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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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On “Christian” rules and principles

And a certain lawyer [an expert in Mosaic Law] stood up to test Him, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Jesus said to him, “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

And he replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this habitually and you will live.”

But he, wishing to justify and vindicate himself, asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he encountered robbers, who stripped him of his clothes [and belongings], beat him, and went their way [unconcerned], leaving him half dead.

Now by coincidence a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

Likewise a Levite also came down to the place and saw him, and passed by on the other side [of the road].

But a Samaritan (foreigner), who was traveling, came upon him; and when he saw him, he was deeply moved with compassion [for him], and went to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them [to sooth and disinfect the injuries]; and he put him on his own pack-animal, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

On the next day he took out two denarii (two days’ wages) and gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I return.’

Which of these three do you think proved himself a neighbor to the man who encountered the robbers?”

He answered, “The one who showed compassion and mercy to him.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and constantly do the same.” This account from Luke 10:25-37 (AMP) is a challenging one, revealing the flaws in each human heart. In Israelite society, the teacher of the law, priest and Levite were all respected for their religious influence, knowledge and standing. Yet they all failed the test.

“Who is my neighbor?” - A question attempting to minimise and clarify what one’s responsibility, and to determine in a calculative fashion, what will enable one to live eternally. A lot of discussions in Christian society about “social justice”, or my preferred phrase “relational justice”, fall back on this question. But life eternal is not gained through broken relationships where anyone is defined as “not a neighbor”. Jesus cleverly refused to answer the man’s question with a definition of who the man’s neighbor was, instead asking him who had proved himself a neighbor to one in need.

Similarly, as Christians called to follow in the redemptive and eternal love of Christ, we must constantly be asking, “Who can we be a neighbor to? Who around us can we show compassion and mercy to?” A heart that is not constantly open to showing compassion and mercy isn’t one that pleases God, nor is it one that is truly changed by God or that has received salvation through grace (Matthew 18:32).

#christian cogitations #christian #neighbor #justice #love #compassion #mercy

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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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Growth and rest

It’s been almost 9 months since we left Singapore, and we are about due for a return soon. I’ve been reflecting on what God has done in my life so far – the changes look slow and small and are barely noticeable from moment to moment, but looking back I can see some changes.

Two themes: Growth and Rest.

Growth:

For some reasons I realised that I’ve always been uncomfortable around people who are more than a few years older than me. Growing up in the Singapore school system and even in church, you tend to hang out with people who are in the same school year as you religiously. Especially when one was younger, a year apart meant seniority and some form of superiority.

I realised I hadn’t had a very good impression of older people generally. Being a critical little girl, I grew up realising how certain unhappiness or things I felt were unjust in my life were a consequence of how my parents brought me up – too strict, not encouraging enough, emotionally absent etc. While my parents must have had good intentions in having me and bringing me up, and while many things they did were admirable, at the same time I can’t deny that I received certain things in a hurtful way. I had a very bad impression of teachers as well, thinking that they were there to assess and grade me and assign homework, instead of being someone whom I could relate to and ask for help from. It was only in junior college that I started asking teachers questions earnestly (I remember getting my poor friend to help me ask questions in secondary school), and my Knowledge & Inquiry teacher was the first one I knew who actually invited us over to his house and inspired me to learn more.

So I always kept my distance from people older than me, thinking that they were usually there to manipulate or to be critical of me. And having grown up hating teachers, I never wanted to be a teacher in any way, even though in the period between junior college and university, giving tuition or being a relief teacher was a lot more lucrative than administrative work. I suppose the only older adults I became close with to any measure were those who actively took the initiative to treat me as a peer and who were able to relate with me in a casual, natural manner.

Well, when we joined a church here, I was hopeful of being put in the graduate students ministry (Impact) or the international students ministry (Global Access), having aspirations to be a graduate student the next academic year as well as being comfortable associating with international students from my time on exchange. But S and I were put in Covenant, the married couples ministry.

I was pretty horrified actually. Other than the older adult barrier, I’ve never had a particular chemistry with kids. Growing up as an older part of the generation with respect to my extended family, I remember writing poems about babies being gross and putting “babies keep out” stickers on my door when my extended family came over for family events, primarily because my room and in particular my bed would be taken over as a diaper changing area. In my own life, I’ve also observed how for many Christians, family was an idol that stumbled them in ministry – it was “my family first, the rest of the world can take care of itself”, and I frequently got the sense that the spiritual family we have in God was subordinate to the actual biological family (c.f. many Christian families who reconcile themselves to adoption after not being able to have their first choice of biological kid).

I’m really glad to have met families who have taught me that having a family doesn’t mean not having space for others, and being older doesn’t mean you don’t treasure relating to the young in a spirit of family instead of critical judgment.

In particular, L&V were generous in checking in on us, offering to send us to and from Ikea so we could get household goods, even passing to us a microwave they didn’t use anymore.

P&J meanwhile, committed to giving us lifts to Life Group at their house every week, and were happy to include us in their lives, whether it be going to the library with their kids or even learning how to carry their kids.

J&R, while having their second child though R was at a late age and it was a difficult pregnancy, continued to send a member of their family as a representative every week, and remembered all the birthdays in the Life Group so that the person who brought refreshments every week would bring a cake for special occasions.

T, who while her husband was attending a different church and she’s probably the second oldest member in our young student-focused church, would share realistically about her struggles and need for prayer, and joke with us.

At the same time, I was glad for other newly-wed couples joining the Life Group, so that we could all establish our new married lives together.

While S is still the quintessential baby whisperer and he likes to tease me about how kids like him and not me (trying to incite envy, tsk), it makes me glad to now be able to functionally play with kids (lol) and look out for them when they are falling over learning to walk. And even housesit, in cases where there are sleeping kids, so that the parents can have some time to spend relating to each other without juggling and fighting fires!

Meanwhile, our church here has this thing called LCG (Life Change Group) which is someone you’re paired with to spiritually journey with in particular. I was blessed to get matched with my friend J (different from the J above, although she is similarly awesome hee), who was amazing in being open about her own struggles and caring and prayerful about even things like our relationship. While I’ve been involved in marketplace prayer groups and through that, God has brought me to various sisters in Singapore whom I can pray with, I’m so glad that He established this constant, spiritual relationship even in this foreign land to allow me to reflect and share my life.

So that’s one way I feel I have grown. Learning to realise that everything can be reclaimed by God for His kingdom of shalom, and also realising that no one is perfect, yet we all can relate to each other as sinners in need of grace.

Another way I’ve grown is being more open to new ideas and learning more about people who are different from me. Having the chance to explore what I can learn next, I have learnt that there is so much more out there than I know exists. For example, that social work isn’t merely an interpersonal or policy discipline. And that there are at least 15 types of engineering courses, all of them different (the North Campus at the University of Michigan has a ton of different buildings for each one). I still have this button in my head that kinda turns off when people talk about engineering or finance or healthcare, for example, but I try to catch it a bit more nowadays. :P

Rest:

Before I came here, I felt like it was ages since I had rested properly. I had transited 3 jobs over 3.5 years, of which one of those jobs was actually 2 jobs each taking half the normal workload. I had had a multitude of bosses (small and big bosses both), probably like 10 or more in those various jobs, and have had to deal with different working styles and unexpected transitions. Each of my jobs required fundamentally different skills and exposed me to new areas. In the midst of that, I continued to be involved in various activities that I pursued out of work, such as church and para-church activities (e.g. coordinating the logistics of an overseas 3D2N camp, including being a huge part of setting direction and organising the various sessions, while transiting into a new policy job!). I hardly went home for dinner at all.

Most recently before coming here, S and I had had to plan our wedding in 2 months (including navigating parents and friend politics! Cause they will all have their own idea of what should be done and how they want to be involved), and had to wrap up our jobs in 3 months or so while juggling this, and packing up our whole lives (literally, my mom decided that my brother would take over my room that I’d stayed in since I was 7 years old, and nothing was to be left behind; and S cleared all his things too) and preparing to move over (visa, securing a place to stay and flights, packing things to bring over for the wintry weather, announcing big changes and saying goodbye to each friend, etc!).

Even back in law school, partly because I thought most “normal” law subjects were boring and liked working for common causes with friends, I was involved in a myriad of extracurricular activities and pursuing different courses in new and diverse areas (e.g. Korean, Public Administration, Competition Law, UN Law, Mediation, Family Law). If you saw my resume you might think I was doing all these random things for credit, instead of doing them just because I enjoyed doing them and wanted to learn more.

Part of me genuinely is interested in all these different things and enjoys doing them. At the same time though, my dad liked to say I was burning the candle on both ends, and I definitely needed time to rest and explore ideas more deeply. And my identity was inevitably becoming very linked with what I was doing, instead of in the fact that I don’t need to please or impress anyone or even do anything constructive with my life, to be accepted by God and others.

Coming here was putting a stop to all of that. There were opportunities to do more at work, and I felt that if I accepted them I would be going down a spiral of achievement after achievement, with no room to think what I really wanted or was uniquely able to do, that no one else would do. Of course it’s a privilege to even have the ability to rest or pursue things outside of work, with many being systemically deprived of such things by threats to survival. And I am thankful to God for that privilege, that I hope to use well.

This rest has enabled me to reflect, and to offer more to others, and to question more deeply. I still learn again and again the lesson of the need to rest in God, because worry, while based in things you may actually logically believe you need to do, can be consuming and counter-productive and very self-idolatrous (in the sense that you think you can control more than you actually can). Rest is not a bad word, and leisure is not a bad word, and joy in just being can be a deep mark of grace.

So that is one view of my 9 months here, which while sometimes new and crazy and cold and awkward for me, I acknowledge as a time from God indeed.

#growth #rest #sabbath #developing diaries

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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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The God who meets us where we are

Even in the midst of losing faith.

Even in the midst of losing prayer, and the correct words to say.

Even in the midst of having to dig up graves to freedom.

#christian cogitations #christ

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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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God is not a place or an experience or a feeling.

Ravi Zacharias from the book Jesus Among Other Gods (via wordstomakeyou-blog)

#christian cogitations

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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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Humanity's broken relationship with God is the ultimate cause of all other brokenness. In another sense, there is no way humanity could violate relationship with any other created being and not violate its relationship with God. Creation is bound together by relationship with our Creator since it is Creator God's love that binds us together. To break one tie is to break them all.

The Very Good Gospel: How everything wrong can be made right, by Lisa Sharon Harper

Side note: Certainly puts James 2:10, Colossians 1:17, John 13:34, Matt 22:37-40 in context.

#lisa sharon harper #gospel #shalom #tsedaqah #christ #christian cogitations

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adventuresofarilamadperson · 7 years

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Random smattering of thoughts related to Community Organisation (CO)

So I applied and was accepted (yay) into a Masters in Social Work (MSW) in Community Organisation (CO) this Fall. I am hoping that funding ends up making it sensible for me to take this up.

But why CO? After all, there’s so many other things you can do in an MSW. You can concentrate in helping people on a personal level by counselling them and doing casework, or study management of human services, or do social policy since you have some policy interests after all...?

First, I see how communities can really help each other, and wonder that those who want to change society don’t tap into the power of communities nearly enough. Communities and peer groups are a huge force for changing everyday life for those around them, then norms, then institutions. And by communities, I don’t just mean community organisations which can be layers of bureaucracy and hierarchy, but groups of people who would count themselves part of each other’s social life.

Tonight, the husband and I had dinner with another Singaporean grad student couple who have been here longer than us but who seem to have been somewhat cloistered from community. He was able to pass them so many tips just in that one dinner to help them save money, and we were able to connect them to a Singaporean Chinese New Year hotpot gathering so they would have friends and good food to celebrate the occasion with. Even by having that dinner together, all of us were able to order more food items and try a greater variety of food for the same price per person we would probably have paid.

After that dinner, I tried out a dance lesson with a friend, without whom I would not be motivated to put myself in a new social situation that I would dance badly in. Moreover, I am sure she will hold me accountable to go together every week, without which I would be but a couch potato.

These are but a few examples of things that we would all have been deprived of without community. We have ourselves benefitted greatly, and currently unquantifiably, from people who have shared knowledge and experiences with us. Sadly, all these intangibles can be left out of policy making, with the large focus on making a greater Gross Domestic Product (in fact, one would argue we minimised GDP by passing on money-saving tips).

Other than that:

I see how policies can totally fail if the spirit of them is not adopted by the community they are meant for. For example, grants to up business productivity by upgrading technology can be abused by vendors cutting deals to share the benefits with those businesses in return for “upgrading” to sub-standard solutions.

I see how policies can totally ignore the real concerns of the community (which is probably why design thinking is the buzz phrase now in Singapore government) and thus fail miserably. But sadly, this can be fed by the cultural expectations of having meritocratic-ally selected jun zi (ruling but noble intelligensia / scholar princes) who are highly rewarded because their smarts lead them to come up with the “right solution” all the time. The solution just needs to come quick, presented confidently and with an air of condescending superiority, sound good on paper (if you don’t consider other factors like how it actually works in implementation, and considerations that have been ignored)... and thereafter will be defended to the very death. Which actually erodes trust (a measure of social capital for some) between the people and government.

I have also seen how gated and “echo chamber” communities can cause great inequality and tension within society. (Cue: 2016 US elections.)

I hope for a future where communities can be empowered, instead of oppressed, by leaders who speak at them instead of developing them to grow. For example, pastors dialoguing with and using the “mandatory” Sunday sessions to teach their people how to effectively read the Bible, instead of giving monologue sermons (aka ‘speaching’, which imo wastes everyone’s time and creates problems that cannot be easily solved). Governments that do not simply "manage" the people, but use the talents of the people to create solutions.

List of things I want to discover:

Study into social capital - how it can be best quantified, what are the benefits of it on society

Social economics? Quantifying the positive and negative externalities in pricing models

Community-based participatory research techniques and experience

Ways to let the community set the agenda of policies, and benefits and disadvantages of doing so

What types of policy tend to affect social capital, and in what way? What should be done to ensure these policies address effects on social capital?

For what type of policies should we engage the community? Involving the community in policy solutions (at the solution stage, vs at the ideation stage)

Community in the 2100s: Best ways to harness a sense of community online (social media, forums, apps)

What sort of communities should we build? What are the pros and cons of each type of community? What is the advised mix of them, if any? Hierarchical vs level, same-sex or involving all, divided by age or involving all, etc. This should be research-based.

Should we ensure diverse communities? If so, at what level should we do so? What are the pros and cons of doing so? This should be research-based.

More generally, what should we consider traits of a healthy community? For example, do we care whether they benefit other members in terms of social capital? What about whether they benefit society in terms of social capital? What are good ways to deal with the traps of an unhealthy community? This should be philosophical as well as research-based.

Bonus fact:

Do you know that Obama was a community organiser before he became President? If you know where to look, it’s all over his last speech as President.

#rabid ravings #community organisation #community organization #singapore #community #government #social work #um #michigan

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