A strange and frightening kind of day

November 21, 2011

2:00 p.m. Emeth laid down for his nap with not much bouncing or laughing. Unusual, but I did not think much of it.

3:30 p.m. Emeth woke up. We had our ritual of hugs and whispers, and he requested to return to his crib "to rest" a little longer "because he was too tired." This never happened before, but there is a first time for everything, right?

4:30 p.m. Emeth woke up from his second nap (?!). We talked a little and he proceeded to lay on the floor and watched his brother playing with toys. Again, never happened before.

5:00 p.m. Emeth requested to return to the crib a second time to rest. I was getting a little worried.

6:00 p.m. He was still under his blanket, holding his bear, staring blankly into space.

The house was quiet. I heard only the light footsteps of the little brother's fat feet. When I washed the dishes, I did not have to remove my gloves every two minutes. No one was talking, or telling me stories, or roaring like a lion, or asking questions.

My imagination ran wild. I had read several articles on meningitis a few days ago. Lethargy was among the symptoms; death was among the "complications." I checked his temperature several times. Is your neck hurting? How are your knees? Can you straighten your legs?

6:40 p.m. He sat up and said, "Emeth is not feeling too tired any more," and slowly regained his momentum of chattiness.

7:30 p.m. He was singing Pop Goes the Weasel at the top of his lungs. He was not eating his dinner like I wish he would, but it was well with my soul.

I record this for days to come when I might foolishly wish for a quieter house. I might wish to whine about all the interruptions or the giggles and squeals when they are supposed to be sleeping. I record this to remember how frightened I was when Emeth was quiet, and how grateful I was when I had my a boisterous and endlessly chatty three-year-old back.

Here are some Emethese for good measure:

ker whale -- killer whale 
os-posit or o-sipit -- opposite
long long time ago or last morning -- a few hours ago, yesterday, weeks or months or years ago.
maybe -- definitely. E.g. "maybe I spilled my yogurt" means "I spilled my yogurt."
almost -- already. E.g. "It's almost two o'clock" means "It's already two o'clock."
deft-ly -- definitely
um-set -- upset
sammich -- sandwich
opportunist -- what daddy calls me and my little brother when he comes out from his study.
Jolay and Dalay - me and daddy when we are pretending to be Jolay and Dalay. Mommy is also Jolay but she doesn't like to play along. And Hanan is Dalay, like me, but he is too little to understand.

On absurdity and unkindness

Years ago, I had a dear friend who had anorexia and bulimia. One night, very early in our friendship (when I didn't know about her eating disorders), she looked at me and cried, "You are so thin, and I am so fat!" I was so confused. Her size-zero pants looked baggy on her. I will not tell you the size of my pants, but I can tell you that I was (and still am) not a size-zero.

I told her that she needed to love herself more.

A year after that incident, I was asked to give a workshop in the juvenile justice facilities on sexual harassment. I walked into a classroom containing twenty-two blank stares in blue uniforms. By the end of the workshop, we were a wreck. Some were crying, most were distraught, four admitted that they had been raped.

I left them with colorful bookmarks telling them to love themselves.

Weeks ago, Yohanan was teething (the well-used excuse for fussing). He just had a flu shot. His skin felt warmer than usual, a slight fever. He looked at me and his hand patted his chest, signing "Please." Hold me, mommy, just hold me.

Then, I understood
the absurdity
of the colorful bookmarks,
the unkindness
of telling my friend to love herself.

Girls in blue uniforms stood before my mind's eyes, their blank stares judged me. No, Miss, we cannot love ourselves. Can't you see, Miss? We are hurt, and broken, and sick.

How do we see ourselves?
Are we gods and goddesses -- the way they sing about us on the radio?
Or do we see ourselves as God sees us?

Children, toddlers, babies--
faces of beauty in the fullness of their glory,
helpless, rebellious, center of our universes,
always manage to get our hands on some poison or choking hazards,
prone to wander, falls, and pain.

We are children
like Yohanan,
we are not able to love ourselves.

When I see my children sinking in their self-inflicted misery, I don't tell them to love themselves. No, I tell them that Mommy and Daddy love them. I tell them that their Maker and Savior loves them. And then, we would dance, and sing, and hold on to one another (until, of course, I have to make dinner).

Love
looks to others.
When love looks to the self, it becomes something else.

Emeth's first poem

At the breakfast table this morning, Emeth composed his first poem.

Chubby little fingers,
Chubby little toes,
Chubby little winter on Hanan bear.

I thought it had just the right amount of ambiguity for a poem. I get it, but I don't get it. He said it was to "make Hanan laugh." I thought it was perfect.

Nutella on my priestly garment

I've loved history my whole life. I mostly kept this to myself in high school. History, or "Sejarah" as we called it in Malaysia, was among the most despised subjects in the public schools. There was little to love when government exams expected students only to memorize dates and events.

So, when I came to the United States, I freely indulged at the fountain of a liberal arts education, and drank myself silly. I declared my academic love to the history department, even though I was a biology major.

Here, I was introduced to the nuns of the Middle Ages. They enthralled me. Life in the the convents and monasteries sounded most -- liberating. When so few women knew how to read, nuns wrote books. The ascetic life seemed so noble. Monks and nuns sacrificed much freedom and devoted their lives to prayer and spiritual disciplines. I thought if I had lived in the Middle Ages, it would be so cool to be a nun.

I have since grown out of that (weird) daydream. (thank goodness)

And then, I became a mom. The freedom that I was ready to sacrifice as a (Protestant) nun paled in comparison to the sacrifices of becoming a parent. I am not saying that the monastic life was easy, not at all, but at least monks and nuns got full nights of sleep, the time to be with one's own thoughts, the luxury of being in one's own mind, the freedom to come and go. As my friend Charisse said, she can be having "intense devotional thoughts" at one moment, and be upset by the sound of children fighting at the next.

Our worship is tangled up with the ordinary. Nuns and monks clothed the naked and fed the hungry as their acts of spiritual discipline. (Wait, that's what parents do.) We offer our lives as worship; we sing, we play, we eat, we drink, we wash, we comfort, we listen, we teach, we pray. Repeat. This is our service unto the Lord, even when my priestly garment is stained with Nutella, and the floor of the sanctuary may have a few Cheerios on it.

So, when Martin Luther wrote "intense devotional thoughts" about stenchy diapers, I try to pay attention. A monk turned family man, he knew what he was talking about:

[Natural reason] turns up her nose and says, "Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores?"...

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels.

It says, O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. . . . God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling—not because the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.

On dying and becoming

{On the sixth anniversary of his proposal}

Six years ago, Hans flew to New Haven. There, he mopped my floor and asked me to marry him. That girl who said "yes" had no idea what was coming for her.

Here are some thoughts from the past six years. They have nothing, yet everything, to do with celebrating our marriage.

1. Became and becoming.
Two months after our wedding, we moved to Trinity. Since then, we have lived in the same apartment, served in the same church, and we are still working on the same illusive degrees. In one sense, we have not gained anything; we have not gone anywhere. Yet, we are so different now. By the grace of God, we are not who we used to be. And this is a very good thing.

We became, and we are becoming
husband and wife, mom and dad, children of God.

2. Life is a string of little deaths.
Marriage and childbearing are much like second and third conversions for me. They are milestones that mark new phases of learning how to die to myself. Marriage was somewhat of a gradual death. Motherhood, on the other hand, struck me down like a thunderbolt. I am a tree in the storm, bent beneath the weight of the sky.

But feeling small is not a bad thing. Pain has been a kind teacher to me.

3. Finders losers; losers keepers.
I cringe when I think of the lofty words in my graduate school applications. I wrote something about finding myself, and helping others to find themselves. Bleh. Life cannot be found this way.

Finders losers; losers keepers. Jesus said, "Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever who loses his life for my sake will find it." I had neither the discipline nor the selflessness to live life giving myself to others. So God sent the boys, tiny faces of grace speaking truth. Their cries of hunger and outstretched arms rescued me from my self-idolizing heart. They are rescuing me still. For their sake, I want to be the kind of mother who would lay down her life for others. Though it may not feel like anything spectacular, somewhere between mastitis and sleeplessness, the dying and the losing, God gives life.

I read somewhere that blood is poured out during childbirth and at the Cross--for the giving of life, "great loss holding hands with great gain."

4. I like holding hands.
We first held hands when Hans visited me in Denver, while I was sipping on sesame boba tea (he ordered something else). I have not seen this flavor for years, until a few weeks ago when some friends from Denver sent us three pounds of the good stuff.

We are still holding hands. He still cleans my messes. And I am so happy to have said "yes." Thanks for asking, darling.

On whales, trains, and stories

One night, after the children were in bed, I went into Hans' study and started spewing information about pregnant humpback whales, the growth spurt of baby humpbacks (100 pounds a day), and how they nurse (40 times a day, yielding about 130 gallons of milk, 50% milkfat). Fascinating stuff, right?

I stopped when I saw a huge grin on Hans' face. "What is so funny?" I demanded. "You are talking about breastfeeding whales," he responded.

OK, fine. I can see how that can be perceived as a little weird.
I blame this on motherhood. Emeth gave me his sea-creature-fever and I didn't even know it.

Mommy cow scolded baby cow for standing on the train tracks.

The train was, of course, carrying an octopus and a shark.

These are familiar sights around our home. This is Emeth's world. And it has become our world. Colliding stories. They make perfect sense in the mind of their creator, "Mommy, let me tell you a story. One day..."

Emeth lives in stories; and Emeth lives out stories.

During dinner one night, he was licking rice off the his plate. When I reprimanded him, he answered: "Emeth is not a cow?" Ah, thank you for the explanation. I am never sure where we are during our walks anymore, "Emeth, are we a school of fish in the coral reef (the bushes) or are we trains on the tracks (the sidewalk)?" I need to pay more attention.

I am well aware that one of the biggest advantages I have over all the other voices in his life is that I get to tell him his first stories. Stories make his world. Stories draw boundaries between light and darkness, day and night, sea and sky, right and wrong, good and bad. Stories give him people and things to love.

Mr.Squash meeting the wild animals at the zoo.

Hans found it slightly disturbing when I became fascinated with North Korea. I was digging around the web for articles, videos, pictures, anything really. And as always, after the children were in bed, I sat in Hans' study and spewed information.

How do they bear the weight of their fear? How do they endure the silence and the emptiness of their streets? How did they become so deceived?

Stories.

The same can be said for the concentration camps during World War II. Or how people captured other human beings and make them slaves. Or how pimps deceive young girls into prostitution. They each began with a story -- very, very bad ones.

We expect to be entertained when we walk into the cinema. As we drive down the highway, we are bombarded by streams of billboards. Movies, dramas, video clips, reality shows, commercials, books, the news. We think we are above them. We think they are harmless. In fact, we don't think very much of them at all.

Kim Jong Il, the dictator of North Korea, thinks very much of these things. He knows the power of storytelling. Some call it propaganda. Actors and actresses in North Korea are handpicked by Kim Jong Il, and they are counted among the most privileged of the country. They live and perform to give joy to their "Dear Leader."

In Pyongyang, there is a shrine dedicated to the "Dear Leader." Well, actually he has many shrines, but this particularly one is a museum of cinematography, in which he is the star. Of all things, the people revere him as a genius of the cinema, the theater, and the circus. Prime ministers and presidents of other nations do not receive such praise in these fields. But it seems that his strategy works, the level of control Kim Jong Il has on his subjects is astounding.

When I spewed information about North Korea on my sister Catherine (my poor family), she thoughtfully responded: "I wonder whether I am living in a delusion?"

Yes, of course we are. Like children, we live in stories, and we live out stories. But unlike children, we don't think very much of them. In fact, we don't think very much at all.

On Repentance

My friend Janice had a way of seeing ordinary things. I loved looking through her eyes. She would say of a rock, "this is lovely," and somehow, it would be lovely.

Hazelnut coffee. The color blue. Mountain climbing. These things she made lovely because she loved them.

One of my fondest memories of her happened late one night when we were up talking, typical for two teenage girls at a sleepover. We were getting ready for my first mountain climb the next morning. This was our only climb up Mt. Kinabalu together. Yet, it feels as though we've climbed it many times together since.

As our hungry stomachs growled at each other, she gave me two phrases that stayed with me for a long, long time:

In repentance and rest you will be saved,
In quietness and trust is your strength.
(Isaiah 30:15)

I carried these words up the mountain the next day, with Janice climbing beside me. Or rather, with Janice pulling me along. When I entered my years of wilderness, these words came with me. An echo from the past, they called me to return to the high hills of Kinabalu.

These words beckon me still.

I read the other day, for the first time, the first of Luther's Ninety-Five Theses. He wrote,

Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said “repent,” willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.

The trumpet call of the Protestant Reformation: All of life is repentance.

Not merely a guilty confession, or an apology, or even a prayer for forgiveness.

I had it all wrong. I've always thought of repentance as a U-turn. Yet, after many many turns (sometimes in a single day), the destination still seems so far away.

No, repentance is much more than a U-turn. Repentance is a climb. A long and arduous climb where we fight against the gravity of our sin, the weight of our flesh, and the weakness of our will. To repent is to press on, to take another step closer to the summit yet unseen.

The Shepherd found me in the deep ravines, broken and lost. He rescued me, and restored me. He is teaching me to climb these high hills in search of the rising sun.

Soul, return to the mountains.
Repent with tears, and years.
Repent in thanks and praise, and worship-giving.
Repent with others, sharing and believing,
Repent in songs, and dance,
Repent in quietness, and trust,
Repent in rest.

Soul, return to the mountains with joy, much joy.