, dream out — I pass myself and towns,
A human satellite.
I wait, am hopeful, as one who waits at the rock
For the spring to well forth and ever well on.
I feel as bright as if I tented somewhere in the Milky Way.
To urge the world to feel I walk through lonesome solitudes.
All around me lightning explodes sparks from my glance
To reveal all light, unveil faces everywhere.
Godward, onward to the final weighing
overcoming heavy weight with thirst.
Constantly, the longings of all born call out, “Is anyone around?”
I know each one is HE, but in my heart there writhes a tear;
When of men and rocks and trees I hear;
All plead “Feel us”
All beg “See us”
God! Lend me your eyes!
I came to be, to sow the seed of sight in the world,
To unmask the God who disguised Himself as world–
And yes, I wait to be the first to announce “The Dawn.”
– from “Human, God’s Ineffable Name,” by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Happy Sabbath.
Jul 22, 2012 | Faith, Reading Life
The Story of Complex People: Part III. Read Part I and Part II.
(cont’d)
A human being is in a very questionable position to judge another’s motives. After all is said and done, at the end of our lives, we only have our own complexity to understand, and perhaps not even that. But there is a set of biographies, as I am persuaded, that tell the most honest truth about humanity.
When it comes to exposing hidden motives, divulging the inner heroes and villains in one person, and telling the full truth about human beings, Bible biographies stand in a completely distinct genre compared to human biographies. The way it treats its heroes and villains are at times unpredictable, since heroes sometimes become villains, and villains heroes. Some of the most horrendous things recorded in the book are committed by its supposed heroes and heroines.
For example, take a look at this list: “Noah, the survivor of the flood, got drunk and exposed his nakedness; Abraham, the friend of God, lied and doubted God; Lot, the hero of the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, got drunk and had an incestuous relationship with his daughters; Miriam, the beautiful singer and prophetess of Israel, had a racial and jealousy problem and was struck with leprosy; Rahab, the woman of faith and the ancestor of Jesus Christ, had been a prostitute; David, a man after God’s own heart, was guilty of adultery and murder; Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, lived the life of a fool…”[1]
I quote Heschel a lot, and I’m going to do it again, “The Bible is not man’s theology but God’s anthropology.”[2] It depicts a view from someone who can see all humanity to the deepest core of the heart.
Human biographies typically enhance the social standing and reputation of notable men and women. Naturally, aspects that would mar this image are prudently tucked away or limited to a handful of cases just to make the said person relatable and human enough. “This is the way men write history; but when the Lord undertakes to tell His story of a sinful man, He does not select a poor miserable beggar, and show him up; He does not give even the name of the thief on the cross… but He takes King David from the throne, and sets him down in sackcloth and ashes, and wrings from his heart the cry, ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving-kindness…’ And then when he is pardoned, forgiven, cleansed, and made whiter than snow, the pen of inspiration writes down the whole dark, damning record of his crimes, and the king on his throne has not power, nor wealth, nor influence enough to blot the page; and it goes into history for infidels to scoff at for three thousand years. Who wrote that?”[3]
I had a college professor who once said, If the Bible is such a moral book, why does it have horrible stories like Lot’s incestuous relationships, rapes within a family, etc?
I would submit that the reason why the Bible has these grotesque stories is precisely because it tells the truth about humanity. It doesn’t cower from exposing the great evil a human being can do towards his neighbor. History of wars, ethnic conflicts, and slavery can attest to the unimaginable evil people can do in unusual times. And most of these people are, at some point, regular people, like you and me. The Bible is not a collection of fairy tales; it tells the stories of real people, with real conflicting motives and inner turmoils.
“You find a man who will tell the truth about kings, warriors, princes, and rulers today, and you may be quite sure that he has within him the power of the Holy Ghost. And a book which tells the faults of those who wrote it, and which tells you that ‘there is none righteous, no, not one,’ bears in it the marks of a true book; for we all know that men have faults, and failings, and sins; and among all the men whose lives are recorded in that book, each man has some defect, some blot, except one, and that is ‘the man Christ Jesus.’”[4]
[1] Samuel Koranteng-Pipim. Receiving the Word. Berean Books, 1996. p. 53.
[2] Abraham Joshua Heschel. Man is Not Alone. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1976. p. 129.
[3] Horace Lorenzo Hastings. Will the Old Book Stand? Review and Herald. 1923. p. 17-18.
Jul 7, 2012 | Faith
It has been said of former President Bill Clinton that one of his marked qualities as a leader is the ability to give full and undivided attention to each conversation partner, and make each person feels like he is 100% interested in what they are saying.[1] It doesn’t matter whether the person is a high-ranking official or an elementary school kid, their words will fall on listening ears. Albert Einstein once said, “I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.”
I highly admire individuals who are “no respecters of persons,” individuals who are at ease in traversing many social strata, particularly the social divisions defined by economic status. They are boundary-crossers, cruising across each layer of society as if there were no dividers. They can treat human beings as human beings and look at each person in the eye with dignity and respect. These are such admirable qualities that I aspire to genuinely and thoroughly have one day.
Exhibit A of these fascinating people is Jesus and His life as recorded in the Gospel accounts. Born, raised, and lived in poverty, His manners were courteous and warm to everyone. The poor loved Him, the rich welcomed Him in their houses and loved His company. He was generous, yet not too proud to not receive what others bestowed upon Him. He blessed humanity by giving precious, unpurchasable gifts, as well as giving people opportunities to bless Him and give Him gifts.
This is Jesus Christ, in whom dwells all the fullness of God, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. But “though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)
I cannot express in words my high level of fascination with this man. He moved from the upper crust of society, through the human strudel, to the bottom layer as one who was free. There was no human prejudice that constrained His behavior. His mind was far from self consciousness that often plagues us so in our social interactions, fixated on something altogether more unvain and transcendent, the salvation of the world, the rescuing of humanity from the bondage of sin, guilt, and shame.
The problem or tension between “us” and “them” exists in each of us in many different forms. We are prejudiced against each other, the rich against the poor, the poor against the rich. What would it take to break down these manufactured walls in our minds?
Love your neighbor as yourself. What a simple, yet radical concept. The one who loves most is the one most free from human prejudice.
“…if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre.
