Friday, June 04, 2004
as jaded as a chinese granny's necklace

Some more Nouwen writings along my current train of thought.


.:.


"Your pain is deep, and it won't just go away. It is also uniquely yours, because it is linked to some of your earliest life experiences.

Your call is to bring that pain home. As long as your wounded part remains foreign to your adult self, your pain will injure you as well as others. Yes, you have to incorporate your pain into your self and let it bear fruit in your heart and the hearts of others.

This is what Jesus means when he asks you to take up your cross. He encourages you to recognize and embrace your unique suffering and to trust that your way to salvation lies therein. Taking up your cross means, first of all, befriending your wounds and letting them reveal to you your own truth.

There is great pain and suffering in the world. But the hardest pain to bear is your own. Once you have taken up that cross, you will be able to see clearly the crosses that others have to bear, and you will be able to reveal to them their own ways to joy, peace, and freedom."

-Henri J.M. Nouwen



.:.


I am very much aware that the life of a true believer of God and disciple of Christ is a life of suffering. To crudely put things, the very purpose of Jesus' life was to be born, to suffer, and to receive the biggest beatdown in the history of the universe. Critics have recently panned The Passion as being too brutal; but I would argue that the filmed physical violence visually communicates the dire spiritual reality.

The sacrificial nature of the life of Jesus is what all Christians are called to emulate.

The selfish part of me though is quick to point out two things though:

1. Jesus was 100% man and 100% God, so it's reasonable to assume he completely understood the context of his sufferings and his pain.

2. Jesus knew that his suffering and death were the means by which the entire human race would be saved, transformed, and brought closer to God.

I have no such grandiose illusions about my suffering or eventual death. Perhaps if I could conceive of some purposeful reason, some logic for the events and circumstances of my life, I could bear them easier. But I don't.

Old Gar, in his cynicism, sometimes wishes that my conscience wouldn't insist on living a purposeful life. But it does.

Consider this analogy: Gar in the park with a big, juicy, steak sandwich. I'm really hungry, but as I'm about to eat it, I notice a homeless man staring intensely at me. I feel a twang of conscience, so instead of eating the sandwich, I give it to the homeless man. I'm still hungry, and it hurts to be hungry, but I'm consoled by the fact that I can see visibly that this hungry person in front of me is getting something to eat. The sacrifice is worth it.

Now consider this change of circumstances: I'm sitting in the park with the sandwich, and I'm really, really hungry... but before I can eat any of it, Police Officer Jon Q. Crackerman pulls out a gun and says that there's no eating allowed in the park. He orders me to set my big, juicy, steak sandwich on the bench, and after I do that, he escorts me out of the park. Now, not only am I still hungry, I'm also deprived of my sandwich... plus filled with the agony that the evil Officer Crackerman has just deprived me of my sandwich.

You can guess which analogy is a better fit to my perspective on my life... and it's not the first.


.:.


In relation to my time here in Japan, I can readily observe the dual personality phenomenon in my students - predominantly the men. We bearers of the XY chromozome seem blessed with the gift of compartmentalization.

Like most Asian men, your average Japanese man has had stoicism ruthless beat into his personality, and 90% of the time, (especially in discussions related to work, family responsibilities, politics, and economy) they radiate exactly zero emotion. It's as if all the guys graduated from the Arnold Schwartzenegger Terminator School of Emotional Restraint.

But get your average Japanese man to discuss a hobby or other leisure activity - cars, motorcycles, playing guitar, movies, traveling, eating - the glee just flows out. They laugh and smile like kids they once were, before the education system shredded the life out of them.

I'm generalizing of course, but I'm basing my generalizing on my daily contacts with the 500+ students I see every month. It's the rare exception to see a Japanese guy who's a geyser of emotion 100% of the time, because obviously, the Asian standard of heterosexual manhood here is the law:

Overtly emotional men = homo hito dayo. ("hito" means person. "homo"... that's obvious).

Despite all the "emotionless-ness" of most of male students, I find that most of my favorite students are men. Maybe it's because when I teach them, I feel less like a babysitter / English ho and I feel more like I'm talking with guys I know from back home - friends, fathers of friends, uncles, teachers, old bachelors - the men who raised me in absence of a father.


.:.


Random:

-An interesting Washington Post article on how beautiful people are more likely to be smart. Guess I ain't.

-Updated my links to other blogs/journals.

-Went to Himeji finally today. Pics later.

-Self-portrait, link courtesy of davephonic. Salaryman-ish, eh?



Really long hair is for fairies and metrosexuals. And there's a growing number of those here in Nippon.

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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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