On the Meaning of Life

“Nothing like cooking on a freshly cleaned stove to make you contemplate the futility of all human endeavors.” Some of you may recognize this as a Facebook status I posted a while ago. It was a joke. But it was also deadly serious.

I could blame it on the lockdown. Not seeing anyone in person has this way of making relationships less satisfying. Or maybe I just have too much time to myself to think.

On a pretty regular basis lately, I’ve been feeling like everything is pointless. I cook. I eat. I run out of food and need to cook again. I clean. Dirt piles up. I exercise. It makes no discernible difference in my health, unless I do it again and again and again. In the short term, the exercise might even make me sore. And in the long term, I’m still going to die.

Yes, but what about those things that only need to be done once? My knitting and writing, for example. Each of these produces a thing that wasn’t there before. But does the world really need another baby blanket? And my dissertation … will be read by exactly four people in the form I’m working on right now. If I’m lucky, I’ll publish it after significant revisions. Maybe someone will read it in that form, too. Maybe someone will be convinced to look at the Bible closer to the way I do. I think that will be a good thing? But my confidence in my ability to come to the truth right now is very low.

And then there are relationships. Normally, I tell myself that if I can make life better for one other person, then my life counts. But is that happening? “Making life better” is a vague goal, and it’s harder to convince myself I’m reaching it when I can’t see people in person. My presence in a room feels significant in a way that silently lurking on a zoom call isn’t. Talking on a zoom call feels more like a contribution, but sometimes I don’t have anything to say. And in the long term, other people are going to die, too.

Fun is … fun. But it doesn’t really matter if I have fun. Work is always there afterward. And does anyone other than me care if I enjoy myself? Maybe because they’re kind, but not because it actually helps them in any way.

But writing this has been somewhat artificial. I was feeling life’s pointlessness at the beginning, but as I wrote, I kept thinking about other things. Things that go beyond the futility I was describing. Like how making something that wasn’t there before is me exercising the image of God. Like how other people are made in the image of God, and that’s why improving their lives is a good thing. Like how even though we’re all gonna die, that’s not the end of the story.

I guess what I’m writing is a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes. There is nothing new under the sun, including this blog post. Ecclesiastes talks about life under the sun, in a world without God. It concludes that everything is meaningless. But then, the implication is, we must turn our eyes to something greater than the sun. We live under heaven, under God, and that is what makes this life significant. We do good things, even if we’re just going to have to do them again, because he made us to do them. Our relationships matter because people are walking pictures of God, and they’re going to exist forever. What we create is valuable not because the world desperately needs another baby blanket or even another dissertation, but because by making, we are acting out the image of our Maker, and that brings Him pleasure(!). Even fun matters as we enjoy the good world He made or good things made by his “sub-creators” (a term I shamelessly borrow from Tolkien).

In some ways, it’s good for us to “contemplate the futility of all human endeavors.” We tend to make the good things in life more than they are, as though we can make our own meaning. But that’s impossible, for meaning has to connect to something outside of us to count as meaning. We need to be humbled, to recognize that what we work for and worry about isn’t as big as it seems.

And yet, right now, we also need to be elevated. We need to look up and see beyond the sun to the heaven that makes our lives matter. We need this both for our own sanity and because it helps us focus on what truly matters. Yes, fun is valuable if received as a gift and rejoiced in, but using it to numb ourselves to pain is a misuse of it. The same goes for work, and relationships and everything else. We must relate them to the Creator for only in Him do they find their meaning.

On Empathy and Sexuality

“You don’t understand! You don’t know what it’s like!”

I looked across the table and saw the frustration in her eyes. I didn’t want to lose this friendship. I took a deep breath.

“You know, you’re right. I don’t know what it’s like. So tell me. Help me understand.”

And she did. She told me all about how she had never fit in, how vicious pre-teen girls had teased her, calling her a lesbian among other things, how she’d never felt the passion for boys that the other girls did. She explained how coming out a few weeks before had given her an accepting community and reassured her that she wasn’t a freak.

“I’m sorry those girls treated you like that,” I said. “I was bullied in middle school, too. And I’m sorry you have to worry about whether your family and friends will still like you. I still like you, and I want to keep being your friend. I wish I could say I agree with your coming out, but …”

“But you can’t.” She finished the sentence for me.

“But I can’t,” I said, nodding.

We left with our friendship intact, agreeing to disagree. There’s room for improvement in how I handled that conversation, but one thing I think I did right was listening and showing empathy.

My generation has been encouraged to make decisions based on emotion, not on reason. I distinctly remember believing in middle school that “I feel…” meant more or less the same as “I think,” only “I feel” was stronger. Since feelings hold the place of honor, the best way to treat others with kindness is to understand and appreciate their emotions. In other words, empathy is a significant virtue in the minds of my peers. This is why so many millennials support LGBTQ rights. They see people in pain and seek to legitimize them, legally and socially, so that pain will go away.

To communicate with anyone, but especially those whose worldview differs from our own, we must seek to understand where they’re coming from. And if we want them to understand us, we need to show that we care about them. For Christians talking to non-Christians in America, that means listening to where they’re coming from, asking questions and even apologizing for ways Christians have sinned against them.

But empathy doesn’t require us to agree with all their positions. Feelings are real and powerful, but they also can be misleading. It’s always loving to try to understand what someone is feeling, but it’s not always loving to encourage people to act on how they feel. All of us go against our feelings on a regular basis. We get up when we don’t feel like it, we eat healthy foods rather than just junk food, and we try to be kind to people even when we’re angry. Now, these feelings are usually less strong and less permanent than sexual attraction to your own sex or than feeling like your gender is wrong. But the principle is the same: acting on your feelings isn’t always wise or right.

God doesn’t give commands arbitrarily. When He gives a moral law, it’s because the act in question damages us or other people. In the case of homosexuality, it’s a bit of both. Same-sex relationships can’t provide society with the stability of families with two biological parents But even more harm is done to the people involved, who objectify and misuse their bodies, looking for happiness in relationships that can’t ultimately provide it. These are often people who have suffered greatly and are looking to ease the pain but are going about it all wrong.

So please, Christians, let’s treat the LGBTQ people in our lives with respect as image-bearers of God. (Many of us do this already, so let’s continue.) Let’s ask them questions about their lives and really listen to them, genuinely trying to understand how they feel. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt when we’re not sure what their motives are. And let’s call them to a life of faith in and obedience to Christ, the only place where they can find perfect love, hope and healing. 

Learning From Stories

Last Saturday I was invited to speak at my church’s women’s tea on the theme of “books.” I asked my dad for suggestions, and he pointed me to Ecclesiastes 12:12. “My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” As a grad student, I can confirm that the verse is very true. In fact, I’d consider putting it on t-shirts for my classmates. But I didn’t think that’s what the event’s organizers had in mind, so instead I focused on the ways books in general and fiction in particular have influenced my life. I chose this because the value of reading non-fiction for spiritual growth can be relatively obvious. The influence of stories is more subtle but no less real.

We get a hint of the importance of stories in the structure of the Bible. Though we think of it as one book, the Bible is actually many books in many different genres. It contains theological treatises (such as Romans), law codes, also poetry, prophecy (in both prose and poetry) and lots of narratives. Stories take up a large percentage the Bible, and while many of them are history, Jesus’ parables are a kind of fiction. God uses this huge variety of forms to communicate to us because different types of writing speak to our experiences in different ways and affect us differently. And if God considers stories a helpful way of communicating truth, so should we.

One of the first things the Bible tells us about human beings is that we’re made in the image of God. We find this out in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible. At that point, all we’ve been told about God is that He created everything and did it by speaking. Authors, like their Creator create using words. So every time we pick up a book we should recognize that God’s image is being expressed. Of course, that doesn’t mean that everything in every book is good. Authors are also fallen, so we need to read any book with discernment. But we should give thanks to God for the amazing privilege of being made in His image and for the joy we gain from seeing the ways authors intentionally or unintentionally reveal His image in them.

Stories can aid our spiritual growth by helping us develop empathy. They let us get inside the head of someone different from us and understand the world as they experience it. This in turn can help us understand the real people who have had similar experiences. When you meet someone on the street, you don’t know what they’re thinking or their backstory. But when you read a book, the author often tells you that, which makes it easier to understand and relate to the characters.

Fiction is also a huge source of encouragement for me, something my parents taught me at a young age. When I was 10, my parents took my family to Europe for several months, and we traveled to Hungary. We took a night train into Budapest and transferred to another train that would eventually take us to the town where we would be staying. The schedule said the train would have a snack car, so my parents planned on eating breakfast on the train. As the train left the station, a blizzard hit our area. It was then that we discovered the train had little to no heat. My brother and my father walked along the train looking for the snack car. Snow blew upward between holes in the floor of the passages connecting different cars. One bicycle car was covered with ice because the door was opened. My dad tried to close it, but it was jammed. To quote my father, “the bathrooms looked like they hadn’t been cleaned since the fall of Communism” (this was 1999). My father and brother reached the end of the train, but there was no snack car. So my brother and I sat in the compartment bundled up in our coats while my mom fed us gummy bears that she had found in her purse. We had been reading The Hobbit as a family, so my dad said, “Bilbo Baggins describes adventures as ‘nasty, unpleasant things that make you late for breakfast.’ That means we’re having an adventure.” Suddenly, I was excited because I was on an adventure. I was still cold and hungry, but I wasn’t miserable because I saw my predicament differently.

I still draw on Tolkien for encouragement and inspiration, especially when life seems overwhelming. Tolkien does a great job depicting both genuine good and genuine evil and helping us recognize the difference. He also shows us ordinary people, like the Hobbits, standing up against this evil and making a difference. Good stories aren’t just a way to escape from the evil in the world. They’re a picture of what we can do, and they can provide motivation to take risks and do things that may be frightening. G.K. Chesterton once said, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” The problems that face the heroes in fairy tales are symbols of the evil in the world. And when we see characters in stories slaying their dragons, it can encourage us to stand up and face our dragons.

We’re all busy, so I’m sure many of you don’t have much time for reading. But when you do encounter stories, either in books or in movies, I think it’s helpful to think about them and draw lessons or encouragement from them. I’d also like to encourage you to give thanks to God for the gift of books and the way He can use books of all kinds to make us more like Christ.

A Tale of Two Nations

An article I wrote about the paradoxical nature of the United States inspired by C.S. Lewis' "That Hideous Strength" is up on the Breakpoint website.

God is not a god (part 2)

In Part1 of this article, I argued that God in a monotheistic religion is a fundamentally different type of being than the gods of a polytheistic religion. This means that Christians who are talking to polytheists can use more or less the usual arguments for the existence of God to show that a being with the characteristics monotheists ascribe to God exists. It’s possible that this in itself might be enough to convert someone to monotheism. But if the polytheist says, “OK, your God exists, but so do mine,” I don’t think we need to convince them that their gods don’t exist. We just need to show why they should worship only the monotheistic God.

So why should everyone worship the monotheistic God instead of polytheistic gods? Simply put: He deserves it. If there is a supreme being, perfectly wise, powerful and good, who created everything, this being is supremely worthy of our devotion and worship. Moreover all monotheistic faiths insist that this supreme being has spoken and has forbidden worship of any other being. If God is perfectly good and all-knowing, He must have a good reason for giving this command. Even if we don’t understand His reasons, it seems reasonable to trust and obey Him.

It’s also pragmatically wise to worship the most powerful being out there. Many of the polytheists I’ve met are afraid that the gods will punish them if they refuse to perform the appropriate rituals. But isn’t an all-powerful being capable of protecting you from these lesser forces?

Moreover, Christians believe that our highest good is found in being in right relationship with God. This is the source of all true peace and joy and of energy to love others. If the polytheistic gods are good, wouldn’t they want their followers to receive these blessings, even if that meant giving up their chance to be worshipped? If the gods insist on their own worship at their followers’ expense, they are selfish and thus don’t deserve to be honored.

Some people object that the God of monotheism is selfish for not letting us worship anyone else. But this objection fails to hold up. We’re talking about a supremely wise, good and powerful being who created all things and offers his worshippers true happiness. This being deserves complete devotion from everything He created. There’s nothing wrong with insisting on what rightfully belongs to you, and in this case, worshiping the true God also brings created beings the best life possible.

In fact, given that our best life is found in following the true God, if God loves us He must want us to worship only Him. Worshipping anything other than God is inherently destructive. We were created to worship God, and when we put anything else ahead of him, we end up making poor decisions that hurt us and other people. For God to allow us to worship other gods would be like a human father allowing his child to drink bleach.

Ultimately, the supreme proof that God deserves our love is found in Jesus, and especially in the crucifixion. This is not a needy God who demands our service. This is a God who is willing to serve us, even if it costs Him His life. Coming face to face with love like this should inspire us to love Him back.

In the end, conversion is not a matter of intellectual arguments, though the arguments are useful and important. Conversion is a matter of meeting the good, wise, powerful, eternal God of love and choosing to follow Him.

God is not a god (part 1)

If you’re a Christian in a Western country, you can find an abundance of information about the common worldviews of the day. You’ll find massive numbers of arguments and counter-arguments for apologetics against atheism, postmodernism and to a lesser extent Mormonism and Islam. (Stand to Reason has some really good material on this.)

There’s just one problem: If you don’t live in the West and you’re talking to people with a different worldview than these, you don’t have a lot to work with. I discovered this when I lived in Taiwan and started talking to people who followed a polytheistic form of Buddhism. There’s not a whole lot of modern apologetics directed at polytheism.

But the earliest Christians were surrounded by polytheists. It’s no surprise then, that early apologists were more helpful than later ones in dealing with this challenge. (I found Tertullian’s arguments against Marcion particularly helpful.) The following is my attempt to formulate a strategy for debates with polytheists.

On the surface, the claim that there is one God and the claim that there are many gods seem pretty similar. But the differences go deeper than basic math. Actually, the type of being posited by monotheists is completely different from the type of beings posited by polytheists.

Monotheism holds that there is a single being who created everything else in existence, who is infinitely powerful, all-knowing and completely good. This being has always existed and will always exist and cannot in any way be diminished. This God is also a person (not an impersonal force) and thus is capable of making free choices and communicating with people. In short, the God of all monotheistic religions is the supreme being – the greatest being in existence, by definition.

In polytheism, however, gods are like humans only greater. They are extremely powerful but not infinitely powerful; each controls an area of life, but some can impinge on others’ areas, since life is complicated. For example, the Greek god Ares was the god of war, but other gods like Zeus also influenced battles. The gods were still way more powerful and more knowledgeable than human beings, so it was important to be on their good side. In most polytheistic systems, the gods are involved in the creation of the world, but it’s sort of a team effort. (The creation stories vary between religions.) Gods in polytheistic systems also tend not to be eternal. Most polytheistic religions have myths explaining how the gods came to be. Thus, polytheistic gods are really powerful, but they’re not infinite like the monotheistic God is. It’s just a different concept.

Actually, it’s logically impossible for more than one being to fit the monotheistic characterization of God. Monotheists define God as the greatest possible being (or at a minimum, the greatest existent being). There cannot be two greatest beings, by definition.

Another way of thinking about this is by looking at the idea of omnipotence. There cannot be more than one omnipotent being. To illustrate this, let’s try to imagine two “omnipotent” beings with the (very creative) names A and B. A intends to move a rock to the north, while at the same moment, B intends to move it to the south. Where does the rock go? If it goes to the north, B is not omnipotent, but if it goes to the south, A is not omnipotent. If the forces cancel each other out so that the rock does not move, neither being is omnipotent. The only way around this is for A and B to agree on everything all the time, in which case either one is subservient or they’re actually the same being.

So if I were going to have a conversation with a polytheist, I’d start by asking whether a being that fits the monotheistic definition of God exists. If the polytheist is inclined to say no, you can pull out all the arguments for God’s existence that have been articulated by really smart people elsewhere.

But it’s possible that they’ll say, “Yes, your God exists, but my gods exist, too.” At this point, I don’t think it’s necessary to prove that the polytheistic deities don’t exist. We just need to persuade them to worship our God instead of the polytheistic deities.

It’s logically possible that there is a single omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, etc. being (God) and also lesser supernatural being with real but limited powers (gods). Many early Christians actually held this view. They thought the Roman gods were actually demons.

Note that this view is not henotheism. Henotheism is the belief that multiple gods exist but the group one is part of worships only one. It places the worshipped god and the non-worshipped gods on the same level. In contrast, a view that places the worshipped God in a different category than the non-worshiped gods is still monotheism, because it attributes to only one being the traits ascribed to the monotheistic God. In fact, arguably the polytheistic gods shouldn’t even be called “gods” on this view, since they are no longer on top of the metaphysical food chain.

Next question: Why should anyone give up the gods they’ve been worshipping and worship ours instead? I have some ideas about that, but since this post is already pretty long, that will have to wait for part 2.

In the meantime, for those of you who have experience with evangelism in polytheistic cultures: How do you go about it? I like my approach, but I don’t really have anyone to try it out with, so I’d be really interested in hearing about your experiences.

And for those of you who don't, the distinction between the God of monotheism and the gods of polytheism is still relevant. It refutes the atheist claim that atheists reject belief in God for the same reason monotheists reject belief in, say, the Greek gods. But, of course, the kind of being in question here is completely different. This also answers the claim that Christianity is just a rehashing of older myths about dying and rising gods. Christianity presents God as a fundamentally different type of being than do the myths it was supposedly based on. Thus,  the distinction here is relevant even within Western culture.

Ten Side Effects of Living in Taiwan

Now that I’m back in the U.S., I’ve noticed some things about me that have changed due to my time away. Here’s a short list:

1.      I often need to be reminded to tip in restaurants.

2.      I feel a little surprised when shoe stores have my size.

3.      Over half my stories start, “When I was in Taiwan …”

4.      But I can’t start these stories any other way, because the fact I was in Taiwan is somehow essential to them.

5.      When I hear the word “foreigner” in any context, I somehow feel like the word is referring to me.

6.      I feel homesick for a place where I was never considered a local.

7.      These feelings of homesickness are often triggered by seeing a 7-11.

8.      But if I go into that 7-11, I will inevitably be disappointed by the poor tea selection.

9.      When talking to strangers, I find myself restructuring sentences to avoid difficult words, only to realize that, yes, other grad students do know the term lingua franca.

10.   I get ridiculously excited about things like colorful autumn leaves and frost.

Obviously, these are not the most important take-aways from my time in Taiwan, but they are real. So if you want to travel overseas, be warned: your opinion of 7-11 will never be the same!

On Religious Parades

Before I went to Taiwan, I always thought of idols in one of three ways. Either they were gods worshipped in the distant past, they were modern pop stars as in “American Idol” or they were things that Christians today put ahead of God, such as money or having a good reputation. But after moving to Asia I realized that idolatry, in the most literal sense of the word, is alive and thriving in many places.

One Sunday night at around 8:00 p.m., the street outside my house exploded. If I lived anywhere else, I would probably have thought there was a gunfight. But in Taiwan, I assumed that it was just firecrackers. The bangs were accompanied by loud, raucous music. It was so noisy that I found myself putting my hands over my ears to stop them from hurting.

Apparently that was the night of a religious festival, probably a local deity’s birthday. These festivals are usually celebrated with parades, and this one started right outside my apartment.

The parade featured people in elaborate costumes, which represent either deities or protective spirits, that dance while music is played. People also carry the statues of the deities, which normally rest in temples, through the streets. These statues rest in elaborate boxes carried on poles by teams of people, kind of like a sedan chair. Traditionally the carriers bounce the boxes to give the deities a more enjoyable ride.

This parade also had fireworks, not just firecrackers, as well as a truck that was playing Western music, such as “Trouble” by Taylor Swift. (I wish that were a joke.) As they were getting ready before it started, I also spotted a flat-bed truck with a pole and a young woman who looked like she was going to be dancing on it.

My first reaction was frustration and anger at the noise. The sound was almost causing me physical pain, and there was no way I could get anything done with that cacophony outside.

But then my conscience caught up with me, and I thought of God. It was as if the Holy Spirit said to me, “How do you think I feel?” I realized that this parade, which in my mind was nothing more than a nuisance that should be shut down with a noise ordinance, was actually much more. It was an expression of a false religion, an act of worship given to a god that cannot save. Moreover, in worshipping this idol, the people there were despising and ignoring their Creator, who I love dearly.

Acting on impulse, I went downstairs to get a closer look. That was when I saw the costumed people dancing and posing in the street. There was a police officer directing traffic around the parade. And I saw a crowd of young men walk by, carrying the box with the idol, my frustration at the noise began to fade. I wondered what was going through their minds, whether they really believed they were holding a god or whether they were just participating in a fun cultural activity. I wondered the same about all the people in the parade.

Taiwan is quite highly developed as a whole. It has great public transportation, some very impressive buildings, and goods from all over the world. Almost all the young people have smartphones, and they tend to act surprised when they learn I don’t have one. And yet the country is still in the grip of superstition and pagan religious practices.

I’m not usually one to complain about other cultures. I’m all for experiencing and learning about new kinds of food, music, clothing, art, etc. Finding out about other countries can make our lives much more interesting. I also think Chinese culture has a lot of values it can teach us in the West, such as the importance of caring for one’s parents.

But religion doesn’t fall into either of those categories. It isn’t a morally neutral thing you can add into your life, like trying a new food or buying some calligraphy to hang on your wall. It isn’t even a moral statement everyone can recognize intuitively, accept and act on.

No, religion is fundamentally a statement of the way the world works. And that means if any religion is true, anyone who rejects it is believing a lie. I think Christianity is true. (If I didn’t, I would not be a Christian.) And if I’m right, these people are not only wasting their time; they’re actively insulting the God of the universe by choosing to worship something else.

After a few minutes, I turned away from the parade because I was choking up. The sight of so many people so lost and confused broke my heart. It was humbling for me to realize how little I cared about my Taiwanese neighbors. At first I didn’t care what these people were doing, as long as they didn’t interrupt my quiet evening at home. 

But for those of us who love the Lord, idolatry is not just a nuisance. It is a sin against God and a tragedy for people. If we listen with the ears of Christ, the sounds of the parade are really a cry for help.

Dear Taiwan: A Love Letter

Dear Taiwan,

            When I first met you, I was like many graduates, young, excited, idealistic and nervous. Any blind date is frightening, and I had committed to spending two years with you. When I arrived, I had been traveling for almost 20 hours, and my mind was filled with a cloud of weariness almost as thick as the humid air.

As I traveled along your highways, I stared out the car window looking for something, anything, that would mark you as the exotic, interesting place I hoped for. At first, there was nothing. Then the driver pointed out Taipei 101, a strangely-shaped tower in the distance. But the first thrill of excitement to break through my exhaustion came with the sight of the Grand Hotel. Tall and majestic, its red and gold façade had all the elegance I had admired in your mainland sister, and at that moment, I knew that you had something to offer.

The years passed, and I became more and more familiar with the bustle of your streets, the grandeur of your mountains, the colors of your flowers, the flavors of your food and the welcoming smiles of your people. As friends introduced me to delight after delight, I realized with a thrill what a beautiful and interesting place you are.

You possess beautiful scenery: gorges, waterfalls and mountains, some of which meet the Pacific ocean in rocky beaches. Your forests are filled with flowers, animals and butterflies. And all of this is just a few miles from bustling cities where almost anything can be purchased from one of the convenience stores that sit on practically every block. I’ve always been more fond of the wilderness than of the city, but who could complain about a city that has a mountain range with several hiking trails in its center, as Taipei does?

And then there’s the food. You introduced me to fruits I had never tasted before – mango, guava, dragon fruit and pomelo to name a few. And even those I knew were sweeter. I often wondered whether the pineapple was fruit or candy, and your cherry tomatoes actually tasted like a fruit (which, biologically, I guess they are).

Then there are the many local delicacies I tried. Scallion pancakes fried and wrapped around eggs or other fillings, small dumplings filled with soup, noodles with sesame sauce and so many more than I could name. I loved your nearly infinite variety of teas– black, green, oolong and more mixed with milk or various kinds of fruit. Then you add tapioca, coconut jelly, fruit pieces or other things which I only know Chinese names for in the bottom of the cup. Now, we did have some disagreements over food, mostly when you misunderstood my home culture, but the hundreds of delicious meals you treated me to more than make up for the few bizarre ones.

Speaking of disagreements, I must admit that our first year together was a bit rocky. I’d never lived on my own, you see, certainly not while working full-time. And it did take a while for me to get used to you. But at those moments when I felt most homesick, when I most wanted to get on a plane and fly back to somewhere familiar, you would show me some unique aspect of your life that I hadn’t seen before. You would charm me with a building or a food I hadn’t yet tried, and I would remember that although I had left good things behind, the place I had come to was also good.

When that didn’t work, there were always people by my side, encouraging me and comforting me. I remember an elderly woman giving me a hug and saying, “If you miss your family, I will be your Taiwanese grandmother. So don’t be sad.” I remember friends sitting with me over long cups of coffee while I shared about my life. I remember adventures taken with individuals and groups up mountains, through city streets, to hole-in-the wall cafés, shops and flower festivals that I never could have found alone.

Taiwanese people were incredibly kind and willing to help. Once I dropped my wallet in a MRT (subway) station, and it was turned in to the information desk with all my money still inside. I lost count of the times strangers came up to me and asked if I was lost.

There are so many things I could say about you, Taiwan; so many things that you have taught me; so many ways you made my life with you convenient and comfortable. I have fallen deeply in love with you, Taiwan, so much so that it broke my heart to leave you. Our three years together have changed my life in ways I am only beginning to understand. Thank you, Taiwan. Though I have moved back to America, I will never forget you.

It would break my heart to say goodbye, so let me end with your own language: Taiwan, 再見 (zai jian). It literally means “see again,” and I sincerely hope I will.

                                                                                        Love

                                                                                        Elizabeth Sunshine

                                            孫麗希

Lessons From Lanterns

            Last Friday was Valentine’s Day, but here in Taiwan it was also Lantern Festival. This holiday is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year.

Some places celebrate Lantern Festival by creating huge sculptures out of paper, cloth or thin plastic and placing lights inside, turning them into giant lanterns. I have seen these sculptures featuring animals (this year there are a lot of horses because it’s the year of the horse), flowers, buildings video game characters and more. Sometimes people will set up whole scenes depicting historical events or traditions.

Others celebrate with “sky lanterns,” which are shaped like light bulbs about the size of my torso. People write wishes on the lanterns and light fires in the bottom. Then they release the lanterns into the sky. A town outside of Taipei called Pingxi is especially known for its sky lanterns.

Last year I went to Pingxi on the day of the lantern festival. I arrived in the middle of the day, but people were already releasing sky lanterns. As I watched the lanterns rise and blow away, I thought they moved gracefully enough, but I didn’t see why they were such a big deal. They looked like large balloons some poor child had let go of, not particularly beautiful.

I met a few friends, and we stayed until after the sun set. Lanterns continued floating up into the air, but they no longer looked like balloons. Now they resembled iridescent jellyfish in the depths of the sea or colored stars rising into the night. The same things that had left me cold a few hours earlier had been transformed into something mystical and hypnotic.

By this time, a huge crowd had descended on Pingxi (or rather, ascended – Pingxi is on a mountain). They gathered in a field where a stage was set up. In between speeches and performances they invited people to step into the space at the center and release the lanterns at the same time. The beauty of each individual lantern was multiplied as they rose together.

I found myself thinking of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:14 – “You are the light of the world.” Sometimes, it feels like the world is covered in darkness – wars, terrorism, disease, natural disasters … The evil around us can feel as vast and threatening of a night sky on a new moon when the stars are hidden by clouds. But it’s those nights when any light – even a tiny lantern – appears the most beautiful. As much as I love bright, sunny days (both figuratively and literally), sunny weather is not the time you appreciate sky lanterns most. It is the dark times that truly show what we are made of and that reveal the light of Christ shining through us.

Yet in those dark times, a single lantern, however bright, can only do so much. When we rise up as a community, then we turn the night sky into a backdrop for a dance of light. It is when we rise together that the world can see the light isn’t a fluke, a mistake, or a trick their eyes are playing on them. Through us they will see Jesus, who also called Himself the light of the world and who is the one who makes us shine.

Myths About Work Part 5: Work Defines Our Relationship With God

This is the final post in my series on myths about work. If you’re interested, here are part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. For this post, I’d like to broaden my focus a bit to include not only the work we are paid to do but also other things we feel we must accomplish. That includes things like housework, serving at church or volunteering. Many people buy into the myth that these actions define our relationship with God.

In the Babylonian myth that I’ve been comparing to the Christian story, the gods created people to do work for them. Since the work was assigned by the gods, we can infer that their attitude toward you would depend on how well you work. In Babylonian religious life, this worked out as sacrifices. People would give sacrifices as food to the gods. In return for these gifts, they would bless their worshipers (theoretically, at least).

Here in Taiwan, I often see people burning incense or paper money or leaving out food for gods, ghosts or their ancestors. But even in the religions that no longer require these kinds of sacrifices, one’s relationship to God (or the gods) is often dependent on obeying a set of commands or moral principles.

Even in churches, this myth is prevalent. I accepted it for much of my childhood. Sunday School lessons tended to focus on what God wanted us to do and examples of heroes to follow. Or at least, that’s how I understood it at the time. When I got into junior high school, the gospel message was proclaimed a bit more often, but it still took an awfully long time for me to get the point.

Throughout junior high school I felt incredibly guilty because I couldn’t bring myself to do what God required of me. Most notably, I knew I should reach out and share the gospel with people, but I was painfully shy and couldn’t work up the courage to do so. Finally, I gave up. I told God, “I can’t do this. If You want me to be a good person, You have to change me.”

Little did I know that that was exactly what God wanted. I admitted that I couldn’t earn His love, but I turned to Him in faith, believing that He could and would accept me anyway.

When we look at the Genesis creation story, God did ask Adam to tend and keep the garden He had made. But it was already a beautiful place filled with fruit trees. God showered Adam with blessings even before Adam had had a chance to do anything. In other words, the Biblical creation story starts with a free gift.

And although the Israelites and the Babylonians both performed sacrifices, their purposes were very different. The Babylonians sacrificed in return for favors to provide the gods with food. (Don’t want the immortals to starve to death.)

In contrast, the Israelite sacrifices were given either to atone for sin or to express gratitude. God was very clear that He didn’t need sacrifices. He didn’t even want them as much as He wanted His people to obey Him. But the real meaning of the sacrifices became clear thousands of years later. They were a picture of Jesus, who died on the cross to bring people forgiveness for their sins.

It is this gift, the sacrifice of Christ, that allows us to have a good relationship with God. Not sacrifices we give God. Not even our own obedience. Only a gift of grace.

The Biblical view of work is complex and multifaceted. We’ve seen how it is a good thing that reflects the image of God in us. But it is neither our purpose nor the thing that determines our value. We work, not primarily because God told us to, but because God works, and we were born to be like Him. God’s work is the foundation for our work. And it, not our own effort, is the foundation of our relationship with Him.

Myths About Work 4 – Inferior People Do Inferior Work

This is the fourth part of a series on myths about work. If you missed the first parts, please see part 1, part 2 and part 3.

Some of the lies we believe in any area of life are held consciously, while others sneak in through the back door. We absorb the latter from the glances and body language of those around us, the jokes we laugh at, the tropes that dominate TV. Often, if we were directly asked if we believe these lies, we would recoil in horror. But they lurk behind our attitudes, priorities and actions. The myth I want to discuss today is one of those sneaky lies that many people hold without knowing it. It is the myth that inferior work is for inferior people.

Many people judge the worth of others based on the kind of work they do. They automatically think of business owners, doctors and lawyers more highly than they think of truck drivers, fast-food workers or garbage collectors. The probably wouldn’t say these people are inferior, but the way they think of them and treat them shows that kind of condescending attitude. Sometimes, this manifests itself as arrogance about one’s own job. In different circumstances it could be the refusal to accept a steady but unglamorous position like flipping hamburgers because you feel it is beneath you.

Like the other myths I have discussed, I see this one reflected in the Babylonian creation myth. The story says that the gods created humans to do work, because work is beneath them. Clearly, the gods are superior to humans, so if the gods can pass work off to inferior beings, humans can do the same. This was a justification for slavery in many ancient cultures; those who were born into noble families were expected to cultivate their minds and leave menial, physical labor to lesser people.

The Bible, however, leaves no room for such a distinction. It presents all human beings as descended from one set of parents, which means that we are all equal in terms of our heritage. Moreover, the thing that gives us value, the image of God in us, is shared equally among all people. It is who we are, and nothing we do can change that. Seeing someone as less valuable because of their career is essentially saying that their work is a more important part of who they are than God’s image is. It makes one’s career more important than God.

The Bible never allowed people to view manual labor as inferior. In fact, it encouraged manual labor, and any other kind of honest work: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need” (Ephesians 4:28). Paul, who wrote that verse, set an example of that himself. Although he was a teacher, and thus could be expected to gain an income through his teaching, he chose to make tents to earn money, rather than let people think he was preaching for selfish reasons.

Jesus goes a step further. He doesn’t merely that manual laborers are as dignified as intellectuals. He actually says that serving others, even doing the lowliest tasks like washing feet, is the way to greatness. The greatest person in the kingdom of Heaven the one who serves others.

I have found in myself a tendency to succumb to this lie and to believe that people who do certain jobs are less intelligent than myself. I believe the key to combating it is recognizing it for what it is. Since this is a myth that hides in the unconscious recesses of our minds, we must bring it out to destroy it.

We must also make sure we behave with respect and dignity toward people, no matter what their position is. Everyone, including waiters, bus drivers, janitors, and the tech support people at the company that produced your stupid, malfunctioning computer, is made in the image of God. The way you treat them reflects your attitude toward Him.

Update: See part 5.

Myths About Work Part 3: Work Is Life's Purpose

I began this series on myths about work by summarizing a Babylonian creation myth. I think modern people and the ancient Babylonians share some misconceptions about work, and I am contrasting them with what the Bible says. Make sure you look at part 1 and part 2.

                                                                                                                          

My previous post addressed the idea that work is inherently bad. This time, I’m discussing the opposite extreme – seeing work as the purpose of life. The Babylonians thought that people were created to work, and many people today act that way.

Last time, I said that “Work is bad” might be the most common myth people believe. I said “might be” because this one is also remarkably prevalent. Think of people who stay late at the office every night, neglecting their families and their health. We identify with careers so much that “What do you do?” is usually the second question we ask each other after “What’s your name?” Children are taught to study hard and go to college so they can get a good job, and not having a job carries a strong social stigma.

Although the Bible affirms that work is good and is part of what God created us to do, it does not turn our effort into the total of our existence.

Work is an expression of the image of God in every person. We work because we are like God. But even God didn’t work all the time. He set the example of resting on the seventh day after working for six days to create the world.

Similarly, God commanded His people to rest one day out of seven. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Exodus 20:8-11).

In both the Old and New Testaments, the greatest commandment is to love God with all of ourselves – heart, soul, mind and strength. Jesus added “love your neighbor as yourself” as the second great commandment. This is as close as the Bible comes to giving a purpose statement for human life.

Our work can be one way in which we love God and others. For example, my current work of producing English-teaching materials is an act of love for the students because it helps them acquire skills that will help them earn money, learn more about the world and live richer lives. Anything that people pay you to do is somehow beneficial to them. Otherwise they wouldn’t pay for it. And any act of service to others shows love for God.

But for most of us the greatest opportunity to love others is by spending time with our families. And work is notorious for cutting into family time. Overwork also takes time away from loving God through personal prayer and Bible study. It also leads us to worry rather than trusting God as He tells us to do.

So what’s the solution? Surprisingly, it’s the same as the solution to the opposite problem of seeing work as evil: “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That means work is a means to the end of glorifying God, not an end in itself. But “whatever you do” includes resting, building relationships with family and friends, exercising, enjoying hobbies and anything else you spend time on. These things can and should glorify God just as much as your work does.

Update: See part 4 and part 5.

Myths About Work Part 2: Work is Bad

The first post in this series described an ancient Babylonian myth and pointed out that, although we may have shed its polytheistic trappings, it reflects false beliefs about work that are still common today. Now I’d like to talk about the first (and arguably the most common) myth I listed.

The Babylonian creation myth says, in essence, that the gods created humans because they didn’t want to work and deserved better than to be forced to do so. That means work is a bad thing. Similarly, many people today view work as a necessary evil. We complain about our jobs and look forward to vacations and, ultimately, retirement. We think of “living the good life” as lying around on a beach somewhere far from the demands of the workplace. When people win the lottery, often the first thing they do is quit their jobs. And some Christians take comfort in the idea that in heaven, we won’t need to work.

But is that what the Bible teaches? Although it doesn’t directly say whether people will work in heaven, the Bible does tell us a lot about the nature of work. And it begins right where the Babylonians did – at the very beginning.

The first place where the word “work” appears in the Bible is Genesis 2:2 “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” So the first person to do work was God, and the result of His work was a “very good” universe.

Of course, the verse does say that God rested, indicating that work wasn’t the only thing that mattered to Him (more on that in the next post). But that doesn’t mean He gave up working as soon as someone else could do it. Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” (John 5:17) So clearly the Bible’s view of resting does not equal retirement.

When God created people, He did expect us to work. “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28) God’s statement is a blessing, but it’s also a job description. Any parent can tell you that “being fruitful and multiplying” is one of the hardest jobs anyone can be given. Filling, subduing and ruling the earth means developing its resources. That includes farming, building cities and other economic activity. So God began His relationship with people by telling them to work.

But unlike the Babylonian gods, the God of the Bible didn’t make people work because He didn’t want to. We work because we are created “in the image of God.” That means we are like God and do the things He does. Being made in God’s image separates us from the rest of creation and gives us unique dignity. So work is a sign of nobility, not of inferiority. We work because God works, not so that He doesn’t have to work. Perhaps this is why God’s first assignment of work is described as a blessing.

But work doesn’t always feel like a blessing. Even though I love my job, there are still mornings when I’d rather pull my quilt over my head and sleep than get up and face a day of work. There are afternoons when I feel like if I look at one more page of text, my brain will turn to liquid and start dripping out of my ears. And that’s with a good job.

The Bible explains this, too. When Adam and Eve sinned, God cursed the ground, saying it would yield “thorns and thistles” and that Adam would produce food from it “by the sweat of [his] face” (Genesis 3:18-19). This is the point where work, which is good, becomes toil, which is bad. The pain associated with toil is real and impossible to ignore. But the rest of the Bible tells about God making all things new, restoring that sin poisoned, including work.

In conclusion, “whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Your job isn’t bad; it was created by God and can be used to glorify Him. When we see our work as an act of worship and a way to better the world around us, we restore the goodness it was created to have and join God in rolling back the effects of the Fall.

Update: Please see part 3, part 4 and part 5.