Sunday Notes

28.11.09
I began crying last night out of sadness; then vexation; and at last confusion. This was a veritable change of pace for me, for thus far, since I began weeping openly again a year and a half ago, I had been doing so out of humility, and joy, both of which complement each other nicely, like the cheese and tomato sauce on a pizza, mmm...

29.11.09

Michael Pierce preaches today.

What is marriage? That is a loaded question. I want to get married, I believe in marriage, yet I don't understand what it entails.

Pray for your running partners when you touch them.

God will move wherever there are willing sons and daughters; so step up from being just a servant. Furthermore, sons' and daughters' promises become more audacious, bigger; and may they become even bigger for me than the promise of salvation, even, for my family!

God, where did we walk together this week? I am not familiar with where I am now. Teach me to hold your hand more tightly. OK, well, moving on, I am being prepared for something, or someone perhaps, very special.

Malachi 4:6

I did things, labored in fact, this week and expected an outcome which never came. The breakthrough came to her explicitly, preeminently, and for me, it came at another angle...

Unicef Half-Marathon 2009

Galen and I had a lot of time to talk intimately while running along the exquisite Penny's bay -- Ben was too busy adding oil to partake significantly in our discourse. We spoke about Christianity, and our hopes, dreams and struggles in our lives. It was good to share with one another, this being our first time, ever, to do so.

Somehow, Galen knew about my learning of the Saam Jih Ging; and as if I had to prove this fact, towards the end of the race, two kilometers from the finish, I recited most sonorously the first twenty four verses of that epic; much to the chagrin of Ben, who would have preferred to chug away in silence, motoring not to my serenade. Unsurprisingly, we passed by Teddy and we exchanged heartfelt support for each other. Teddy's desire to run, and that filial connection of his, encourage me in this season.

We were running hard during the last half of the race so as to escape the likelihood of boarding the slow bus, which picks up straggling, struggling runners at the tail end of the competition. The prospect of getting on that vehicular monstrosity, especially after we had already sedulously run eighteen kilometers with only three left to go, verily sent shivers down my spine; although Ben seemed to have been seduced by the idea (haha!); and at times, actually, Galen and I each took one of Ben's hands and began pulling with all our might, as though tugboats straining desperately to move a lumbering, obstinate barge. Thankfully, we dashed punctually past all the checkpoints, the last of which closed three minutes after our frantic crossing. As always, I was yelling up a storm of encouragement which swirled around Ben's countenance; and hopefully, beyond his dazed visage, he was at least slightly amused by my words. I can now better understand in hindsight wherefore Galen selected me to run with Ben, because not only was I supposed to speak at length with Galen, I had to spur lustily my running partner on, if he were to finish the race on time!

At lunch, a lady sitting beside me asked me if I could read the Chinese characters on the menu; and in my replying to her query in the affirmative, by her incredulous look, I knew I was in trouble. I asked her if she believed me, and she said no, because, bluntly, she told me that my Cantonese had "a difficulty". To that I responded, smiling, in Cantonese, "Then, I will not be speaking to you.". I turned away, and for awhile after, she seemed to be a bit upset, if not deeply vexed by my eloquent reaction, which, I suppose, cut her as a sword through soft flesh. I couldn't help feeling a bit guilty at my possibly impertinent response; nevertheless I didn't want trouble and would rather cut her off cleanly than escalate the situation, or correct, for that matter, her misconception. I am glad to report that eventually, we were, without spoken language, able to smile at and to serve each other at our table.

HKBSA Report #9

18.11.09

Last night, I bit off more than I could chew. I hadn't realized how precipitously the temperature had dropped, my mind overcoming, for a moment, physical reality; as a result, I trotted out towards the park wearing only a t-shirt and shorts to protect me; and verily the crowds must have stared in wonder at this crazy young man, brazen enough to let his bare skin alone brave the cold.

I paid for my temerity in the closing moments of practice as my thickly accoutered friends mulled around our mustering point, awaiting the retrieval of their luggage. The wind was gusting fiercely, and suddenly my knees succumbed to a marked pain. Not only were my knees cold, they seemed to be as brittle as dry leaves, ready to crack at the next blow. I couldn't stand, so intense was the pain, this apparent grinding in my bones, that I wanted to sit or to scream or to do something, anything to mollify my physical anguish.

At last, my final duties for the evening having been completed perfunctorily, I dashed like a wounded cat into the comforting warmth of the MTR station; and later spent a considerable amount of time under the downpour of a hot shower, more concerned about restoring heat to my extremities than any draining of vigor from my bones -- for indeed my vivacity had already vanished somewhere between my foolishly running outside and my desperate retreat back into shelter.

I may have injured myself grievously last night. Who knows what the confluence of biting weather and presumptuous physical exertion may produce in my body in the days to come. Already this evening, I stopped my interval training short because of a nagging right hamstring injury from my half-marathon; yet thankfully, my knees did not collapse upon me like a house of cards as they did twenty four hours earlier.

What Happened Friday Night: The End

On Thursday night, I had a dream in which I was engaged in arduous deliverance ministry, sonorously casting out demons from a girl, in the name of Jesus. Never before have I had a dream of such a volatile, spiritual nature. Perhaps my slumbering drama portended what would transpire later in the day.

I, that Friday afternoon, had argued passionately with Felix, who in the week prior had posited that my most important priority in my relationship with her was not developing the relationship itself that she and I shared, but facilitating her salvation, not the least step of which was bringing her to church; after all, he said, my relationship with her was temporal at best while her relationship with the Father would support her indefatigably through eternity; better to prosper her with forever than to set up but a lifetime. I told Felix, in defiance, that I would glorify God in what I do, despite her unbelief, and that God could redeem any situation, regardless of its contestants. In the end, our thoughtful, poignant discussions having recently taken precedence over our language exchange, I decided to end our meeting for a season; we will resume when I am ready. Little did I know, however, that my words would be tested that very evening and that his words, unpleasant though they might have been at the time, would be proven so true and so prophetic that even now I can only weep when I think about this fact.

You know I have worked both sedulously and meticulously to make this burgeoning relationship between us work. Never before have I sought the Lord's righteousness first in these types of relationships, but here I was this week, nipping another blossoming relationship in the bud because it was the right, honest and fair thing to do; and then I was a busy little bee putting together her care package last week and a subsequent care card, replete with a collage of hand-written encouragement, this evening; and of course, I had dressed for success, in black, her favorite color. Indeed, whether in prayer or in the tire track of a glue stick, I had put in the time to prepare well to be with her. I was not reckless, my temerity being tempered by prudence and truth; yet I risked a lot.

Before I met her, I was sitting alone in a cha-chaan-taang, diligently compiling her care card while slurping up my cart noodles. I clumsily spilled a little soup on my pants. A man later walked in, sat down, and completely baffled the wait staff since he couldn't speak Cantonese. The scene unfolding only a few feet away, I jumped into the fray as much to rescue this desperate stranger as to relieve the vexed band of waitresses who had thus far unsuccessfully interpreted the man's order -- actually, he ended up ordering exactly what I had ordered. The man and I began talking and soon did we establish common ground: he was a Korean PhD candidate at Seoul National University, who was stopping over in Hong Kong for an evening, on his way from Delhi to Seoul; and we discussed, I sometimes throwing in a few Korean sentences, his urban planning studies, my teaching English in Hong Kong, Christianity, and undoubtedly, 소녀시대! I had been verily blessed to meet him and consequently expressed this gratitude by paying for his supper. In this way, I am, I believe, paying forward that which the Korean people had generously bestowed upon me in all my visits to Korea; and without a doubt I shall continue to go out of my way to help Koreans in Hong Kong.

At length, she and I watched a delightful, melodious performance by the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, and afterwards we walked along the promenade where, suddenly, the tectonic plates holding up my world starting shifting dramatically, sending me tumbling for a moment as though I were falling off a precipice. Surely, our conversation at first was innocent and open enough; but my beguilement soon wore off when I asked to hold her hand --

-- I cannot say precisely what she told me, out of respect for her privacy, but, boy, did she surprise me that night! It seems as if I never really knew this young woman, up until the moment I asked for a modicum of physical intimacy, at which point something as though scales had fallen from my eyes so I could finally gaze upon what lay beyond the line that she had, in fact, drawn. At once I was crestfallen, and relieved, because the matter was as clear as daylight, in full view. She seemed immediately contrite and repentant, more so, than I had expected. We spent a longer evening together, commiserating, encouraging and witnessing. We both cried, and prayed. In the future, maybe we will stand in the gap for one another again.

God revealed His love for us in the way that unexpected news breaks like water over a rock. My heart still seeks after the Lord's (and maybe hers will run that same race too, one day soon), praise Him. However, I don't know to what ends the Father compelled me to sacrifice so much and to humble myself greatly: why were three relationships broken off this week; and why did all my assiduity, this faithful sowing, come to naught -- where is the fruit? I am entering now into a season of prayer to glean His purposes for this traumatic episode in my life. I am glad, furthermore, that though I will reveal almost all to my church brethren, they would rather support me than laugh at me for succumbing to such a quixotic endeavor. For now, without a doubt, I will cry prolifically while pleading to my Father for an explanation. My bricks did not contain straw.