Perseverance

Don't tell others, but this evening getting home, entering into my apartment door, after the pleasant weekend, having said goodbye to _____, who has been very kind to me, I am suddenly so fed up with everything - I wanted to leave, give up the entire effort.  

That's the feeling. I am imagining what I must do to go through the exit process and what would be the procedures and costs for all stakeholders.

Then I realized I can't find my phone. I am not sure if this is an epiphany or not but perhaps a metaphor. Let's keep it in prayers. Thank you. This disillusionment might just be just a passing feeling - burnout of some sort. 

Yes, I am very grateful for all the love, trust and help that ____ and ____ and ____ have shown me. 
It's just that I am tired of having to depend on people's charity for my stay and no progress with dating and no progress with my job. The very purpose of my coming here is not being fulfilled at all.

 Maybe it is just that today we had a sloppy day at work and one particular guest was such a unlikeable person.

I need to rent a car and drive around. It is not easy to go anywhere. 

But I have some new enlightenment that God has blessed me with through Jordan Peterson's talk (Lessons a Non-believer Can Learn from God -- a clip from JP's talk on Exodus - which I have just shared with you on Whatsapp and will post here. I'll explain below.

You know...I am an analytical mind and I detect patterns and can predict future by knowing well the deep rules behind facts. That ability has given me much wisdom and security yet more despair. I can't let myself hope. All is bare under my scrutinizing eye. Having traveled the world in both luxurious and desperate situations, I have seen it all. I become so clear sighted that I can see nothing new under the sun but dead dry bones. All the talk about order and hope has not registered with me - I am not to be fooled by wishful thinking.

But what JP laid out here in the clip of his dialogue pierced a crack in my well forged armor of logic and consistency. Indeed, God reveals himself through history and prophets and even donkeys. But God has not been exhausted by anyone, let alone me. He is faithful and truthful but NOT mechanical or even predicable. 

God does not run out of plots.

My clear vision had blinded me. 

Miracles do happen. Not often but they never ceased. They should serve as light posts to lighten the dark path we walk.

Exceptions should be reckoned with if not depended upon.

God has performed many miracles in my life, esp. recently. And we both know what they are.

Humbleness means I should always leave room for divine intervention. 

Faith and hope are tested and cultivated when I am promised grace and mercy but not told when and how. 

Asking for It and Getting It - China's Lockdown

There is a complete lockdown for three days in my hometown village in China. No one allowed out on the street. Once caught will be taken away for self paid quarantine. And his is supported by many, including my parents, relatives and people like my brother. I don't think they will appreciate Heaven...since they enjoy Hell so much. Xi is a disgusting servant of Satan. Compared with him, Putin is an admirable man. 

No one—no people, culture, society, or country will escape the verdict that one passes on oneself. That's the justice and mercy of God. We will all get what we want thanks to his mercy and what we deserve through his justice. The two are perfectly reconciled as he knows us thoroughly. 

What I am writing is a paraphrase of what William Liu.

His point is - there is no discrepancy between divine mercy and justice just as there is no logical or actual conflict between the human and divine nature of Jesus - which is precisely the demonstration of the supreme wisdom of God.  He added that the longer he lives and observes God's operation, the more he realizes what we want and what we deserve are the same thing.  

If I may elaborate, some people might fancy or claim that they want freedom and democracy and justice, yet in reality they want a Soviet Union ( Communist China) without the Communist Party, so they've got the Russia under Putin. In another word,  they may say they want fairness and peace and prosperity, in reality they are not prepared to do anything to achieve that or safeguard it, instead all they want is to benefit personally from fairness and peace even at the cost of greater injustice and bloodshed for others - much the same as  the Jews who in the name of mercy asked for the liberation of a murderous Barabbas at the cost of the life of Jesus who is the Way, Truth, and Light. Well, those who asked for it, got it. 

Unless you really, really want freedom and life, want it so much that you'd rather die for it, you don't want it and therefore don't deserve it.

Virtues in the Taliban Takeover

I do see virtues in the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan - it serves as a blow to those leftist, whining whimperers and self-righteous, hypocritical, climate terrorists, and other feminist, moralistic exhorters - who are witless and hapless when facing a real imminent threat. 

Instead of the hypothetical threat of global warming, Taliban terrorists represent a real threat. Real terrorists are willing to fight and die for what they believe. Climate fear mongers are only willing to let others suffer and die for what they believe.  

Why not let the bitter and ugly Sweden girl (G.T.) (who was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize) confront the Taliban. That will stop them.

On Jordan Peterson's Interview with Artist Juliette Fogra

Juliette Fogra

EDITOR: Weizhen, the author of this blog, and a well-educated and single Chinese citizen living in Northern China, reacts to Jordan Peterson's interviewer with Juliette Fogra the illustrator of his Beyond Order:12 More Rules for Life. 

The interview can be found on YouTube here: Beyond Order: The illustrator/ Julietta Fogra - Jordan B. Peterson Podcast S4 E9. Oddly enough Fogra's name appears no where in the book except for her signature on the illustrations themselves. When books are registered for their ISBN and copyright information and illustrator is usually credited. Not here. There is no listing of Fogra's contribution on the copyright page, in the extensive alpha index, nor is she mentioned (as far as I could find) in the book's Coda where Peterson thanks dozens of people who contributed to the book's undertaking. Why is this? 

This absence of her name ironically relates to this blog post and Weizhen's comments on how her life in China and Fogra's life growing up in communist community as a Jew, compare and contrast.  

I am reading Beyond Order. I can't help but recalling some of the most intense and inspiring exchanges between JBP and Juliette Fogra in his interview of her. You asked what resonated with me? 

What a good question! One I have to answer and risk strong emotions that are to be stirred up by doing so!

First of all, Fogra was born and grew up in a communist community and felt an outcast as a Jew and she couldn't identify with her religious and social heritage. I used to lament and resent the limitedness of my own upbringing, both micro and macro—growing in a family with no education, a place no culture, a country no moral and a gender no power. I considered myself wronged and wasted. I thought I was the poorest of the poor, perhaps only women in an African cannibalist tribe have a worse fortune. But their suffering is a different kind. They have to endure hunger and fear while I am starved of beauty and meaning. 

Now, Fogra, clearly much more talented, grew up in communistic country, being a true outcast, exiled even from her own family, experienced both hunger and fear and a much severe impoverishment of beauty as an artist. 

That knowledge put me in perspective. 

Then her migration to Israel at the age of 14 would have been enviable to me since my family never had the ability to migrate outside of China. Her misery in a new country without being able to speak the language resonates with me who in my 40s tried to migrate to Germany and couldn't find a spot for myself. I could feel the harrowing loneliness and the inferiority Fogra felt. At times when I was in Germany I was like a 14 year old, defenseless and destitute. (This concerns another topic - like in the story about the modern day sleeping beauty in JP's book, too much sentimentality is infantilizing and a development malfunction that needs to be addressed. I think my mistake lies not in that I went to Germany but I went too late.)

But oh, God's way is above our way. There in the Middle East desert (literally and metaphorically), Fogra met a young man, and lost him, and was devastated. Until one day he called from New York, telling her:" Come to me. I meet people here every day but I can't see any one of them. They don't exist for me. Come, I see you."

She came to NY and was prepared to clean the toilets  in this metropolitan city for the sake of her love.  There, this shy young woman, who found it hard to survive in Israel, finds a living as an artist in the big apple.

As JP puts it there is nothing trivial about her. Although a rarely gifted artist, she is free of cynicism, conceit and condescension. Crushingly shy, she is also firm in her artistic pursuit. Her admiration and affection for JP is apparent and she genuinely wants to make him happy but she does it by being absolutely true. 

In a way, I like her better than JP in the interview. JP was a bit too eager to make his points and theories (useful and wise as they are) known, Fogra was not. She was slow in speaking, and quick to listen. She never seemed to try to impress or even aware  before her words got out of her mouth that they were going to be significant and mind blowing. She gave JP her full whole being. 

I admire her without any reservation.

And the man who sees her has very good eyes!

A Public Spectacle - Men vs. Angels

 

Reading Moral Premise I realized why the Angels, being superior to men in wisdom and strength, are riveted to their affairs...and why even they "would like to understand" the grace of God and the salvation of men (1 Peter 1:12 ) . 

It is precisely the way we as audiences root for the protagonist of a good story with a challenging and a high stake moral premise. 

The story of Jesus's sacrifice and a person's salvation is the ultimate moral story with a stake of not only individual life or death but the immortal life and eternal death of humankind and creation...

A moral choice... that's why the Angels who themselves are granted freedom of choice...are interested in how we are making use of that gift. 

I'm in tears. 

We have become a public spectacle, a play for men and angels. 

To Friends in the USA Worried about Biden's Trade Policies with China

As someone who has studied China-European governance, and has been involved professional in international relations between China and the rest of the world, here are some reflections.

CHINA'S INTERFERENCE IN THE 2020 U.S. ELECTION

It is true that there are enough stupid and evil Chinese officials who would have loved to have switched Trump votes for China (oops, I meant Biden). But if the Chinese were actually able to do such a thing then they have simply raised a stone only to let it fall on their own feet. They have a tendency to do with such spectacularity.  Read on as to why.

The legend of China's involvement and impact on the 2020 U.S. election is more of a compliment to their competency than a slander to their conscience. (They have no conscience.) Think of it as an achievement that none of their propaganda efforts have been able to pulled off so far.  But it's a legend.

CHINA AS A THREAT TO U.S.

Please, don't scare yourself into believing the bullshit that China constitutes any real threat to the US. Remember, the USSR supposedly constituted a threat to the U.S. Even President Reagan was not sure if he would be able to outrun the Soviets in the military showdown. But the media, then like now, portrayed the prowess of the enemy to be so insurmountable that the enemy hallucinated itself into believing its own propaganda. We all know what happened as a result. We have the incompetency of the media to thank for that...unintended consequences sometimes turn out for the good. 

BIDEN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH CHINA

The Biden administration's globalism policies, if implemented according to plan, will only serve to weaken the communist rule in a round about way. Here's how: 

1. The Biden Administration and China will cooperate on green technologies and green financing, of which Biden's son has been a chief executive. Thus, those free riding and envious European powers who criticized President Trump's withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty, and resented his pressure on them to pay for their security protection provided by the US, will discover that they have only traded a slam in their face for a stab in their back. That is the U.S. will favor China instead of Europe with their trade dollars. Not good for smug Europe.

2. This will push the Europeans away from the Chinese market. 

3. And European Greeny Technology will lose one of its key markets, which is China.

BIBLE AND GUNS....GOOD STUFF

Within the US I know there are still people like you holding fast to their Bible and their guns. God will not let the USA fall. 

I have to go to sleep now...because the almighty and righteous God never sleeps.

The Pristineness of Love

Reading Sheldon Vanauken's A Severe Mercy has provided a very important breakthrough for me.

There are two quotes that are relevant:

“求死者得生” 你怎么知道上帝不会给你一条别人都不知道但是在未来会出现的路呢？ 你在任何时候都要听自己内心的声音去做，然后上帝会让你发现一个和你之前的想法完全相反的，但是如果没有你之前的行为就到达不了的一个地方。——诸夏教会

"Those who pray to be dead get to live." How do you know for sure that God will not give you a way that no one knows but will emerge in the future? You have to listen to your inner voice at all times to move forward. Then, only then, will God let you find a place that is completely contrary to your previous thoughts, but that which you can't reach without your previous efforts.” – Cathaysia Church

"根據窩老人家對上帝的了解，上帝的仁慈是落實到每一個人的每一個細節的。仁慈體現為每一個人都會得到他想要的東西，公正體現於每一個人都會得到他應該得到的東西。你了解越多，能力越大，就會覺得在你對世人和世事的裁決中，兼顧兩者的困難越小。世道不公的學說，一般是當事人扭曲敘事體系的建構產物。" ——刘仲敬

"According to my understanding of God, God's mercy permeates in every detail of every individual’s life. Mercy manifests in that everyone will get what he wants, while justice in that everyone will get what he deserves. The deeper your knowledge and the greater your ability, you will feel it less difficult to reconcile these two factors in your judgment of humankind and world affairs. The claim of injustice in the world is in general merely the distorted narrative of the parties implicated." --- William Liu

God Father, now I can call you Father, Abba, again.

I asked to die. You let me live. Again, and again, you’ve forced me to live. 

Your wisdom surpasses my wisdom. Your way of life surpasses my way of life.

There is no need of fear or regret for not getting what I want. There should be no complaint or surprise for getting what I indeed deserve. 

I shall fear not, since God is merciful; I will complain not, since God is righteous.

Over the last two weeks I've read about two bitter-sweet romances: (1) that of Titien and Tobias and her death (http://titien.de/getting-to-know-the-maiers/ and https://weitergen.de/); and then (2) Sheldon and Davy Vanauken's romance and her death in his award-winning book A Severe Mercy (https://www.amazon.com/Severe-Mercy-Sheldon-Vanauken/dp/0060688246). 

Titen and Tobias Maiers

The journeys of these two tragically romantic couples provided me an unobstrcuted insight into what human love means—its breadth, depth, height and strength; and when I am in love, I want nothing less. The taste of such love, although not through direct personal experience but through the intimate account of the ecstasy and agony of the two couples, has both quenched to a certain degree my hunger and thirst for a romantic relationship but also has left me firmly and proudly intolerant of anything lesser. 

I would rather be single since nothing less than such love will satisfy me.

But, will THAT satisfy me?

For, increasingly I find that love, pagan love, however profound and perfect, like the one between Van and Davy, is not enough. 

Indeed, reading about the love between them, I was inspired by their aspirations, efforts, impressed by their cultivated and pure minds, moved by their loss and sorrows and to be honest, more than once smitten with jealousy of their opportunities and resources, to have accomplished such great love and experienced those superb moments of “inloveness”. 

I couldn’t help but question – was it all enough? Wasn’t that great love, even love of life, unconditional and undying, exlusive and all inclusive, still too limited, too small, too superficial?

This is significant question, all the more so as it comes from someone who had pursued that type of love as the highest goal of her life and had lamented the absence of it, or even any decent love, as the single most painful regret of her life.

What if she had got it? Like Sheldon and Davy? Would it suffice? 

It had never been a question to her. You don’t ask anyone starving to death to consider if she really needed some nutrition. 

Now that it seems she had survived with starvation over half of her life and, through this surrogate feast on love, is given a reprieve, she suddenly paused and wondered if this love would satisfy her if it were hers. 

The answer, very surprisingly, is likely a regretful no.

What a realization this is!

Isn’t this confirming yet again the supreme wisdom and mysterious mercy of the Lord? 

Is not such pagan love—strong and enduring, pure and beautiful, surpassing and encompassing — also self-absorbing, inward looking and futile? Is it not a fact that the lovers had decided not to have children, all in the name of their love and for the sake of their love? Isn't the fact that a family never came out of their love one of the most tangible forms of that sort of love's barrenness? 

I sincerely hope that saying that is not the distorted narrative of someone who has been denied the grape and hence forth dwells on its alleged sourness. 

I am most certainly not trying to smear the Vanaukens as selfish people, which they clearly were not, either in the before or after their conversion.

My criticism is only of the love, not the lovers. The Vanaukens were among the greatest lovers. 

Pagan love, by nature, could only achieve its highest and purest form and maintain it by being narrow-minded. The Shining Barrier, by being a barrier against all threats and corruption to the love that’s enshrined in the centre of it, has also necessarily excluded what gives the love its value and meaning, which, as now I am beginning to see, ishould be like a vaccine, a shield, and ultimately a weapon to fight ugliness, pain and death. Instead, pagan love seems to have been quite self-complacent, concerned and contented with nothing but its own longevity, pristineness and immortality. Its emphasis of purity becomes more out of fear than pride. It couldn’t stand or withstand the test of raising children, their own children. The union of a woman and a man for the sake of multiplication and continuity of humankind became the very cause of their sterility. 

Well, it was not enough for Davy, who did get such a perfect love of life. 

The really perfect love should be like their ship, the Grey Goose, holding them together and takes them to a great destination, and along the way, helping those who are shipwrecked and drowning.

I wonder how much Davy owed her earlier and “easier” conversion to the Lord to certain void and loss in her life —of her being a married middle-aged woman without children, of her having, as a teenage girl, given birth to a daughter out of wedlock whom she gave up for adoption and never ever saw again. Much as the husband and wife vowed and vied to share all thoughts, feelings and experiences perfectly equally, that loss and void could not be felt or experienced in the same way, just as the sickness and death of Davy, though tragic and terrible for both, was primiarily a trial and tribulation for Van, whose conversion was only solidified after his bereavement. 

So, would I have been better off if I had been given a perfect human love at the cost of the divine love, if indeed that was the choice? 

The answer is a relieved no, and an increasingly grateful no.

Thank you, God, for giving me what I really want and what I don’t even deserve.

A severe mercy indeed.