Waving or Drowning?

A Couple of China Links...

2012-01-24T19:35:40-08:00

...For those who are interested.

The Chun Yun Run. The lines at all the ticket offices have been crazy for the past couple weeks, and now Xiamen is a bit of a ghost town.

Chun Yun is the world’s largest regular migration of people. It occurs every year around the Chinese New Year or Spring Festival holiday. Chun Yun can be translated as “Spring Festival Rush” or “Spring Festival Migration”.

Photos: Rining in The Year of The Dragon. Some cool shots from the Wall Street Journal.

Chinese Professor: Hong Kong Residents Are Dogs and Thieves. This guy sounds like a bit of a nut, but if you read through the article the discussion about tensions between Hong Kong people and Mainland Chinese is pretty interesting. I've had limited experience so far, but the distinctions are very real.

A bief video introduction to China. Some of you have seen this already. 10 minutes long, with great graphics. I learned a lot from this... fascinating place.

Babble On

2012-01-21T01:10:36-08:00

This is something of a random post as far as the blog goes, but it's where I'm at these days, both figuratively and literally.

I had a strange thought about language and communication this week. I think it was because I was in Hong Kong on Wednesday, where I heard more English spoken than I've heard in a while. Here's what I thought about on the flight back to Xiamen.

Since stepping off the aircraft in China on December 2, I figure I've probably understood about 5% of the talking around me. Of course I'm not just speaking of conversations I've been involved in. There's also chatter on the bus, on the street, and on the radio in taxis.

On one hand, I'm trying to pick up a bit of the language, so I'm listening for words that I can identify, and also trying to pick up pronunciation and tone, which is absolutely critical for Mandarin. On the other hand, because I don't really understand what's being said, it becomes a kind of background noise, and I find I tune it out.

If it was English, I would understamd what I overheard, even if I wasn't listening. Here I'm listening but not understanding. I wonder of this is having an impact on my listening skills. Am I really concentrating, which might make me a better listener, or am I getting lazy, and losing some of my listening ability?

Anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

Abyss and Ground

2012-01-11T17:32:03-08:00

I posted this one on my Tumbler yesterday, but it's too good for you non-Tumblers to miss.

DNA is divine. The divine indwelling is never earned by any behavior whatsoever or any ritual, but only recognized and realized (Romans 11:6, Ephesians 2:8-10), and fallen in love with. When you are ready, you will be both underwhelmed and overwhelmed at the boundless mystery of your own humanity. You will know you are standing under the same waterfall of mercy as everybody else and receiving an undeserved radical grace, which waters the “roots” of everything.

Without that underlying experience of God as both abyss and ground, it is almost impossible to live in the now, in the fullness of who I am, warts and all, and almost impossible to experience the Presence that, paradoxically, both fills the abyss and shakes the ground.

Richard Rohr, Adapted from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See , p. 22

The agonizing simplicity/brilliant complexity of this truth knocked me off my feet yesterday. My hope for you is that it has a similar impact.

Faith in the Middle Kingdom

2012-01-07T17:33:14-08:00

I'm not dumb enough to try and write anything of substance on faith in China yet. The reality is I haven't been here long enough to get much of an understanding of the intricacies of the subject. I do, however, already have a sense that as a western Christian (I'll use that term for the sake of argument, but many of you know that I'm holding my nose as I type it) whatever I thought I knew about the subject was, at best, a very simplistic view of a complex subject, and at worst, completely wrong.

Here's a link to a very brief piece to get those of you interested thinking on the subject.

No room for faith for all party members

...follows reports that suggest that a growing number of party members are turning to religion. Analysts said that while religious beliefs of all faiths were on the rise, the officially atheist communist government was wary about religious groups becoming popular and getting beyond its control.

Within the party, some members were getting caught up in the religious revival and had been violating party rules by becoming active religious believers, Zhu said.

I'mnot completely naive. Here's another article for your consideration:

Beijing Christians Detained

Beijing police on Sunday detained at least a dozen worshippers from a Christian house church who were trying to hold services in a public space after they were evicted from their usual place of worship.

Let's be clear: There is not religious freedom here. However in reading between the lines in this last piece many will see that there is more going on here than we may have previously believed.

That's it for now... just planting a seed for possible further conversation.

(Images from Christmas Eve Mass - Xiamen, China on Flickr)

A New Year

2012-01-03T02:36:00-08:00

I've said in this space before that more and more I'm learning to appreciate what Richard Rohr has to say about Great Joy and Great Suffering. Specifically that I'm coming to appreciate them both equally, and that I no longer see the need to differentiate between them. At least on a good day.

Here's the next step. Something for us as we venture forth into 2012, desiring to be more of Who We Really Are:

RESOLVE TO LIVE A LIFE OF GREAT LOVE

We must learn to be able to think and behave like Jesus, who is the archetypal human. This becomes the journey of great love and great suffering. This journey leads us to a universal love where we just don’t love those who love us. We must learn to participate in a larger love—divine love.

If we remain autonomous, independent, self-sufficient, we cannot know God nor can we love God. St. John of the Cross says: “God refuses to be known; God can only be loved.”

Any journey of great love or great suffering make us go deeper into our faith and eventually into what can only be called universal truth. Love and suffering are finally the same, because those who love deeply are committing themselves to eventual suffering. Those who suffer often become the greatest lovers.

Richard Rohr - Adapted from Experiencing the Naked Now webcast

This gives me the shivers.

The Christmas Song

2011-12-23T18:45:23-08:00

Admittedly this is the strangest Christmas of my life, but not in a bad way. In all the 'different-ness' of it I almost forgot about my traditional Christmas post. Here it is, for your enjoyment and reflection.

Merry Christmas to all from China.

The Christmas Song
Dave Matthews Band

She was his girl; he was her boyfriend
She'd be his wife and make him her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling dribbling baby boy
The wise men came, three made their way
To shower him with love
While he lay in the hay
Shower him with love love love
Love love love
Love love was all around

Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
Always out on his own
He met another Mary who for a reasonable fee,
less than reputable was known to be.

His heart full of love love love
Love love love
Love love was all around

When Jesus Christ was nailed to his tree
Said "oh, Daddy-o, I can see how it all soon will be
I came to shed a little light on this darkening scene
Instead I fear I've spilled the blood of our children all around"

The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children's all around

So I'm told, so the story goes
The people he knew were
Less than golden hearted
Gamblers and Robbers
Drinkers and Jokers, also searchers
Like you and me
Like you and me

Rumors insisted he soon would be
For his deviations
Taken into custody
By the authorities less informed than he.
Drinkers and Jokers, also searchers
Searching for love love love
Love love love
Love love was all around

Preparations were made
For his celebration day
He said "eat this bread and think of it as me
Drink this wine and dream it will be
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children's all around
The blood of our children all around

Father up above, why in all this anger do you fill
Me up with love, love, love
Love love love
Love love was all around
Father up above, why in all this hatred do you fill
Me up with love, fill me love love love
Love love love
all you need is love love love
you can't buy me love love love
And the blood of our children's all around
And the blood of our children's all around

Discomfort

2011-12-22T13:52:32-08:00

(From the Irony file: I'm posting this after being up half the night. Apparently you can still have jet lag after 3 weeks.)

I liked what Michael Hyatt had to say a few days ago about discomfort. You can read the whole post, but here are his main points:

Comfort is overrated. It doesn’t lead to happiness. It makes us lazy—and forgetful. It often leads to self-absorption, boredom, and discontent.
Discomfort is a catalyst for growth. It makes us yearn for something more. It forces us to change, stretch, and adapt.
Discomfort is a sign we’re making progress. You’ve heard the expression, “no pain, no gain.” It’s true! When you push yourself to grow, you will experience discomfort.

In my usual way I would probably have used stronger language for the above, but I agree with what he's said. I'm not all that concerned with discomfort quite frankly, but these points also apply to pain and sorrow.

Set Fire To The Rain

2011-12-16T17:01:43-08:00

Great song, great arrangement, great performance, great production.

I like it. Can you tell?

The Man With the Future in His Eyes

2011-12-07T17:12:48-08:00

I've always been a John Cusack fan, but this just seals the deal:

Vanity Fair: Who are your heroes in real life?

John Cusack: Let’s go with Jesus. Not the gay-hating, war-making political tool of the right, but the outcast, subversive, supreme adept who preferred the freaks and lepers and despised and doomed to the rich and powerful. The man Garry Wills describes “with the future in his eyes … paradoxically calming and provoking,” and whom Flannery O’Connor saw as “the ragged figure who moves from tree to tree in the back of [one’s] mind.”

You can read the rest of this interview here.

(I posted this on Tumblr previously but it was too good not to pass along here as well.)

The Moral, Social and Political Irrelevance of Traditional Christianity in the United States

2011-12-05T17:51:42-08:00

The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance.

From Chris Hedges' December 5 column Where Were You When They Crucified My Lord?

Goose bumps as I read that line.

Read the rest here and contemplate.

Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear, or are we so stuck in a outdated, irrelevant, prefabricated view of our faith that we wouldn't know Jesus if we walked right up to him and pepper-sprayed him in the face...

A Big Send-Off and The Road Ahead (II)

2011-11-21T18:54:11-08:00

Mike’s Note: As is often the case, this post is being written from about 35,000 feet. At the moment I’m somewhere over Alberta.

Today I’m reflecting on yesterday. Yesterday I was reflecting on the day before that. Let me try to explain.

Twenty-four hours prior to this writing I was driving across the city, completing a necessary but thoroughly unenjoyable task.

One day before that I was sitting on board the Queen of Surrey, reflecting on the reality that this was probably my penultimate ferry crossing prior to heading to China on December 1. And what a crossing it was. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, even as fluffy white clouds drifted by periodically. The snow in the mountains was fresh. We even passed a large pod of porpoises, something that has happened to me only twice on my countless BC Ferry sailings over the past eight and a half years.

I was feeling sentimental, nostalgic, and a little sad as it occurred to me that not only was I soon going to be travelling to China, but I would also be leaving Vancouver, even if only for a season. (As I type this paragraph Carole King is on the iPod asking, “Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore?”)

As I watched this beauty unfold in front of me I emailed a friend and described what I was seeing, and how I was feeling. I received a one-line answer:

”The Universe is on your side : )”

The smiley was because I have sent her this same response on numerous occasions. A taste of my own medicine. I replied that yes, that might be true. Or, conversely, the Universe could be sticking it to me. I added my own smiley for good measure.

Together we decided that I was getting a big send-off.

Fast forward 24 hours, and these were the thoughts that filled my head as I drove north through Vancouver. If anything, the sun was bluer, and the snow on the North Shore mountains was whiter. It was simply stunning… the kind of day we live for in Vancouver.

This led me to think about the Great Joys and Great Sorrows we encounter, and how I am now—on most days, anyway—equally grateful for both, and as I’ve said before, how I no longer feel the need to differentiate between the two. As Richard Rohr says, Great Joy and Great Sorrow are how God tries to get a hold of us. I believe it. The irony of course is that so many of us spend our lives trying to maximize the former and avoid the latter, with the tragic outcome being that we understand neither, and never really live. (Another way to look at it is this: If we somehow manage to avoid the latter we will never really experience the former.) As I drove I was once again overcome with gratitude. For the Joy, for the Sorrow, for all of it.

I smiled and cast a thought heaven-ward:

I get it.

The Universe, however, wasn’t finished with the object lesson.

As I approached the red light at Boundary and Grandview I saw the panhandler step off the curb and into the intersection. No cardboard sign, just a paper cup from the Wendy’s on the corner. He walked right past the car in the left turn lane, came straight to my window, and looked in at me, waiting to see if I would make eye contact.

This brother had been on the street a long time, and I knew that nothing I could give him then and there would change his prospects or improve his long-term outlook. But I also knew enough to understand that his long-term outlook probably extended to the end of the day and where he would lay his head. I lowered the window and handed him a 20. As I did his face lit up, he broke into a beautiful grin that would give any self-respecting dentist nightmares, and he pronounced a blessing over me that I will never forget.

“F*cking beautiful!! God bless you buddy!”

My friend Rob was in the truck behind me with his two kids, and he told me later about his own encounter. As he handed over $3 and a Crispy Crunch chocolate bar—everything he had on him—he asked our new friend if he was having a good day.

“A good day?! Of course I’m having a good day! I got $3 and my favorite chocolate bar from you, and that guy up there gave me $20! It’s a good day all right!”

OK, enough already. I said I get it.*

And so in 10 days I leave for China. I go with joy and with sorrow. I go anticipating a future beautifully wide open with possibility, while grieving the death of dreams. I go leaving a place I love and people I love for the unknown.

And I feel alive.

* I’m not romanticizing poverty, or suggesting that the sole purpose of this man’s life was to be a character in a vignette for my benefit, but I also think that God/the Universe/insert you favorite label here speaks to us through these encounters. In fact I think it happens all the time. We just need ears to hear and eyes to see.

What Next?

2011-11-17T11:30:26-08:00

My tweet from this morning:

And then there's this:

Retired Philly Police Captain Ray Lewis arrested at #OWS this morning participating in civil disobedience. Photo by Lauren Thorpe

One way or another, things will never be the same.

This Isn't Everything You Are

2011-11-16T15:09:23-08:00

As long as we're talking music and videos, let me introduce you to my latest musical obsession of the day.

Our friend Steve Stockman wrote beautifully about this Snow Patrol song yesterday, and deals with the new disk today. (I know I've told you before, but if you're interested in the intersection of music and spirituality you need to be following Steve.)

This song is profound and haunting, and the video is stunning and beautiful. I'm going to need to listen/watch a lot more to go deeper, but there's a lot there.

NOTE: The new disk is out in the UK... looks like we have 2 more months to wait in Canada.

The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

2011-11-15T20:49:35-08:00

I put this up on Facebook earlier today, but it's just too good not to share here. Enjoy.

h/t to The Reformed Broker, again, who keeps hitting the hot vids.

The Hunger Games

2011-11-15T07:35:46-08:00

This one is still in post-production. It looks intense.

h/t to The Reformed Broker

Kicking at the Darkness

2011-11-11T09:35:55-08:00

Brian Walsh writing about Bruce Cockburn's music. It doesn't get any better than that.

From the publisher:

"For forty years, singer and songwriter Bruce Cockburn has been writing beautifully evocative music. Bestselling author and respected theologian Brian Walsh has followed Cockburn’s work for years and has written and spoken often on his art. In this creative theological and cultural engagement, Walsh reveals the imaginative depth and uncompromising honesty of the artist’s Christian spirituality. Cockburn offers hope in the midst of doubt, struggle, failure, and anger; indeed, the sentiment of “kicking at the darkness” is at the heart of his spirituality. This book engages the rich imagery of Cockburn’s lyrics as a catalyst for shaping and igniting a renewed Christian imagination."

Read more about the book launch party (Toronto, December 5) over on the Empire Remixed blog. Apparently the tickets are going fast.

Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination

Please Stand Well Back of the False God

2011-11-06T09:54:37-08:00

Photo: David Shankbone

I made very brief reference to this photo a couple of days ago when I linked on Facebook to an article that featured the image.

I can't get it out of my mind, and the more I think about it, the clearer things get. It's absolutely astounding. I'm not going to say anything else about it; instead, I'll let some others speak to us.

You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or worship them...

...

When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, "Do something. Make gods for us who will lead us. That Moses, the man who got us out of Egypt—who knows what's happened to him?"

So Aaron told them, "Take off the gold rings from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me." They all did it; they removed the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took the gold from their hands and cast it in the form of a calf, shaping it with an engraving tool.

The people responded with enthusiasm: "These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up from Egypt!"

Aaron, taking in the situation, built an altar before the calf.

Aaron then announced, "Tomorrow is a feast day to God!"

...

"You can't worship two gods at once. Loving one god, you'll end up hating the other. Adoration of one feeds contempt for the other. You can't worship God and Money both.

(Sources: Exodus 20:3-5, Exodus 32: 1-5, Matthew 6:24)

Missing a Gear

2011-11-05T20:48:12-07:00

My favorite Tumblr page AZspot posted a quote from the late historian and social activist Howard Zinn this week that caught my eye:

I don’t believe in neutrality because the world is already moving in certain directions and wars are going on and children are going hungry. Terrible things are happening. And so to be neutral in a situation like this when things are already moving is to collaborate with whatever is going on. And I don’t want to collaborate with the world as it is. I want to intrude myself. I want to participate in changing the direction of things.

Closely related is a quote from Desmond Tutu:

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

And finally, the great Canadian philosophical collective known as Rush also has something to say on the matter, from thier song Freewill. (Yes, I know they were talking about something else, but it works, so just go with me on this):

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

This speaks so clearly to something I've been saying here for a while now, and it's very simple:

There is no neutral

I've offended more than one person with that assertion, and I must admit I'm still amazed when it happens. It seems we want our cake and eat it to. Particularly as Followers of Jesus, there are some issues we would like to pass on. We can't.

Taking no position on an issue is casting a vote for the status quo. Like it or not, you're taking a stand. Always. So give it some thought.

The China Bubble

2011-11-02T09:40:24-07:00

After spending a brief month in China it would be naive and arrogant of me to assume that I understand much about The Middle Kingdom. However with even that brief glimpse, and conversations with new friends both Chinese and foreign, I can see that attitudes toward westerners doing business in China are changing, even as the middle class develops.

For those interested the October 31 edition of Time does a good job of sketching out the new realities of China, and their potential global implications. You'll need to find a copy to read the full articles but here are a couple teasers.

Be Very Afraid of The China Bubble

A Great Leap Forward

No doubt this is an interesting time to be in China. It's going to be quite a year.

The Road Ahead

2011-11-01T21:42:58-07:00

This has been quite a year, and I've been holding back on some of the realities of my life from you good people. (Well, my mother knows all this already, so that leaves the other two or three of you...)

Regular readers will know that I spent the month of September in China. Some of the more curious among you figured out that this was only possible because of the ending of my marriage in June. Change is a constant theme around here--never more so than now--so I've accepted an invitation to return to China for a six to twelve month period. I leave December 1. In the meantime I'm working hard to end my time with Linwood House well, and tie up other loose ends here in Vancouver.

There's been a lot of grief, and also excitement about the future. All of this has got me thinking strange new thoughts, which up until now I've been unable to write about. That's going to change very soon.

Thanks for sticking around, and please stay tuned.