musing #2

I just had a pretty profound thought (if I might say so myself) that has been building over the past few weeks. I revisit this thought often and only now have I really felt the weight of my thoughts. So it might not come as a surprise to you that I've been seeking out religion for the past few years, and Pan Man got me enrolled in RCIA at the local Catholic church. I was initially pretty opposed to it since I am quite deeply entrenched in two Presbytarian cell groups in Singapore, both of which I have found to be very inspiring and spiritually quite nourishing. But it really cannot compare to my experience in RCIA. The benefit of being a member of two cell groups in Singapore is that you get to read the bible with like-minded individuals twice a week, which is 2 times more than in RCIA, where you only meet once. But add to that the obligations of going to mass and dismissal, and I guess the fact that with RCIA it is a continuous 10 month thing, whereas with the SG cell groups I can only really attend when I'm back in Singapore, I feel that my faith and love for God has grown exponentially.

I'm not gonna lie, at this point in time I'm more comfortable with God, and then the Holy Spirit, and then Jesus, then Mary, in that order. To me, I still find the whole Jesus-son-of-God-who-became-Man a little iffy.. I don't know, it's not that I don't accept it, it's just that to me, it's like a story, you know? something that you read and say "oh, that's nice" or "oh, that made my tear" or "oh, that really touched me", but then you put the book down and you go on with your daily life. Same with Mary (I suppose I should be calling her Mother Mary) It's like, co-redemptrix? Good on you, wow you really must have done a lot to deserve that title! The rosary "Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen" speaks to me, especially after listening to Father Tom talk about the significance of Mary in the Catholic Church, and I find it pretty cool that Mary can intercede on our behalf because she understands us like she understood her child, Jesus.

But still the whole "Jesus" thing still really itched, and I say itched because it was a persistent annoyance in that how could I call myself a Christian if I didn't believe in Jesus? I think that is the ultimate factor that sets Christianity apart from the other religions. So, to clarify, every time someone asked me if I am a Christian, I'd say that I'm working towards it. If they asked me what denomination, though, in the past I would say Presbytarian and now Catholic, because simply asking the denomination did not suggest that I am a practicing Christian, just which denomination I identify more with.

Ok, so coming back to my thought. Through these really dark days, and dark nights,  there have been so many rifts between me and my family at times I have felt like I have lost my sisters irrevocably, and recently, I've felt that I've lost my whole immediate family, parents included. It is the most sickening and heart-aching feeling to have felt that you have been cast away from your family, to be torn out from the family tree, all the fibers that had been woven between you and your individual family members be shredded. And oh, the pain. The real desperation and yearning for those days when everything was still alright. I'm really not exaggerating, I can truly say that these have been the most trying time of my life. And over the past week, contemplating my mother's words to me (which she now of course retracts), feeling like my whole family is lost, I remembered Matthew 8:18-22

The Cost of Following Jesus

¹⁸ When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹ Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”
²⁰ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
²¹ Another disciple said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
²² But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

and specifically this passage because while in Singapore I felt that I could not stay at home, it was no longer my home. And true enough, my room was filled with the junk that they had moved from other rooms, and my aunt was living in it (no fault of hers, she is our guest). But they had not made any attempts to clear my room and yet insisted that I stay at home? I found that very contradictory. 

But primarily this passage because it tells me not to hate my family (as in Luke, since honestly they are not evil anti-Christ and are entitled to their own feelings), but that sometimes, you just have to leave your family behind and pursue your life and your beliefs. Me deciding to marry Mr Pan at all costs came with a dear cost that I had never anticipated-- my family. It was a stunning shock to me, and Pan and I shed many, many a tear over this whole debacle. It is almost a year and has not been fully resolved, and I regret to say that my elder sister has not spoken to me in approximately a year and a half, maybe two. 

I am not using this bible passage to satisfy my own whims and selfish desires regardless of what my family opines would be the better choices that I and/or with Mr Pan should have taken, but I believe that we are working towards a strong and wholesome Christian life together. Together we are so strong, and we are so loving, and we are so good, I really don't think I would be as good a person without him, and similarly for himself. When we fight we sometimes bring out the worst in each other, sure, but all other times we nourish each other and bring out such goodness that I marvel at what an amazing boy he is. And I wish, I wish that my family can see that. 

Then I thought to myself, why the heck not? How can they be so blind? Are they choosing deliberately what they want to see and what they don't want to see? Yes, possibly, and could one other possibility be that God has kept them blind, is letting me wander in this loveless desert so that I can truly feel what it means to be rejected and shunned and spoken to harshly for one's own faith? Granted mine is more so a faith in love than a faith in religion, but the magnitude of what I feel as a result in my faith in love led me to reflect on how Jesus felt about himself, his rejection from his earthly "family" and his belonging to another kind of family. And it made me think, "yikes, that must have hurt so badly", and made me reflect more on the life of Christ. IF Jesus really went through all that he has gone through, and felt the same pain, nay, more of that kind of pain that I did, then wow. What grace and humility he did show. What love and pure goodness of the heart to turn the other cheek and say "I love you and I forgive you", and mean it! Sometimes I indulge in day-dreaming where I see my sister and give them a hug and a kiss and say to their amazed faces with genuine sincerity "I love you and I forgive you for all your transgressions against me" and I feel so warm and good inside, and so smug outside. And yet, I have not done it, and the fact that I can feel smug about these thoughts tell me that I probably don't really mean it, I am just enjoying the fact that I can even come up with these good, Godliness-centric thoughts. Wow do I need help, huh. 

So yes, that was my thought. I really want to spend more time on this thought and grow my love for Christ, to be able to say "Man, do I love Him" and mean it. To really feel it. Isn't it weird? Right now I feel like it's like saying "I love Dior, their perfume is just so delicious", or "I LOVE my car, it's so reliable and utility.", although sadly right now I'd probably have more feelings about the car since I actually drive it than about Christ cuz he's like, totally fictional (to me) right now.
  
I guess I know what I'm going to pray for tonight. God has been so good to me, (also have I told you, He's totally kept me safe on the roads on several (3) harrowing occasions) I hope he can help me out with just this one more thing. 

musing

so, i was super contemplative last night, and i thought i should just jot some thoughts down, coherent or not.

met with two really good friends of mine, and when i say really good, i mean i would call one of them my best friend, and the other, one of the only friends i've felt that i should keep in touch with. *more on this later

i was really looking forward to meeting up with them and catching up on old times. you know, heart-to-heart and really connecting. i have a thing about connecting. i need to feel intensely, absolutely, purely connected. there is no thrill like that in the world-- the feeling of being "one" with each other, completely and sublimely together. and hey, that can be done with your friend ok, it doesn't have to be just with your spouse. Pan's youngest sister shared with me a quote the other day that she said rocked her world, and honestly, it took my breath away as well. it read "Moments like this act as magical interludes, placing our hearts at the edge of our souls: fleeting, yet intensely, a fragment of eternity had come to enrich time. Elsewhere the world may be blustering or sleeping, wars are fought, people live and die, some nations disintegrate, while others are born, soon to be swallowed up in them, and in all this sound and fury, amidst eruptions and undertows, while the world goes its merry way, bursts into flames, tears itself apart and is reborn, human life continued to throb."

and that throbbing of my heart when that magical interlude falls upon us, wow. you can literally feel time, your time being etched in crystal for all eternity, yours to keep. it has happened many times with D, whom i would call my best friend, but like in many relationships, time and space seem to have brought us in different directions, and i feel like i cannot connect with her as well. it's like you're probing, probing, feeling in the dark for the other hand to hold on to, only to realize later on that all your efforts were futile because she was somewhere else.

i'm gonna be honest here, i felt like a country mouse next to town mouses D and X talking. while they yabbered on about people whom i have forgotten about/never bothered to cultivate a relationship with/have never met but have heard so much about, i am dismayed by the realization that my mom had warned me that living in the midwest has turned me into a country bumpkin, which i had angrily and egoistically rejected.

maybe it is true. while X had on sexi mini shorts, a see-through blouse and kick-ass earrings (not to mention a totally gangster dragon tattoo around her waist), and D had on silhouette-flattering all-black work clothes, i was in a blue and white summer frock and a grey sweater, looking completely the part of a frumpy FOB. i had nothing witty to say, no important musings to contribute nor idealistic impressions to impress upon them. i had nothing but a orange-scented home-made body scrub to offer as a present to D, that and a beer-drinking gut (thanks, Midwest breweries).

what do I do now? do i bow to the seductive powers of Singaporean society and wriggle my way back in, mascara and sex-appeal in excess? or do i quietly make my way back to the midwest and great danes and my elderly neighbors with whom i have so tenderly made friends with? have i gotten it all wrong? have i misunderstood Singaporean culture? D told me about her group of friends (background: all rich and well connected by birth or marriage, SMU kids, cultured and well-travelled, fabulous and met through SMU cheerleading) (yeah, cheerleading. i'm stereotyping now, so bite me.) who all coincidentally are travelling in Europe now; all the big cities-- Barcelona, Paris, Milan, etc-- and alas! D is there every year for work but this year, what fate-- she is not, so they whatsapp her for her suggestions on where to eat in Versailles. Look, i don't mean to be snarky, D has worked her ass for all her experiences and to get to where she is, but really. does one not see how privileged and utterly frou-frou their lives are? just to be able to spout eating places in Versailles speaks acres about their global conquests.

maybe i have gotten it wrong. D told me how one of those friends had forgotten to bring her makeup bag with her on her trip and i asked, false sympathy apparent "oh no, how was she coping?' and D's forehead scrunched, as if she could not comprehend how i could be so shallow to think that her friends could not live without makeup. maybe i am the shallow one for assuming people live like that? maybe i assume that people make friends through similar outfits and made-up faces?

maybe's aside, how can i identify myself with a group of friends like that? let it be clear, this is not a case of sour grapes. i don't wish to be part of this group, or anything close to it. i don't, i just cannot see myself as being part of a clique.

ironically, that same day in the afternoon, in a restaurant  4 doors down the road from where X, D and I met for dinner, Mr Pan, his mom, said youngest sister and i had lunch, where i remarked to sister "when someone tells you she doesn't belong to any clique, it's usually simply because she doesn't have any friends". i speak from experience because i certainly have no true group of friends. I make friends quickly, but am just as quick to disconnect because (this is where the * would link to) i simply don't feel the ability to connect as sublimely. or the desire to search for that connection with them. when that connection is not there, i feel as if it's not anything i want, that there's nothing much in it for me. maybe i am just greedy.

with D, like i said, there were so many moments, like lying in her parents bed wondering about the future, like walking down the road in the dead of the night talking about life. with X, it was the many nights we binge drink like huge party sluts, and i help her up to vomit in public (i am quite a champ). who else can i feel this unadulterated sense of life with? who else can i connect with to feel the truth of the world and of the universe? how can i make that connection? i am 26, doing research at a university, and waiting to hear back about my phd application. where, how, why, when, will i ever feel the same wild abandon that irrevocably tied me to these random strangers so that i can call them my friends?

i don't know. i just feel a yearning to call them back.

i look to the past so often, many times in my dreams i fall back through time into those days. i can accurately remember my primary school building, my friends' faces as they were when they were 10, i can remember my old homes and fears, feelings and activities. i yearn for those days as intensely as i yearn for happiness. i ache inside for my soul to rekindle the type of emotions i once felt. but does that mean i am not happy now? no, i am as comfortable and happy as i could ever be. i am fortunate for the family i have acquired for myself. acquire, i say because i have worked, i have made choices, i have made sacrifices for them. all conscious, all deliberate; "I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul." i have what i desire, and yet what more i desire, i cannot have because it is in the past.

 Mr Pan told me last night, after i had disclosed some of these thoughts to him, that people change. our goals in life have changed course, people head in different directions. i agree with him, but in my heart i feel defeated by time and space for taking way the ones i love and loved to spend time with. i feel cheated by life, i feel jealous that they have moved away from me, and i am angry that we are no longer on the same planes of thought.


i need to get back to writing-- this felt good. completely self-centered but good.