My personal experience in this whole gay marriage thing.

Before flying off to my Peace Corps service in Turkmenistan, I was required to participate in a pre-departure staging, a mini-conference where I attended training sessions and met my fellow volunteers for the first time. On our first night, we played a short ice-breaker game where we had to write down five self-descriptive adjectives, then introduce ourselves to 5 random people with each of those adjectives. We had to find a random person and introduce ourselves like this:

“Hello, my name is X, and I am insert-adjective.”

After a few harmless introductions, I finally met “Eve”(not real name), to whom I was about to introduce myself as “religious”. It was one of the more risky adjectives as I knew it was likely to either immediately alienate or connect us, but what the heck, no use in hiding who you are right? The conversation went like this:

Eve: Hi, my name is Eve, and I’m queer!

Me: (inside- Oh $*^&(! I chose the wrong (*&(@^#* adjective!)

Oh! Um, um…um….! My name is Russ, and I’m…religious.

Awkward silence. Taken aback by the frankness of our answers, we tried in vain to cover up the awkwardness by sputtering a few niceties about things like the weather, but in the end, excused ourselves and ran for the shelter of anonymity among the other volunteers. Eve and I took giant leaps of faith by voluntarily offering deeply personal pieces of information about ourselves, but midway we suddenly realized that we were leaping in opposite directions.

My brief exchange with Eve was the first among many future interactions with gay/lesbian Peace Corps volunteers. Even though I hailed from the most diverse state in the US, California, I didn’t have much experience with lesbians and gays. As an Asian American who grew up in a conservative Christian community, I represented a very small slice of the American Diversity Pie that did not demand much intermixing. My views on homosexuality were largely based on what I saw on TV (Will and Grace), heard in church (“it’s wrong.”), and learned from a human sex ed class (xxx).

In the Peace Corps, however, I was actually dealing with lesbian and gay people in the flesh, and I had to learn how to work, interact, and ‘be myself’ around them. Admittedly, in the beginning I felt the uneasiness and nervousness that comes naturally when you meet people for the first time, except this time, there was such a deficit of experience that I really didn’t know what to talk about or how to act – “So…how’s the lesbian life treating you?” “Hmm, that is a nice tote bag you have there, wish I had one myself”. Over time, however, I followed the traditional storybook path from ignorance-to-enlightenment, learning to look past their sexuality and focus on the person. More importantly, I met gays that didn’t fit the stereotypical mold of a limp-wristed, well-dressed lisper, nor did I ever encounter a butch, shaved-head, inked-up lesbian.

Outside of Peace Corps, I read up on the lesbian and gay experiences through articles and blogs, paying close attention to gay Christian bloggers in particular. Through their writings I could feel the shame and utter fear of their adolescent and young adult years. Many of them harbored suicidal thoughts, endured bullying, and trembled at the very thought of revealing themselves to their parents, knowing that such knowledge would destroy them. I also read stories about self-realization, which actually turned out less to be less of an “aha! I’m gay!” epiphany, but reflected a gradual self-reflection. These stories coupled with my new friendships with my homosexual friends helped me round out my own preconceived notions of homosexuality.

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Now that I’ve been back in the States for some time now and have mixed myself back into my small slice of Asian American Christian pie, I find myself questioning some of the views I once held about homosexuality:

What does the Bible really say about it?

Can one be gay and Christian at the same time?

Does one choose homosexuality or does homosexuality choose you?

Can one truly “repent” from his sexual orientation?

These troublesome questions surfaced during my college years, but I never seriously examined them as my immediate social circle did not demand critical self-evaluation in this area. My friends either took a hardline stance against it, basing their positions on the solid rock of the Word, or just didn’t care. In church, I had never heard much more than a brief mention of homosexuality from the church pulpit, and when I did, it was usually a dismissive condemnation or a galvanizing call to action to support Proposition 8. Unmolested by intrusions from the rest of the world, I let my unchallenged mind err on the side of caution, taking my authorities’ categorical denunciations of homosexuality for truth – the Bible said it was wrong, and that was that.

However, after greater exposure to gays and lesbians in the Peace Corps, and after deeper online research, these questions took on a new sense of urgency and personal importance.

My time in the Peace Corps has lead me to a frightening question, one that I still struggle with spiritually and mentally, and one that might have life-changing, paradigm-altering consequences: If I find that the Bible does indeed unequivocally condemn homosexuality as a sin, would I then choose to continue to believe and accept the authority of the Bible, categorizing and denouncing the orientation as sin, despite my knowledge, reason, and personal experiences with my homosexual friends? And if I decided to mentally accept homosexuality as a normal, acceptable orientation, would that mean I would have to toss out my most treasured source of knowledge, guidance, and wisdom: the Bible?

Through personal observation and research, I’ve concluded that homosexuality is not a choice, but an orientation. I’ve heard and read enough stories about formerly closeted people who have endured suicidal thoughts, ridicule, disownment, and harmful “reverse-orientation” therapy sessions to determine that sexuality results more from innate character than from personal decision. If this is the case, why would God condemn a person for something that he cannot control? Why would God set a double standard for human love, allowing satisfaction for one man but denying fulfillment for another?

Take two Christian men, Bob, a heterosexual, and Joe, a homosexual, both faithful and sincere in their love of God and earnest in their desire to please Him. Bob, with a natural sexual desire towards women, abstains from any sexual act until marriage, after which he is allowed to behave sexually towards his wife. This is considered right and proper and within God’s blessing.

Joe, however, with his natural sexual desire for men, must refrain from acting upon those longings for the rest of his life. His ideas for wholesome love, consummated by marriage, are by default deemed as unholy by Biblical decree. While God blesses the natural aspirations for love of one man, he curses the yearnings of another for no reason but by arbitrary decree. Some christians have argued that someone with gay/lesbian tendencies should lead a holy life of singleness, sustained by the love of God – a blessing, according to Paul. This is a possible consideration, and yet I wonder, if the situation were reversed, how many of us could endure such ‘blessings’?

Inception

Addendum: I wrote this in January of 2011, right when I got back from T-stan. I don’t know why I put it as private back then, probably b/c it felt too raw still. Though, a lot of what’s expressed here still feels just as real today as it was then.

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I’m exhausted. Went to church this morning, saw many old faces and met one new one. After church sped over to Fresh Choice and scarfed down salads, soups, breads, pizza–the works. After eating, came home washed my room windows, cleaned out my mother’s car interior, and jumped online job searching. After an hour or so of collecting and bookmarking websites on careers, mother called me to dinner. We ate hot pot for the third night in a row, which left us so stuffed that we had to walk up and down our private road a couple of times to rebalance ourselves. Now I’m back here on the internet, collecting websites that may or may not play a part in deciding the direction of my future path/fate.

One month ago I spent many a night sitting lazily with my host family sipping bland but hot tea on our carpet floors in front of the television. We watched mostly Turkish dating shows which I couldn’t understand but got second hand translations from my host mother or host gelneje. It’s surprising to think that I consider that time as easy. My chores consisted of keeping my room neat and clean, and bringing in the water from the well. Occasionally I had to cook for myself when my h mom wasn’t home, or help feed the animals. My work was stable and I had 7 faithful-as-golden-retrievers students who came day in and day out to learn English for two hours.

Now I’m here playing on a g4 Apple computer, wearing snug Northface jackets, and wearing Perry Ellis slacks riding in my father’s pride and joy, his new Volkswagon Passat Wagon (the color is “espresso”!). Life is fast here. And I’m exhausted.

Oh yes, the title. I just saw “Inception” about a week ago, and while I hope the current reality I am experiencing isn’t really some hallucinatory dream where I have to kill myself to really ‘wake up’, this sudden jump from one scene to this current one begs to question the connection. Dreams play out in capricious and dramatic scene changes without obvious connection with one another. There has been a change of scenery here–a great one that baffles my confused mind begging for connection, logic, reason.

Things Fall Apart – Achebe – Your Motherland

I’ve neglected this blog for far too long. I might as well resign myself to write a short, imperfect piece rather than let a fantastical thoughtful post stay put in my imagination. Isn’t that how most things go? The things we really want to do just never happen to get done?

Nevertheless, I finally got around to reading “Things Fall Apart”, by Nigerian author Chinhua Achebe. While I wouldn’t classify it as a literary masterpiece, I also don’t think it should be relegated to that bland category of “multicultural” books which are usually full of exotic spice but devoid of literary quality (i.e.- Kite Runner). Things Fall Apart reminds me more of the classic historical book, “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck, a novel that chronicles the rise  of a prominent, noble Chinese family over three generations, giving us a neat insight into the historical change taking place in China at that time. However, I’m not sure if Achebe would appreciate the comparison to Ms. Buck, since she was a white missionary kid in China – Achebe depicts white missionaries in his book as cultural colonizers that ruin the indigenous customs, religion, and ultimately, their way of life.

Similar to “The Good Earth”, “Things Fall Apart” also follows the life of a Nigerian family caught in the middle of a historically tumultuous time in Nigeria. It mainly details the life of Okonkwo, who must learn to fight against his childhood poverty, earn the respect of his tribe, appease capricious tribal gods, and manage a complex family life complicated by having three wives with three different sets of children. He manages it all by wielding the hard-earned tools that he has used since he was a boy: a superhuman work-ethic and absolute adherence to tradition. These two principles have guided him from abject poverty to a spot in the inner circle of the elder council, and so thus rules his family with his militaristic approach that has served him so well in life. And while his piety does not rely so much upon his faith in spirits and gods, his belief in rigid tradition rests upon its ability to create a semblance of order in a chaotic world. His absolute principles form the foundation upon which he has built his life, and to deviate from them or to even consider other ways of doing things would have been perceived as an existential threat.

Indeed, the encroachment of white (and powerful) missionaries into his community forces him to confront the foreign threat with the same militaristic violence that has served him well throughout his life. However, his community, intimidated by the flashing guns and confused by their gods’ lack of vengeful action on the irreverent white men, ultimately disappoint Okonkwo by not confronting the new threat with force. This disappointment ultimately crushes his spirit and belief in his community’s ability to uphold the traditions, the culture, and the way of life of the tribesmen.

Reading this story of Okonkwo also made me question my own identity as a “Chinese” and how lost and distant the culture is to me. In some ways, I am the product of that weak community so unwilling to fight for its way of life, selling itself wholesale to capitalism, individualism, and Western culture. In a way, the adoption of these Western values is a recognition of the failure of the indigenous values to produce wealth and happiness. Even the grafting of Christianity – a Judeo-Greek (WESTERN) religion – onto our personal lives feels like an attempt to merely “catch up” with the modern world. I have heard laments from my own parents, and other Chinese parents about how sad it is for Chinese people to have to immigrate to the US to get a “real education” or to eke out a “prosperous life”. I guess one could say that it doesn’t have to be an either/or type of acceptance, but an amalgamation, a salad bowl that picks from two different cultural harvest (excuse the imagery, it’s lame) , but I don’t know, that sounds like a 2nd place “everybody wins” type of argument. Orhan Pamuk said something about having to be on the ‘periphery’ of history these past few hundred years, and how hard it is to deal with that knowledge. Anyways, enough of that.

Beef Noodle Soup – niu rou mien – etly un aš çorba

I was feeling super productive one day, as well as a bit nostalgic for my made-from-scratch Turkmen food, so I rolled up my sleeves and got out the rolling pin to make some noodle (un aš) soup. 

Lookin’ authentic so far

Pretty good lookin...I mean the noodles.

içdäñiz açyk bolsun! Bon appetite!

All photo credits go to my mom with her trusty new iphone 4s – the parents are more techy than their kids!

Thanksgiving hellfire in Afghan Mountain

This is a great, short documentary on the Afghanistan War. I felt the awkwardness and the out-of-placeness of US soldiers here in the most remote outposts in Afghanistan:

Letter to Future Peace Corps Volunteers

I recently wrote a small letter to future Turkmenistan Peace Corps Volunteers detailing the struggles and problems during  my two years there from my unique, Asian American Christian perspective. It was written for a project headed by a current Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in Turkmenistan who is compiling extracts from these letters into a reference book for incoming PCVs. This is the letter I wrote.

 

For the Asian American/Christian/quieter personality:

 

Being an Asian American in Turkmenistan put me in a unique position where I was able to really integrate into the local host culture. I could walk the streets without drawing a glance if I dressed the part and kept a low profile. Even towards the end of my service when I was able to pick up a pretty good Turkmen accent, some folks even took me for a Turkmen from a different Welaÿat (prideful grin)! I see this as a great advantage for the Asian American volunteer – just by looking a little bit like the host population helped me blend in without rousing any suspicion.

 

At the same time, however, there certainly were frustrating moments when I had to explain and re-explain to locals that I was NOT actually from China, Japan, or Korea, but from America. Incredulous, they would badger me with a barrage of questions about my origins until I would finally acquiesce and submit to them that I was indeed, Chinese. I consider this a minor inconvenience in light of all the other challenges in living as an alien in a foreign country.

 

Actually, while learning how to adapt to the host culture was difficult, I personally found that it was just as strenuous in trying to fit in with a diverse group of questioning, opinionated, boisterous, uncouth Peace Corps Volunteers (half-joking)! It should be noted, however, that I grew up in a conservative environment where drinking, smoking, and fraternizing at weekend parties weren’t the norms, but instead, weekends at church, and daily sports activities filled my schedule. Yes, I know, this might sound strange to some who are reading this now.

 

It was hard to find common ground with “Mainstream America”, represented by the other Americans hailing from different parts of the States. I did not grow up in the world of Led Zeppelin, Johnny Cash, the zany 80s, or the zillions of “classic” movies from which my Peace Corps friends could so often quote verbatim. I can’t tell you how many times when one of my Peace Corps buddies quoted a line from some 1970/1980s movie to me, hoping to evoke a jovial and affirming reaction that would have signified our shared American heritage, but only experienced disappointment (and incredulousness) when they saw my inability to appreciate the humor (‘Heyyyyy youuuuu guuyyyyyyssss!!’ ‘What? what guys?’).

 

At times I felt I was working twice as hard in trying to “fit in” compared with other volunteers who shared in the dominant American culture. It was as if I was a working man who had to work hard all day at being a Turkmen, but at night, when I could finally come home and relax with my American family during the many reveling weekends at MST or PST or whatever, I realized I couldn’t exactly just “be myself” but that I had to work just as hard to stay social with Americans. I had to work hard to fit in with Turkmen, and I had to work hard to fit in with Americans, and that’s just how it was.

 

And yet, they say that you reap what you sow, and what little I sowed brought forth an abundant harvest. Not only did I learn to adapt and make real friends with Turkmen by adapting to their cultures and customs, but I also learned a lot about mainstream American culture and developed true friendships with other Americans so incredibly different from myself. I remember one sunny afternoon where I was sifting through my sitemates’ itunes playlist, transferring Johnny Cash, Hotel California, and Beatles’ music into my little thumb drive in an attempt to understand why such music appealed to the musical taste buds of my American friends. Through self-imposed listening sessions to American rock, I grew fond of certain songs and even play them from time to time.

 

RELIGIOUS ISSSUES

 

While being an Asian American in T-Stan proved challenging, being a conservative Christian among a crowd that was generally composed of humanistic, pluralistic liberals (“I believe what works for me, you believe what works for you”) presented a unique challenge as well.

 

I don’t want to go too deep into it, but in the event that a conservative religious/practicing believer is to be found among the future cohort of PCVs, I’ll offer a small comment: you will be challenged. I often found myself at odds with my environment everywhere I went, as my concept of morality, my definitions of ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ abrasively grinded against other peoples’ thoughts and opinions – and this goes for both Turkmen and American cultures alike. Some of these challenges came indirectly and directly. I remember conversing with a Turkmen friend over tea one pleasant afternoon when suddenly the conversation turned to religion, where I eventually found myself on the uncomfortable end of his evangelism pitch for Islam. Another time, in a drunken stupor, one of my Peace Corps friends jokingly remarked to me that if he held the same religious views as I did he would “kill himself”. I let it slide and attributed it to the alcohol.

 

The forced intermixing with both Turkmen and Americans tested me mentally and spiritually, and the natural struggle for dominance among competing ideas in the arenas of our minds – West vs. East; Individualism vs. collectivism; Theism vs. Atheism/agnosticism, etc. — proved beneficial as it stretched me mentally. At the end of my service I learned to become more tolerant and accepting of other viewpoints while retaining my core values – and that, I think, is a great success for an unimaginably challenging two years.

 

Russell Hsieh
T-Stan, 2008-2010

We make mistakes

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes…we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions – especially selfish ones.

- Solzhenitsyn

High Speed Rail – the untruths of the internet, and self-doubt

The internet was supposed to hail in a golden age of free information where even the most remote member of society could gain access to facts and figures that would help him make better informed decisions in life. We thought it would open up the communication lines, create transparency, and free up information to help us learn and understand, and eventually apply it to our lives. I don’t think it is a far fetch to say that we hoped it would better inform the voter to vote in a way that lines up with facts and figures. I am that voter, I am that user, but unfortunately, with all the information that the internet has to offer, I feel more confused and angry than educated and informed.

I’m a big train buff – instead of waking up to watch Sesame Street, I eagerly waited for the end of that boring show to enjoy a wonderful episode from Shining Times Station. I love riding BART and MUNI, and although it was expensive to take the Amtrak trip from Emeryville-Davis during my freshmen year, I still hopped on the trains to experience the romantic and spacious trips that trains offer.

So, I naturally grew excited when the Obama Administration portioned a small piece of government funding to push forward development of High Speed Rail projects throughout the country, one of them locating in my very own backyard, San Francisco! Unfortunately, the bubbling excitement over the sleek, sexy trains ran into speed bumps coming from detractors – both experts and politicians alike – who questioned the utopian picture of profitability, environmental benefit, and job creation painted by the Administration and other supporters. Despite feeling piqued by the naysayers of a transportation project, whose benefits seemed obvious to me, I allowed them room to speak in the courtroom of my mind for the sake of objectivity and sound judgment. To this end, I decided to hop on the internet and do some research.

A simple Google search on High Speed Rail produced a report published by the Texas Public Policy Foundation whose findings decisively lined up against High Speed Rail. The Foundation provided compelling arguments against HSR, claiming that the trains would create minimal displacement of auto ridership to trains, and, therefore do little to alleviate congestion. They also dismissed the environmental and social benefits claimed by supporters as embellished fiction, and suggested that the Federal funds could be used to make incremental changes to the current transportation system, such as investing in better traffic control technologies, the bus industry, and automobile technology. As I read through the report, I found myself agreeing with them on certain points, and even began to doubt the benefits of my beloved HSR.  In the end, my curiosity lead me to ask, “Who is this Texas Public Policy Foundation”? While the report was persuasive, the passionate language used felt imbalanced and even unprofessional, so a quick Google search produced the Foundation’s website:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Highlighted in the top right corner are the tenets of the Foundation: Individual Liberty, Personal Responsibility, Free Markets, Private Property Rights, Limited Government. These values smacked of the stuff often publicized by free-market evangelists of the Tea Party, so another query of the first name found under the Board of Directors, Dr. Wendy Lee Gramm, generated a link to a wikipedia page about an economist who was known as Regan’s “favorite economist”. Hm.

I was discouraged and felt a little cheated. Here was a report on HSR claiming objectivity,  yet whose authors worked for a foundation that clearly hews to a certain political line.

Continuing my search, I found a layman-friendly analysis from CNN, which selected simple, but apt questions and comments from its readers and offered answers from both academics and politicians – democrats and republicans alike. I thought the article struck a more balanced tone than the previous Texas Public Policy report, offering multiple perspectives yet ultimately titling slightly towards the pro-HSR side. However, the alarm bells were set off when I saw this brief exchange:

Comment: ”High-speed rail is faster, cleaner and safer than driving.” — CNN.com user “Orangecat46″

Expert response: I agree

Sudhir Chella Rajan, senior associate with the Tellus Institute:

Other nations: “In countries where it has been effectively implemented (e.g., China, Japan and France), average speeds above 130 mph have been achieved and at relatively low costs on a per passenger-mile basis.”

Pollution: “In terms of emissions too, high-speed rail is cleaner, with carbon dioxide emissions (on a per passenger-mile basis) roughly half to a third of what is conventionally achieved by automobiles at normal load factors (passengers/vehicle or wagon).”

Safety: “The record is mixed and depends on which countries we’re examining. In the United States, for instance, railroad accidents have resulted in far fewer fatalities than highway accidents on a per passenger mile basis, but that the numbers are closer in countries like India and China.”

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Wow! Fantastic! HSR really is the way to go! Right? Wait, first, who in the world is the Tellus Institute? One look at the website and you might think that the author of the website might belong to the cult group, La Rouche, a predatory organization that can often be found pamphleting its wacko ideas on college campuses. If the picture on the right of the Mother-Theresa-like grandma giving the world to a small child doesn’t convince you of its leftist leanings, then you should read the text: “We are at the cusp of a new historical epoch – the planetary phase of civilization – that binds the world’s people and the biosphere into a single community of fate.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This single citation from an obviously biased source ruins the credibility of the rest of the article. Thank you, CNN.

The internet, without a doubt, is a wonderful thing. Yet, I often forget that the internet is designed to propagate ALL information – some of it good, but a lot of it bad, or at least untrustworthy. It has made us doubt the sources of even our most trusted providers (CNN is no fringe news outlet), and therefore creating doubt in our ability to reason, judge, and ultimately, to act. I don’t know a remedy. I don’t know how to move forward and make a decision on such critical and expensive issues such as High Speed Rail. I could find resources to support my childhood predilections for all things trains-related, but not in good conscience.

There’s probably a remedy to all this self-doubt. Maybe choosing a side and sticking with it through the thick and thin would be one method, for we all must choose sides eventually (stagnation = support of status quo). Or maybe there are practical methods in sifting through the mountain stacks of information out there.

I don’t know. Maybe the answer is out there on the internet.

Complaint about Christian answers

Some of my friends are into listening to sermons from pastors such as John Piper, Francis Chan, Tim Keller, and others, but for some reason or other I never cultivated the habit. Recently I’ve heard a lot of hype from Christian friends posting on blogs or Facebook, concerning Tim Keller, a pastor of the giant Redeemer church in Manhattan. My friends even dropped his name during a few conversations some times, but I never bothered to look him up to check out what the hype was all about.

Today, while I was surfing the Veritas Forum, a website which features recorded debates and talks among both secular and Christian scholars on Worldview issues such as the true meaning of life, the tension between science and faith, and other philosophical topics concerning the Christian faith (Dr. Francis Collins’ incredibly articulate lecture about the complementary nature of science and faith is particularly good), I found a video featuring NBC correspondent Martin Bashir and Columbia University professor David Eisenbach interviewing Tim Keller in a Q & A session. With all the hype that Christians friends have created for him on Facebook and other social media platforms, I expected to see a tense but enlightening interview that would showcase compelling answers from a man whose reputation for charisma and intelligence preceded him.

I was disappointed. To be fair, Bashir’s questions ripped through Keller like sniper bullets, and for anyone to come out of that with only a few grazes would have to be an a very crafty and creative person indeed, but the problem is that I found that the inquisitor’s questions were so good at encapsulating my own skeptical sentiment that I, too, eagerly awaited an answer from a man purporting to know the Truth with a capital T. What I witnessed, however, was a self-conscious man larding his arguments with the  fat of others’ opinions and thoughts, circumventing the issues at hand like a B-grade diplomat, allowing his reputation as a straightforward, thoughtful speaker to cave in itself like a house built on shaky (sandy?) foundations.

When Bashir asked Keller directly about the fate of billions of non-Christian people in this world, the pastor immediately parried back with an idea about how people who grow up in White, middle-class, Christian America are not necessarily guaranteed a spot in heaven either. He deflects the question because he doesn’t want to say ‘yes’ directly, as it would offend and turn off an already ambivalent audience, but of course would never say ‘no’, as he would probably have no congregation to preach to on the following Sunday. Working through the question,  he constantly reiterates that God only gives him information on a “need-to-know” basis, which I suppose is a roundabout way of stating that he doesn’t know, which more than one of his more hardline Christian followers picked up on, spreading doubts about his true convictions. After bumbling through his answer, he finally defaults to a pretty weak, albeit Biblical truth: while the Bible fails to comment on the ultimate destiny of an unevangelized unbeliever, it does declare the absolute justice of God’s judgment, therefore allowing Keller and other Christians like him to accept God’s decisions based on the tautological fact that God is the definition of justice. In other words, while Keller admits that he doesn’t know what happens to unproselytized people, he accepts the justness of their fates based on the fact the unchallengeable fact that God is just. It’s almost like asking what makes an apple an apple, and the answer being that it is an apple because it’s an apple! This is an abysmally unsatisfactory answer, especially for earnest, thinking people who are looking for compelling responses to such critical questions of faith.

I think, on a personal note, this question cuts at the heart more deeply than any other, and I don’t think I’m alone on this. In this information age we are learning more about and connecting with the Other more deeply and frequently than ever before, and with each contact we might ask ourselves some very basic, challenging questions that might alter the perspectives others,  or more dangerously, upend our own:

If I’m a Christian (sub category: Catholic/Protestant/protestant-baptist/protestant-presbyterian/protestant-anglican/etc.) /Muslim/Buddhist/Hindu/Sikh/Mormon/Atheist/Agnostic/etc. – what’s going to happen to the rest of the world?

Foxes and birds

‘Lord, I will follow You wherever You go’

‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’

‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father’

‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God’

‘Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house’

‘No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.’

I don’t know why, but these words frighten me. Perhaps it’s because Jesus measures your commitment by how much you let go, and, even if all is relinquished, these paltry sacrifices do not necessarily mean that you are in love.