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. 

White Privilege, Moral Extortion and the Descendants of Cain

WHITE PRIVILEGE AND MORAL EXTORTION

 

“White privilege” is ironic if not also nonsensical. Its common use today is derogatory in that it criticizes all people with light colored skin. Thus, by definition, it is racist. It demeans people solely based on the color of their skin and not their character. Also, those that use the term vainly, attempt to elevate themselves by criticizing another. The tactic has never worked because, on its face, it’s self-defeating. It claims that non-whites will never have the advantage of whites. Thus, the person using the term is using racism to criticize racism. But, still they persist.

 

As someone neither white nor black, I can boast neutrality and say confidently, that the losers that talk this way, attempt moral extortion. They are gangsters who, without the discipline to work hard, tell shop owners, “Pay us insurance money so you’re not guilty of forcing us to burn your business to the ground.”  

 

The only “hope” of impact such extortioners have is that their targets, who are prevailed upon by fear and not through fair competition, will cave to the terrorist demand.

 

Much is the situation in the U.S. cities currently ravaged by rioters who claim their underachievement is the consequence of others' success. Few are fooled that the riots are somehow about police brutality. It’s really about “class” warfare: the lazy vs. the disciplined. Somehow, the business owner who works 80 hours a week is oppressing, not himself, but the people who refuse to work even 20 hours a week.

 

I am very familiar with this practice, or the pathetic spirit behind it, which would be comical were it not so annoying and malicious, all thanks to its prevalence in the so-called civilized China. We have a special term coined for it. Pengci 碰瓷. Literally, it means 'touch porcelain'— jargon from the antique industry. Some morally challenged shop owners will place poor quality porcelain products in the middle of their store’s aisle-way. The owner intends that when a customer walks past they will easily knock the porcelain to the floor where it will break. The seller will then demand compensation for the customer’s recklessness. (Burned down a shop lately?)

Pengci 碰瓷 is unique to the Beijing dialect. It refers to malicious and illegal behaviors intended for the purpose of blackmail. For example, one may deliberately crash a car and then demand compensation—an incident-faking extortionist, which is a person who stages an incident and pretends to be the victim in order to extort money from the person who is framed as the party at fault. Welcome to Portland, Oregon.

 

Now, many people who are not exposed to such moral corruption are unaware of and shocked by this petty, ugly incompetence. Thus, we have the saying: Ignorance of cunning and evil is a hallmark of purity and nobility.

 

DESCENDANTS OF CAIN

Hitler as Cain (Painting by George Grosz, in Berlin)

Nancy Pelosi, it seems to me, is a descendant of Cain, as are all complainers and the whining wimps who refuse to take responsibility for their actions. It was Cain who accused his brother Abel of being more favorably treated (or privileged), although it was Cain’s disobedience that put Cain out of favor. And it was Cain’s murder of Abel that labeled Cain “under privileged” or cursed for all time. It was not Abel’s obedience that got Cain into trouble. Most, if not all, the claims of police brutality involve criminals, not law-abiding citizens. Although, in a way, we all have the blood of Cain, for Cain came from the same parents as Abel.

 

The temptation to blame anything and anyone other than oneself as the cause of one's misery, perceived or real, is strong in everyone. Therefore, Communism, Marxism and (radical) Feminism successfully exploited this weakness. The oppressed and the oppressor narrative always finds its audience.

 

Such selfishness is convenient. One doesn't have to change oneself with a little self-murder and rebirth. It is painful to admit one's own faults and costly to correct them. But the price of taking the easier and broader road of faulting others, leads surely and very swiftly to destruction. 

If you blame only exogenous factors for your own problems, the less specific, and more ill-defined, vague, broad and abstract these factors are, the more convenient a scapegoat they will be. An individual, however monstrous, would only plausibly be held responsible for certain and a limited number of woes. But, if the culprit is a group of people, the white, or men, or the society, the world — the more sweeping and all encompassing the accusations of who to blame and accuse — then the whole of the group would not be able to defend themselves.

 

If I blame my ex-boyfriend for my singleness, I am only a boring unlucky woman with a point.  If I blame men for my loneliness, I am a bitter cynic with little sense of proportion and probably no lasting friends. If I blame the world and God for my fate, I am (literally) out of my mind.

 

Therefore, I have decided not to blame anyone or anything for the outcome of my life, not even communists, nor my parents, nor the political Chinese culture.  This is a new discovery for me, and I still struggle to practice what I believe. But I am so much happier than before. 

 

Catherine Cookson - A Midlife Blessing

I didn't exactly celebrate my birthday but still I felt blessed because of the recent rekindled passion for reading.

Catherine Cookson. I discovered her a few years ago and have since been fascinated and inspired.

You will know what I mean when you have time to learn more about her life.

Largely thanks to what I have learned about the life of a woman who was born 120 years ago in the poorest region of England, with all the unimaginable sufferings and towering achievements, I have been free of self-pity or loathing or anger against my fate.

Here I want to share my reflections as recorded in my journal.

--- 

On the eve of my 44th year on earth, mellowing in emptiness induced lethargy, I have been given a gift.

I had wondered what I can get myself as a gift that would erase the horrifying humiliation of all the uncelebrated birthdays and those absent gifts. Anything shining luxury would be simply overkilling and might backfire and both my age and this age of the time don’t offer stimulation to the enjoyment of it.

And the nagging shame of my roots and numbing despair of bettering them are the strongest sentiment that I could feel in my numbness. I keep on telling myself I have reached the limits, the transparent but no less impenetrable ceiling. 

Besides, my brain, the strongest part of of my being, is showing signs of rapid decline. Both my body and my mind are fruitless. Whatever dream I had of being a writer is concluded with a final wake-up. And I still have another only half life to live out. What good will be there in store for me? A single childless woman? Clothing? Food? Travel? I am both beyond and beneath these bodily undertakings.

Life is a weary business if not carried out for imperative and inspiring purposes. But lo, here, finally I have been shown a life, conceived in sin and born into paralyzing dysfunction and poverty and stigma, tormented in almost every way imaginable, a psyche, as sensitive as mine if not more, an artist, starved of love, respect and education. 

• A debilitating vascular disease she inherited from a man who never knew about or wanted her. 
• A mother she thought and would rather be her sister, an alcoholic. 
• She never could have children. 
• The only religion she knew gave her more fear than hope, more smear than salvation.  
• She was tormented with rage.

Yet the more I read what Catherine wrote, the more I am amazed at her writing skills – by no means could one tell that this is by a woman of no formal education and born in illegitimacy and absolute poverty over 120 years ago.  Imagine if she had had good and appropriate formal training, what would she have achieved! 

 What more could I say? What excuses do I have for self-pity? Let me list out similarities I found in my life to hers. The order signifies no hierarchy of the attached importance.

1.       Birth into poverty and shame - both felt to be born in the wrong place, wrong family and ran away from it as fast and far as we could
2.       We share the same horoscope sign = Cancer
3.       Lavatory being the safe haven in childhood
4.       Frequent dreams of dirty lavatories and flying in the sky
5.       Largely self-taught – in terms of literature and English, as a Chinese of my generation
6.       Very bad luck with men – but thank God, she got married although at such a late age
7.       Childlessness – although mine is due to singleness and abortion
8.       Early menopause
9.       Middle age mental breakdown – with fear dominating our lives
10.   Struggle with established order – communism and her case – Catholicism
11.   Natural story telling gift and desire – greater in her case but no small in mine
12.   Bundles of emotions we are
13.   And a very similar kind of humor
14.   Both of us love tests and strive for self-improvement
15.   Writing seems the only escape and fulfillment

What did Catherine have that I lack?

1.       She was strong willed and insanely hard-working
2.       She was proud and determined to be successful 
3.       She was truly brave 
4.       She was a naturally gifted painter and piano player – I am going to give myself a piano lesson
5.       She was native English speaker and she had a devoted husband (but I have the internet)

What do I have that Catherine could have wanted?

1.       A mother who doesn’t drink and is sensible and loving albeit weak minded
2.       A very flawed father who is a terrible husband but has favored me and 
3.       I never had to endure hunger or hard labour. In absolute terms I was very well off as a child. 
4.       A body that is strong and healthy in general
5.       An intact faith
6.       A brother with two adorable kids that are as dear to me as I could never have imagined
7.       The Internet through which I can educate myself at will and almost no expense
8.       And a Catherine Cookson as my role model.

---

These thoughts have protected me against despair and desperation, despite another uncelebrated birthday and the prospect of a life condemned to be spent in China.

Let come what may. I am not going to be overpowered.

The Good of the Chinese Virus

Dear Friends, 

As some of you know I am a citizen of and am living in China, your prayers for me and us are envied. 

I'm assuming that you are following the news closely on the spread of the Chinese Virus across the world, esp. in the US and Europe. The surge of death in Italy and steep rise in cases in the US, Germany and Spain.

I am so saddened and angered by the disaster brought upon the free world by the Chinese of which I am not completely guiltless as a citizen of this country (china) and a subject of this regime. I am also beyond contempt of the Chinese people (My countrymen and women) who revel in and actively propagate the sheer fabricated lie about how this virus originated in the U.S.! 

I strongly hope and pray that God will not let the anti-Christ's agent harm his chosen ones and that this pandemic will not cost President Trump his well-deserved Presidency. And this will only serve as the loving rod and protective staff for his flock. God is still on the throne. Nothing happens without his permission and not for the good of those who love him and ultimately his glory.

I anticipate and would embrace a global anti-Chinese and Communism sentiment and movement.  I pray for the breakup of the globalized supply chain that has in the first place nurtured the regime. Even if that means I will not be able to leave this place; it is a price I am willing to pay.  At another time I would have been so beleaguered by that prospect. But I am sure of God's righteousness and his mercy.  Heavens shall declare his righteousness,  "no one can or should escape the verdict passed by himself (his own choices or behaviors)". And I'd rather fall into the hands of the Almighty.

 This is an excerpt from my journal a few days ago.

The hypothesis that the collapse of China, economically and politically, should seal my personal loss, worries me not at all. I would gladly embrace it as a necessary collateral damage or sanctifying sacrifice for the demise of an evil power. 

The above YouTube (and this link) is a Chinese worship song that never fails to speak to me. It is obviously based on Psalm 69 and 27 by King David during his persecution by his enemies that celebrate Jehovah's forgiving love. Encircled in the Arms of His Love in the time of flooding. 

Therefore I can lift up my head and gaze on the beauty of the LORD from now until forever.

I remember the classic story plot of the hero realizing that he is part of the problem ( having a share in the evil) decides to let himself die in order to rid of the problem. 

The Truth That Sets Me Free

"For we have become a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men. "

- 1 Corinthians 4:9 

Dear All,

Now I am weeping.

As someone ruthlessly prized self-deprecation and diligently pursued self-improvement, I didn’t know who I am and what I am and how completely corrupted and deplorably incompetent that person is until now.

Ever since adolescence I vowed to never settle down for anything meaner than true love and uncategorical perfection. I was often painfully and proudly aware that this desire for absolute truth and beauty sets me apart from those around me, be it within my family or at school or later at work. 

But fearing domestic life would destroy love and worse, hinder my development, I took the path of  self-sufficiency that landed me in this literally "no-man’s land" – a childless and marriageless midlife, with no experience of love that requires protection or evidence of perfection which, even if attained, will be lost since I have no children to pass it on.

Like someone who has been keeping digging for a legendary treasure the whole life only to have come to an empty tomb with  worthless trash, I suddenly find my world tumbling down.  The way back is blocked. The way forward is unseen and uncharted.

If only this moment of grace had come two decades earlier when I was young and fearless. Now I am a worn-out middle aged woman, well acquainted with the dangers of the world and deficiencies of myself. I prefer to die and go to heaven to rest from this life’s fruitlessness. I never feared dying as much as living dead. After all, "to die is gain." 

But, this time I have to be cautious for more is at stake than my individual and isolated life and death. Could it be, in an not unlikely but worse scenario, that my remorse is nothing but a virtual signaling façade paraded by the inner coward to excuse myself from the much harder mission of persisting, esp. now that things have been pretty ruined up and looked ever more hopeless?

What if this is part of a test from God, the only one that is true and beautiful, and my capitulation now only serves to reinforce the counterstrategy by the Devil to frustrate God's plan to prepare me for something really good? After all, God knew all along who and what I am, what grotesque follies I am capable and guilty of and still chose to pick me.

I thought of Apostle Paul, who was Saul until the life-altering encounter with the Lord, on the road to Damascus. 

In his blindness, this Hebrew of Hebrews, this Pharisee with an impeccable pedigree and insurmountable zeal, "saw" for the first time without any shadow that all that he had gained was indeed loss and what he valued merely "garbage" and that he was the worst of sinners, persecuting the very Lord he loved and thought he was serving.  How unbearably painful and horrible that revelation must have been? It would have seemed a more merciful treatment had God slained him on the spot.

But, alas, thanks to God that he didn't. Saul became Paul and the Apostle to the Gentiles, who spent the rest of his life, preaching the terrible news of the futility of worldly wisdom and works and the incredible message of faith as the only remedy. 

Two thousand years later, here I am, in the wilderness of my life, stripped of my youth, my social network, my privileged prospect as a successful professional.

Although one might say that I still have a lot more compared with many people about which I am most of the time grateful and sometimes uneasy, that knowledge doesn’t comfort me now that I am deeply and painfully conscious that I am not living up to my potentials and have abused so many of God’s gifts.

I am short of the glory of God’s creation of me.

Compared with what I should be and could have been, I am naked and poor and worthless.

Never have I felt more desperately the necessity of put on the armor of FAITH.

Faith has always been elusive and almost become a myth to me. After all, few have got any as tiny as a mustard seed. 

But now, surprisingly, when I fully realized my own nakedness, and utter poverty in spirit, immediately and almost without any efforts by myself, I sensed the weight of faith.

That God doesn’t give me up and therefore I shouldn’t give God up.