LNY with PTS Folk

Tonight I had the privilege of sharing in fellowship for Lunar New Year with a few people from PTS and Prof. Seow and his wife, LK. I was a bit reluctant to go in the beginning, probably because the thought of mingling with grown-ups (of which I do not yet count myself a member) did not sound altogether appealing for a single man(-boy) on a cold Valentines night.

One thing I noticed was that the conversations revolved heavily around the experience of God, not in a transcendentalist mystical way, but in the mundane. It was a theoretical conversation about deceitfully simple things like potential, hope, contentment, joy, and covetousness - words which we know but rarely in actuality. In this discussion as we tried to parse out careful nuances within the words, I noticed something: Chinese people love to interrogate the Chinese language in the hopes of exposing the different shades of the word (note: I am not Chinese, but think about it. How many times have you been around Chinese adults who would say a certain word a few times, trying to parse out its different shades? A lot. I'm not saying that English is incapable of this, but when we repeat a word out loud in English, we're trying to gain a contextual basis for it, not an essential one). In Hebrew, the words for Joy - which S. said quite adamantly was a deeply Jewish idea- and happiness had to be carefully distinguished from the word "blessed" (Not the commonly known barach, but ashrei - which is notoriously difficult to translate - as found in the Psalms). Ultimately, S. said that - though it has been used already in gawdawful Christian movies - that one needs to find joy in the moment and grasp each moment as a gift from God. Fair enough. (He talked about stages, although I think there is a very definite point in which gradations cannot be used and it becomes simply black and white. How far down must you go before you cannot help but be angry at your lot, where there is duty in rebellion, even against your dealt hand?)

Another thing I noticed was how much this conversation reminded me of those I had with friends at school (oddly, Stephanie Ng questions. Yes, her name is an adj.). Ironically, or perhaps not so ironically since it was Valentines, I saw what kind of person LK was best when she was conversing with her husband, and vice versa. It made me painfully aware (no, not that I was single) that growth - including intellectual growth - happens in twos . (iron whets iron). It was a good reminder, since lately I am becoming sharply aware of my selfishness, which runs deep into the heart.

It was a good time, one which made me "happy" if not "joyful" (both definitions are still at large).