Tuesday, September 30, 2008

LIves Touching Lives in China

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." Proverbs 22:1

Practical Benevolence
In "The Story of the Amoy Mission" (1895), John MacGowan wrote,
Chinese stare at the foreigner, sometimes with skepticism or even thinly veiled contempt, but once they know you, “The crowd becomes sympathetic. The sneer dies out of their faces. There is nothing that touches the Chinese heart so mightily as practical benevolence. It is a virtue they highly appreciate. Their stolid, emotionless features begin to light up with genuine feeling, and the eyes of some are twinkling and flashing as their hearts are moved…[what] has just happened has been a mighty revelation. It has brought you closer to the Chinese heart than you were before, and it has revealed to you the wondrous possibilities of the future…”

Given the way that we foreigners barged in on China in the 1840s, forcing opium on them at gunpoint, it is little wonder they viewed us contempt. But in spite of this, and other indiginities such as extraterritoriality (in which virtually every foreigner enjoyed diplomatic immunity from punishment by Chinese for crimes—and used it), the Chinese were quick to forgive and even embrace individual foreigners once they trusted them, but it was not words that reached them but lives.

“There is nothing that touches the Chinese heart so mightily as practical benevolence.” Preaching certainly did not sway most of them. They responded to missionaries, “You carry Bibles in one hand and opium in the other. What kind of God do you serve? Is this the Way of Heaven?”

The church stood by silently not just in China but in other countries, and not just in the 19th century but the 20th. When the Nazis executed the young theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer for opposing Hitler, the churches were preaching theology but ignoring the smell of burning flesh, in part because of the financial benefits they enjoyed from Hitler’s regime.


Even today, how many of us preach one message but live another, or by our silence condone or even defend what goes completely against the Good News?

A century ago, foreigners who served the Chinese instead of exploiting them, who helped bring modern medicine, education, music, arts and sports to China, touched hearts, and lives, and even today are remembered. Just last May, Xiamen government erected a statue to Dr. John Otte, who built Hope Hospital, and died after attending a Muslim plague victim at the Zhongshan Rd. mosque.

Chinese, and all peoples, are the same today. Empty preaching does not reach them; lives do.

In my early years in Xiamen, I decided to teach the poor laborers on campus English. Every day at noon they came to my office, and I was frustrated when, after a month, they could barely remember their ABCs, much less speak simple sentences. I was not a good English teacher. But my desire to help them encouraged them. One of the poor laborers decided to study accounting at night school. After he finished he got a low-paying job, worked hard and moved up, and eventually did well enough that he built a beautiful home in the countryside. He reminded me, much later, that my poor excuse of an English class opened his eyes to the possibility to rise above ditch digging.

Lives are touched not by words but by other lives. What life will we touch today?

Monday, September 29, 2008

Why Good Things Happen to Bad People?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"Thorns and nets are in the way of the twisted: he who keeps watch over his soul will be far from them." Proverbs 22:5 (Bible in Basic English)

“What we reap, we sow.” But these thorns and nets are not just punitive but protective, and instructive. As Meyer wrote over a century ago in “Our Daily Homily,”

“This is due to the love of God, shown in the constitution of the world It would have been malignity indeed to have placed us in the world, without the warning signal of pain to show us where we are wrong, and to sting us when we go astray. By the pitiful mercy of our Creator, pain is the inevitable consequence of the breach of physical and moral law; thus men are shown that they are on the wrong path, and driven back in repentance and rectitude. The Greek motto said: ‘Pain is therefore gain.’”

But why do bad things happen to good people?” Meyer says we all suffer, regardless of our actions, just because we were born into a world with the accumulated evil of many generations. Is it fair for me to suffer because of what others have done in the past? If I were indeed “righteous,” I think I could argue my case that I should be allowed back in the Garden, regardless of what fruit Adam and Eve ate, or whether they got it from the serpent or Wal-Mart. But…. if I am honest with myself (I am, on occasion), I know I am far worse off than Paul, who lived such a miraculous life yet still lamented that "I die daily" becuase he failed daily (and “What I want to do, I don’t, and what I don’t want to do, I do!”).

Of course the easy answer is, “Finite creatures cannot understand an infinite Creator.” That’s no doubt true—but I don't think it is much of an answer. But others have suggested that we ask instead, “Why do good things happen to bad people?” I am, basically, an alright person. I try to be a good husband, father and son, I help the poor, I do good deeds. I don't generally rob and haven't yet murdered anyone (though when engaging in Darwinian Driving in China I've come close to it). Yet even so I fall far short of even my own standards, much less God's, and generally break half of my New Year resolutions by about noon on January 1st. But in spite of myself, more good things happen to me than I deserve.

In the end I don’t know why bad things happen to good people, but then again, I’m not sure how many really “good” people are out there. But I’m certainly thankful that good things can happen to bad people like me.
Bill Brown
www.Amoymagic.com
Check out the story behind the song "It is Well with my Soul" on Youtube.

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Elijah and the Ravens

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"Elijah was a man just like us," James 5:17a

"How does it make you feel to know that Elijah was just like you and me?" asked the speaker yesterday at Xiamen International Christian Fellowship. Several people responded, "Powerful!" or "We can be like Elijah too!" etc.

I replied, "Sorry for Elijah!"

Elijah is, to me, the most amazing character in the Old Testament, which is full of amazing characters. He was a nobody, from a nothing town. Archaeologists have discovered almost nothing about his hometown of Tishbe. He was not even mentioned in the Bible until he is called to confront Ahab and Jezebel, the most evil couple in the Bible.

We know nothing about his background, or his training. We do know he had great courage. We also know that he was indeed like us, because he got depressed and complained that he was the only one left serving God.

Elijah performed great miracles, even raising the dead. Yet this great man from nowhere had to hide in the desert after confronting Ahab, afraid for his life.

He was indeed a man like us, with ups and downs.

And God cared for him, as he does for us--in very unexpected ways. He had Elijah accept food from a starving widow. Now that was faith--being able to ask a starving widow for her last bit of food! Of course, he knew that if she obeyed, she'd never run out of oil and flour (I wonder how many televangelists have used that line?).

The ravens are the epitome of unusual provision! While Elijah hid for his life in the desert, God had ravens bring him meat and bread every morning. I hope they carried it in a take-out bag and not in their mouths.

Entire books could be written about Elijah (and have been), but for today I hope to bear in mind two points.

One, Elijah was indeed a man like me. And most of the great people of the Bible were underdog nobodies, like me, and maybe you. Joseph, the youngest, became ruler of Egypt. David, the youngest, became King. Peter, an uneducated fisherman, became the pillar of the church. "God's strength is made manifest in weakness."

Two, while using ordinary people to accomplish unordinary ends, our Father always provides, even if it takes daily visits from ravens.

But he won't send the ravens unless we first confront our Ahabs.

P.S. I noticed this interesting blog, Mental Musings, that just came out last week about Elijah.

Friday, September 26, 2008

How England Saved China?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Proverbs 21:3 "To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice."

The title of "How England Saved China," by John MacGowan (Amoy missionary and prolific author); London, 1913) is ironic. England, after all, forced opium on China at gunpoint through two opium wars, and reduced the country to a state where by 1900 1/4 of adults were opium addicts, and China was literally being divided up by foreign powers--a chunk to Germany, a slice to France, entire provinces to Japan... So how did England "save" China?

MacGowan wrote that England saved China by bringing the Gospel, modern medicine and education, and fighting footbinding. But at what cost? MacGowan describes that as well--quite vividly:

"I have seen a great English steamer march in with a proud and defiant air into a Chinese harbour. The British flag floated lazily at is stern as though it were conscious that the whole of England's might were behind it to defend it should any insult be offered to it. And yet if any flag should blush for very shame, the one I saw that day must have been crimson to its very roots. Its hold was filled with opium-chests, brought from our Indian Empire and protected by English guns and England's bluejackets, to be sold in the country beyond to cast a gloom in many a home there and to wreck many a life. That story in all its ghastliness was an unknown one to the English people, and little did they dream that English honour was being dragged through infinite shame simply to enrich a few thousand opium-sellers and to bring a doubtful revenue to our Indian dependency."

A Warning. Proverbs 21: 13: If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.

Read the excerpts below from MacGowan's book and see if your heart does not grieve for what our countries did a century ago in China, and look around and see if the same thing is not happening today?

The British opium monopoly lasted a century (until 1945 in Hong Kong) because Christians did not take a stand. We impoverished China, enriched ourselves--and then sent a few people to do good deeds and "save" China. We did much the same in other areas of Asia, Africa, South America. And who is being enriched by wars fought today for ostensibly noble purposes but, in reality, to protect trade? And what do we do about it?

At the very end of MacGowan's book, he writes,

"It must not be forgotten that before English missionaries landed in China, English ships flying the English colours had sailed from Indian ports laden with chests of opium, and that later on a long stream of troopships could have been seen rounding the Cape filled with English soldiers to compel the Chinese government to carry out a treaty that had been forced upon them at the cannon's mouth.

"This treaty, signed by English statesmen to the music of maddened guns and with stalwart forms of soldiers dressed in red looking on, with firelocks in their hands, insisted that opium should have a free transit into every province of China. It also demanded in language most imperious, that the Government should put no restrictions on the trade, but that it should stand by, without a sigh and without a tear, whilst its people were being debased by an infamous traffic, that after all was going to enrich but a very small number of the people of England.

"For more than half a century fear of the English guns and of the red-coated soldiers, whose prowess the Chinese knew only too well, stayed the hands of emperors and mandarins, and so the opium spread throughout the Empire.

"It crept in a most mysterious and fascinating manner into the homes of rich and poor, and with its mystic fingers gripped the hearts of old and young. Men became paralysed before this new force, and reason stood silent, and the highest ideals of human life slowly paled and vanished in the presence of this Indian mystery.

"No sentiment was strong enough to face this enemy of the human race. It shattered friendships and defied the most sacred of human affections. Men, blear-eyed and with faces and souls dyed with the opium hue, sold their wives and their little ones, and every article in their homes, till they lay a wreck.

"And what could the noblest of her citizens to do stop the fatal march of their country on the way to destruction? Nothing, for the English treaty was there, with its English signatures, and behind them all the English guns and the English soldiers..."

Thursday, September 25, 2008

The King's Heart Like Water Flows

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases."

"And as water shapes its flow in accordance with the ground, so an army manages its victory in accordance with the situation of the enemy. And as water has no constant form, there are in warfare no constant conditions. " Sunzi's Art of War

F.B. Meyer's "Our Daily Homily," published in 1894 in London by Morgan & Scott (available today as "Great Verses Through the Bible") is my favorite devotional, and I am often surprised at the verses he chooses for each chapter. For Provers 21; I would have gone for verse 3: "To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice". But I appreciate Meyer's take on verse 1. As I think of God maneuvering watercourses I am reminded of the ancient Chinese and their Grand Canal, which stretches for 1,114 miles, and of Sunzi remarking on the shapelessness of water. Our lives too would be shapeless and meaningless, were they not channeled...
From Meyer:

Madame Guyon says that there are three classes of souls that may be compared to rivers flowing towards God as their ocean.
1. Some move on sluggishly and feebly. These are often discouraged, dwell much in the outer and emotionalo, and fail to seek God with their whole strength.
2. Some proceed decidedly and rapidly. These havfe large hearts, and are quick in their response to God's Spirit.
3. Some press on in headlong impetuosity.
This comparison of our hearts to watercourses filled with torrents from the hills is a very beautiful one, and is capable of great expansion.
WATERCOURSES NEED FRESH SUPPLIES OF WATER FROM THE HILLS: and our hearts are in constant need of freshets from the everlasting fountain of God'snature.
WATERCOURSES MUST FULFIL THEIR MINISTRY IN ALL WEATHERS: and we must continue patiently in faith and well-doing, whatever be our circumstances or emotions. If we fail, the whole land will be smitten with drought.
WATERCOURSES END IN MERGING THEIR WATERS WITH THE OCEAN TIDES: so God will one day be all in all.
Will you let God lead your heart whither He will? Just as a husbandman will cut watercourses in different directions to conduct the flow of the water, so will you not let God lead your life? You can be a watercourse: He must givce the water. Only be content, like the riverbed, to lie deep hidden beneath the waters; not noticed or thanked by those that stoop to drink the refreshing draughts. It is impossible for the water to pass through you without nourishing your own soul.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Spirit Candles--Ornamental or Useful?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord" Proverbs 20:27

"Better to light one candle than to curse the darkness," Chinese Proverb

We used to buy cheap, plain little white candles by the dozens back in the 80 and early 90s when we had frequent blackouts in Xiamen. Power was out almost daily, sometimes for several days at a time. Several times I had to use a candle even in Xiamen's best bookstore, on Zhongshan Rd., because the power was out in the middle of the day in this windowless store.

Today we seldom have power outages, and the less we actually use candles the more ornamental they have become. We can buy candles in every size, shape, color and fragrance imaginable. They're beautiful, but so pricey that no one wants to actuallyburn them, and an unlit candle may be beautiful but it is, practically speaking, useless.

How many of us are unlit candles? Over the years we may have taken on status, and appear beautiful or classy or professional, but we shed no light because 1) we may not know we are in darkness, and 2) candles shed light only by giving of themselves, and diminish over time, and so we try to preserve ourselves.

Even an unlit candle's days are numbered, and it is eventually tossed in some forgotten drawer or sold off for a few cents in a yard sale. Our days, too, are numbered, and whether we preserve our beauty or burn, we are eventually put away in a box, six feet under, and forgotten--unless we have lived our lives as we were intended to, by shedding light and making a difference.

The world, like modern Xiamen, is ablaze with artificial light, but behind much of it is emptiness, darkness, and a sense of futility. It is a bright light but fragile, and easily disrupted by storms, floods, wars. We were created to be a lasting light. So as the ancient Chinese said, "Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

Blaze!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Investing in the Poor

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University
"He that has pity upon the poor lends to the Lord." Prov. 19:17

Two questions here:
1) What does "have pity" mean?
2) We are not "giving" to God but "lending"; what's the payback?

"Having pity" does not mean just feeling sorry for the poor, and is nothing to "loan" to God. "Having pity" means to do something practical for them. As James wrote in 2:15-17 'And if a brother or sister be naked and want daily food; and one of you say to them" Go in peace, be ye warmed and filled' yet give them not those things that are necessary for the body, what shall it profit? So faith also, if it have not works, is dead in itself."

And what shall we give? If you have a computer to read this, you are wealthy by much of the world's standards, and can give money. But you can also give of youself. About 70 years ago Xiamen University leaders were praising a rich Chinese industrialist who had invested his great wealth in Chinese education, and the famous writer Lu Xun tossed a couple of pennies on the table and said (paraphrased) , "I have given more than him. I have given my life."


We can give the poor our time, our attention, our concern, our love. But which poor? Of course there are poor around us--in our neighborhood, and in our church, but Christ encouraged us to give to those who cannot repay us, for then we will be repaid by our Father, whereas if we are repaid now for what we give, we will receive no reward from our Father because the account has already been settled.

The admonition "We reap what we sow" probably has its equivalent in every language and culture. In the East, it is similar to Karma; what we dish out is served back to us. But unlike Karma, which says we will be rewarded or punished in another life, Christ said he came to give us a more "abundant life," meaning this life. I am not talking about "Prosperity preaching," but in my experience, those who give in this life are blessed in this life.

My parents were relatively poor when I was young, and yet they gave freely to those poorer than them--and we never lacked. And when I was in the military, I spent over half my income helping my parents and others--and I never lacked. The biggest test, of course, was giving up a six figure income in the U.S. and packing my family off to China to accept $90 per month teaching graduate business--and we have never lacked. On the contrary, our life is more blessed now than it was even when I was in business. We loaned our "lives" to the poor, and our Father has repaid us more than we could have asked.

Life is short. Don't waste the chance to make an investment that will yield rich dividends not just in eternity but now. Invest in the poor and reap the richest dividends.

Links: "These are the Magi--Gift-Giving in China"

"Half the Sky," about Lixi--a poor woman whom we helped, and who in turn as helped us and many others!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Not of this World--in China?

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

Go Into the World. I've long felt that China is not only a different country but a separate planet altogether--and apparently the Chinese think so as well. Red banners all over China proclaim, "Go into the world!" They would not have to go into the world if they weren't already somewhere else in the first place.

The Far Side of Earth. China may not be another planet but it is the Far Side of earth (forgive the Larseny, Gary), and enough unlike the world I grew up in to allow me to feel, at times, that I am in the world but no longer of it. I love China, but whenever I begin to feel at "home" here, the stares of Chinese who look at me and other foreigners as if we were from Mars remind me that I am in China but not of it.

Double Moon Festival. Actually, perhaps some do think foreigners are from another planet. I showed my MBA students a rendering of a night sky with two moons and told them it was a view from California, and a couple of students said, "We've never seen the moon like that. Is that when you have your Moon Festival?"

Hermit. It is ironic I live in the planet's most populated country because my childhood nickname, right up until I left home, was "hermit." I always had a penchant for solitude, rarely spoke unless I had to, and spent most of my time in the woods or hills alone, or reading books. When I was eight I saw an advertisement in a Classics Illustrated Comic and decided to join the Marion Fathers in Africa. I abandoned that dream a year later when I found out I wasn't Catholic. I then decided on South America, but in the end joined the Air Force, volunteered for two years of solitude in icy Greenland, was sent to Taiwan instead--and fell in love with the Chinese and have been Oriented ever since. And in spite of the crowds, being a foreigner in China is perfect for a hermit, because I can participate in Chinese life while maintaining my own identity and sense of privacy, and peace--rather like a drop of oil in a sea of humanity. And 20 years in China has shown me that I could have achieved the same state had I stayed in America.

While Chinese continually remind me that they love me but I'm not one of them, I wonder how my grandchildren will fit in? Our oldest son Shannon is marrying a 7th generation Xiamen girl on January 1st, 2008.

So what is "the world" anyway? In "Merton's Palace of Nowhere" (James Finley," Merton explains what he left by entering a monastery (and which I think we can leave even without entering a monastery):

"What do you mean by "the world" anyway?... My concrete answer is: what did I leave when I entered the monastery? As far as I can see, what I abandoned when I "left the world" and came to the monastery was the understanding of myself that I had developed in the context of civil society--my identification with what appeared to me to be its aims... "the world"... did mean a certain set of servitudes that I could no longer accept... Many of these were trivial; some of them were onerous; all are closely related. The image of society that is happy because it drinks Coca-Cola or Seagram's or bothy and is protected by the bomb."

Contemplatives/Marginal Persons Merton writes of the contemplative (Finley, p. 51):
"He does not belong to an establishment. He is a marginal person who withdraws deliberately to the margin of society with a view to deepening fundamental human experience... We (marginal people_ are deliberately irrelevant. We live with an ingrained irrelevance which is proper to every human being. The marginal man accepts the basic irrelevance of the human condition, an irrelevance which is manifested above all by the fact of death. The marginal person, the monk, the displaced person, the prisoner, all these people live in the presence of death, which calls into question the meaning of life."

Out of the Monastery I admire Merton, and appreciate the motives that led him to the monastery. But... while I too would feel right at home in a monk's cell, if we all retired to monasteries, who would run the planet? So instead of withdrawing, I have entered the world, and become active in it--but while maintaining the memory of who I am, why I'm here, and where I'm going. I too have a monk's cell, but it is my office in the MBA Center, where I can anchor my spirit in an inner solitude even as I engage with over 200 grad students each semester (if I am not so anchored, I have nothing to offer them).

I still envision, at times, how nice it would be to retire to the quiet of Greenland, or the green hills of Appalachia, or even rural China. But if we are here, then we are here for a purpose, so I withdraw each morning that I may more fully engage the day; I savor the solitude and listen to that still small voice within, and it gives me the anchor I need to not just enter the daily gale without but to even enjoy it.

But I still don't drink Coca-cola or Seagrams.

Friday, September 19, 2008

The Giant Chinese Fishbowl

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"His neighbor comes and searches him out." Proverbs 18:17

This verse is especially true in China, where foreigners are the object of attention day and night, subjected to the unrelenting Chinese Stare. Even when we drove to Tibet, and camped out by the roadside in the middle of a 14,000' high plateau where we were sure we were alone, within minutes faces were pressed to the windows of our van.

Everything we do is common knowledge by the end of the day, and it gets to some people--like the poor paranoid American student who finally threw in the towel. He came to me and said, "Chinese are so nosy. They ask about everything I do! 'Going to work?' 'Going shopping?' 'Going home?' 'Have you eaten?' They'll probably even ask if I"m going to the bathroom!"

This, of course, is not just nosiness but how Chinese greet another. They never say 'nice weather' or 'how are you?' but ask what you're doing. And I know Dante has arranged a lower level of purgatory for me because instead of explaining this to the paranoid American, I looked about furtively, then whispered, "Do you know why they ask so many questions?" He look around furtively as well, and whispered,
"Why?"
"Because they're all Communists!" I said.
"Really?" he said.
"Yes, they are required to report on everything we do!"
His eyes widened, and I felt guilty, but I plunged on. As Martin Luther said, if you sin, sin with abandon. I said, "Next time they ask you, 'Have you eaten?', answer, and as you walk away, look back over your shoulder and you'll see them jotting it down in a little red book!"

"Really?!" The poor guy was horrified, and I said, "No, not really! That's just how Chinese greet each other! It's culture!" And I explained it to him. But I was probably the straw that broke the cultural camel's back because he hightailed it back to the anonymity of America only a month later.

But it is not just in Chinese that we, as Christians, are watched. The world, and that great cloud of witnesses, watches us--and they do so with more objectivity than we see ourselves. I don't even like to look in the mirror some mornings. It's sobering to know that the world can look beyond my face and into my heart. What do they see?

F.B. Meyer, in "Our Daily Homily," wrote about Proverbs 18:17:

"It is easy to boast of what we are or are not; but the real question is as to what others think of us. A Christian lady told me that a little time ago she went to a meeting where one after another arose to say how long they had been without sin. When an opportunity was given, she asked simply if they might be allowed to hear something from those who who lived with the persons that had been so loudly expressing themselves; because she said that she had observed that the opinions of those who shared the same room or home as Christian professors were apt to vary greatly from those of the professors themselves.

"It is a grave question for us all--what do our neighbours and associates think of us? Would they credit us with the highest attainments in Christian living? Would they concede the reality and beauty of our characters? After all, may not we be mistaking our ideals for our attainments, and judging ourselves by a lower standard than we apply to others? Might not our wives and sisters, our husbands and brothers, search us? It is so much easier to plead our own cause in a meeting than to stand clear in the searching scrutiny of the home.

"And if our neighbours search us, what does God think of us as the fierce light of his eyes scans us and reads our deepest secrets?..."

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The Sounds Within the Silence

"Silence is a true friend who will never betray you." Confucius

"And Silence, like a poultice, comes To heal the blows of sound." Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Good Morning from Amoy!
Back during grad school, while dating Susan Marie, she thought it was odd that, on July 4th, while she spent the time with friends at a beach, I headed the quiet of a Benedictine monastery in the high desert of Valyermo, California (just north of Los Angeles). Valyermo was special to me because it was started by monks who had to leave China in the 1950s--people like Thaddeus Yang. And I also appreciated the quiet, and the Benedictine Rule of Silence.

While holidays are loud and celebratory for many people but I choose to celebrate quietly. In this day of Walkmans and Ipods, in an era in which heavy metal has replaced Muzak in elevators and grocery stores, the sweetest music is silence, which calms and heals, and allows me to hear and heed that still, small voice. One of my favorite memories is of the silence I heard, and felt, and breathed, on the high Tibetan plateau as our family made our 40,000 Km. drive around China in 1994 (see, "Tibet or Bust"). I won't be driving to Tibet again anytime soon, but I do make sure that I savor a little silence every morning, right here at home in Amoy.

This morning, I read F.B. Meyer's "Daily Homily," and his excellent take on Prov. 17:27 "He that spares his words has knowledge." I can do no better than quote the entire passage:

From Meyer...
"The A.V. and R.V. marg. suggest a better rendering, "He that hath knowledge spareth his words." It is a wise thing to say as little as possible to man, and as much as possible to God. The ultimate test of friendship has always seemed to be in the ability of true friends to be silent in each other's presence. In silence we best may open the heart to receive the infillings of the Divine Spirit. When people are always to one another, even though talk about God, they are liable to lose the first fresh sense of God's presense.

"Ordinary conversation greatly weakens character. It is like the perpetual running of a tap which inevitably empties the cistern. It seems to be disastrous when the whole of a summer holiday is spent in contact with friends, however dear, who leave no time for the communing of the soul with itself, nature, and God. We cannot be perpetually in society, speaking to the nearest and dearest, without saying things which will afterwards cause us regret. We shall have spoken too much of ourselves, or too little of Christ, or too much about others; or we shall have allowed the things of the world and sense to bulk too larely. Besides, it is only in silence and thought that our deepest life matures, or the impressions of eternity are realized. If we are always talking, we give no opportunity for the ripening of the soul. Nothing makes the soul more fruitful than to leave it fallow. Who would pick a crop of fruit when first it began to appear on the trees? Live deep. Speak as little as you may. Be slow to speak, and swift to hear."

Behind the Stage of Life





September 18, 2008 Thursday
Behind the Stage
Sue and I begin almost every morning walking about 3 miles on Xiamen's beautiful boardwalk, but the past few days they've started blocking off parts of it for some kind of big extravaganza.

It will probably be beautiful by night, with thousands of lights on ornate frames and outlines, but by day it looks cheap and gaudy. The white paint on the wooden posts is peeling, and everything is held upright by guy-wires fastened to unsightly cubes of concrete that have been plopped on the grass. It reminds me of experiences on Chinese television shows.

TV productions look pretty spectacular when watching them from home, but I've been on dozens of stages in China, and up close they're not so impressive. They use the cheapest plywood or sheets of styrofoam, and string and wires--and glue, glitter and special lighting does the rest. But what shocked me more than the stages were the performers. They looked like normal people up close (and acted like it too), but heavy theatrical paint transformed them under the lights and cameras as they strutted about the stage, pretending to ad lib when in fact every word, pause and giggle was scripted.

But isn't all of life rather like a Chinese TV stage? Shakespeare said we are just actors, strutting about the stage--and how much of what we see, and admire, has as little substance to it as a theatrical stage?

About 100 years ago, a missionary in China wrote about the grand facades of the great granite edifices in London, Paris and other great European cities, but he noted that the appearance of elegance was, in fact, a facade, supported by the vast masses of impoverished peoples in other nations that provided the resources and labor for the great trading houses.

And about 100 years ago, Xiamen's Gulangyu Island was noted as the richest square kilometer on the planet, and even today has hundreds of elegant but mouldering mansions; but that wealth and elegance, too, was built upon a poor foundation-- the "Pigs 'n Poison" trade (opium and coolies).

Our personal lives may also have no more substance than that of an actor in a short-lived play, but we play our roles so intensely, for so long, that we tend to forget that this life is indeed a stage, and as we play our role we are watched by a great audience (that "vast cloud of witnesses"). And how we play our part--whether we get caught up in the lights and glitter of the stage or bear in mind the plot and the purpose behind it all, affects whether we go on to greater and more enduring roles.

Tomorrow morning, Sue and I will walk along the Xiamen boardwalk again, and navigate our way through the maze of sets and electrical cables that are strewn along the beach, and I suspect that sometime in the next couple weeks, XMTV or CCTV will air some great extravaganza and audiences will be thrilled. And then the sets will be dismantled and put away, and the show will be forgotten, and the vast majority of people, who have forgotten their own role and become professional spectactors, will wait for the next big attraction to take their minds off the emptiness behind lives that have no more substance than a TV stage, or a granite bank in London.

Fortunately, it does not have to be this way. We were not created to be spectators but participants, and to even have a hand in how the show unfolds. But to do that we have to look at life not from in front of the stage but behind it.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Christian Denominations in China


A Christian visiting Xiamen asked, "What denominations do you have in China?"

I answered, "The same as in America--ones, fives, twenties, fifties--though I prefer hundreds."

Many foreign Christians are shocked to learn that we basically have only three discernible Christian denominations in China: Catholic, Protestant, and Seventh-Day Adventist--who for obvious reasons worship on Saturday instead of Sunday, and never lose an opportunity to remind me that the rest of Christendom has has it wrong for the past couple thousand years (which amuses me, especially in China, because in the Chinese language, Sunday is Xingqi Qi --the 7th Day).

A hundred years ago, of course, we did have denominations--the ones the missionaries brought with them. But long before Communism did away with denominations, many thoughtful Chinese were already seeking how to have not a Western import but a Church of Christ--which is what we got in Amoy.

China's 1st Protestant Church was built in Xiamen (the corner of Zhongshan and Siming roads) and the Amoy Mission was the strongest and most effective mission in China in part because the missionaries of the main three denominations insisted on cooperating with each other. The home offices of course resisted this fiercely, agreeing to it only when the missionaries in Xiamen threatened to pack up and go home unless they agreed. So in Xiamen, unlike anywhere else in China, missionaries worked together--and just as importantly, they insisted upon developing not a Western church but a Chinese church--the "Church of Christ in China"--with indigenous leadership, music, and forms (such as squares of noodles for communion, since they didn't have bread).

Today we have at least 45 registered churches in Xiamen (and almost 200 in neighboring Quanzhou, which was part of the Amoy Mission). And they work together. When a new church needs to be built, they send around a pink announcement to other fellowships, and Xiamen churches take up collections to help built it. It is refreshing to see them work together.

I just finished rereading "Here I Stand," my favorite biography of Martin Luther, by Roland Bainton (1950). While Luther brought about much need reform, even he was aghast at the divisions and disunity--one faction against another, churches splintering and fighting (to the death at times!). But there was no going back in Luther's Day, and there certainly is no going back today (and, personally, I appreciate the diversity, at least to some extent). So China's lack, so far, of denominationalism is refreshing.

Jesus prayed, "Father, let them be one as we are one." 150 years ago the Amoy Mission set a unique and lasting example. We can still learn from it.

Xiamen--Birthplace of Chinese Protestantism

Monday, September 15, 2008

Examine Self Daily

Tseng Tzu said, "There are three points on which I daily examine myself: have I been conscientious in working for others? Have I been truthful in my intercourse with my friends? Have I practised what I preach?" (from "Confucius Said it First," by Tehyi Hsieh, 1939).

Psalm 4:4 "Stand in awe, and sin not; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still."

1 Corinthians 11:31, "For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged [by others. or God]."

Whether ancient Chinese or Jewish philosophers, or early Christians, wise people were careful to examine themselves--and they did it daily because each day we are a new person, our personalities evolving (or devolving) over time, each day's experiences adding another layer of self to that little core being that came from our mother's womb years or decades ago.

Each day, each experience, changes us, but for good or ill? It is amazing the changes that can overtake us if we are not on guard--even as a frog can be placed in a pot of cool water and boil to death quite contentedly and comfortably if the temperature is raised gradually.

We should examine ourselves daily, reflecting upon who we have become today, because unless we intervene that is who we shall be tomorrow as well, only more so.

And the best time for self-examination is first thing in the morning, before we hit the new day--or before that new day hits us. For years I thought I did not have time in the morning for reflection, but gradually I've learned that I don't have enough time not to reflect upon myself, and the day.

Proverbs 14:30, "A heart at peace gives life to the body."

Sunzi said, "Know yourself." Knowing who I am helps me to know what I should do--and this helps give me peace, perspective, and purpose. It gives me the freedom to know what I can and should do, and what I don't have to do. And then I can approach the new day with that "peace that passes all understanding."

Well...I have peace at least until I have to tackle driving in Chinese traffic.... (see "Darwinian Driving in China").

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Keep your tongue, keep your life

"He that guards his tongue keeps his life." Proverbs 13:3

"A single word may be enough to stamp a man as wise or the reverse; hence we should not be careless in our speech." Tzu Kung *
"The superior man wishes to be slow in his speech and earnest in his conduct." Confucius*

An American in Xiamen boasted, "I'm not like the Chinese. I don't beat around the bush. I say whatever I think!"

Twenty years ago I might have admired his frankness but a couple of decades with the Chinese has taught me that it is not always smart to say whatever you think--whether in China or anywhere else.

Chinese typically are guarded in their speech--not because they are deceitful but because they go to great lengths not to say anything that will cause themselves, or others, to lose "face." I get frustrated trying to get a straight answer from a Chinese friend or colleague, but after sticking my foot in my mouth so many times, especially here in China, I've come to appreciate how true it is that a word once spoken can never be unspoken. It can be explained, or excused, or if you're a politician even denied, but once words are spoken they take on lives of their own; they become seeds that grow in the minds of hearers, for good or evil.

As the saying goes, "If you're silent others may think you're an idiot; if you speak you may remove all doubt." And so I've learned to think twice, sometimes thrice, before speaking. The childhood saying, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me," is nonsense. Sticks and stones wound only the body; words wound hearts. and a heart may be harder to heal than a broken body.

John MacArthur, in his message "Taming the Tongue," said that someone calculated that we speak enough words each day to fill a 54-page book; that is sixty six 800-page books in a year! What are those books saying about you, and others?

The Talmud tells the story of a king who asked a jester to search for the best thing in the world. He returned from a long search and presented to the king with a package. It contained a tongue. "The tongue is truly the best thing in the world," admitted the king.

"Now go and find the worst thing in the world," he said. The jester again searched the globe and returned with another small parcel, which he presented to the king. He unwrapped the package and found--another tongue.

Is your tongue the best thing in the world, or the worst?

A century ago, in "Our Daily Homily," F.B. Meyer wrote this about Proverbs 13:3:

"What we say influences others, but it has a reflex influence on ourselves. When we speak unadvisedly and impurely, we sow seeds of ill harvests not in others only, but in ourselves, and the very utternace injures us. When, on the other hand, we refuse to give expression to a wrong or unkind thought, we choke and strangle it.

"Will each reader and hearer of these words carefully bear this in mind. If you express what is uncharitable or wrong, you gratify the evil nature that is in you, and you strengthen it. If, on the contrary, you refuse to express it, you strike a death-blow at the cursed thying itself. When your guard your mouth you keep your life, because you weaken that which is gnawing insidiously at the root of your life. If there is fire in a room, be sure not to open door or window; for air is its fuel and food. And if a fire is burning within you, be sure not to give it vent. What goes forth from you defiles you. Would you see good days? Refrain your lips from evil.

"Perhaps you find yourself unable to guard your mouth. You are only discovering the truth of those terrible words: "The tongue...can no man tame; it is a restless evil, full of deadly poison." If man cannot tame it, the Saviour can. Cry to Him then, saying, "Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips."

*Quote from Tehyi Hsieh, "Confucius Said it First," Warren Press, Boston, 1939

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Prov. 11:24 Strategic Scattering


Prov. 11:24 "Those who scatter increase; those who hoard tend to poverty" (adapted from King James Version).

Before the European invention of the seed drill by by Camillo Torello in 1566, European farmers sowed seed much like the Jewish farmers of 3000 years ago. They took some of the best seed from the barn, and scattered it upon the fields, hoping for the best. No mattter how careful they were, there must have been patches with too many seeds, many of which would sprout and die, and other patches with few or no seeds. Not until 450 years ago did we find a smarter way to plant our seeds--and we did that by borrowing a 2100 year-old idea from the Chinese!

Something Wiki This Way Comes...
According to Wikipedia.org , the Sumerians used single tube seed drills abour 1500 B.C., and Chinese invented multiple-tube seed drills in the 2nd Century B.C. So from 200 B.C. until the mid=1500s, while we Westerners tossed our seed to the winds, Chinese methodically planted their seeds, making sure that every seed possible landed in good soil--and not too close or too far from other seeds. Fewer wasted seeds, less wasted land.

Jesus said, "A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and were trodden under foot, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil; immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but soon they were scorched, and since they had no roots they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good rich soil, and grew and yielded abundant fruit." Matthew 13: 1-23

Jesus never said we should just scatter the seed; he merely described what was done--while a few thousand miles away the Chinese were already using their high technology to ensure that as few seeds as possible were lost.

Yet even though farmers scattered their seed willy nilly, they did so in the hope that they would receive a return a hundredfold or more--and the more they scattered, the more they received.

How true that we reap what we sow, and the more we sow, the more we reap. But it also seems that how we sow, and where, can affect what we reap, and how much.

Do we sow the best seed? And do we choose the best soil? And, finally, do we protect the seeds, water them, and nurture the plants that spring from them--or just toss a little here and there and hope it works--rather like an agricultural lottery?

But regardless of whether we scatter seed or plant them one by one, the fact remains--the richest man in the world is not he who has received the most but he who has given the most.

A century ago, F.B. Meyer, wrote, "And it is so ordered that as we give we get. If we miserly hoard the grain, it is eaten by weevils; if we cast it away it returns to us multiplied. Stagnant water is covered with scum; flowing water is fresh and living. He who gives his five barley loaves and two small fishes into the hands of JEsus sees the peoplke fed and gets twelve baskets over. ... Freely ye have received, freely give; freely give, and freely ye will receive. "He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he that soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.... And He that supplieth seed to the sower, and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness, ye being enriched in everything unto all liberality."

When we left a comfortable life in the U.S. in 1988 to live in China, and work for $90 per month teaching graduate business, I rather fancied I was making a "sacrifice." But on the contrary, the past twenty years we have received much more than we have given. China has changed, and so have we.

If you have access to a computer to read this, you too are one of the planet's more fortunate people. You have received freely; now give freely--but don't just scatter it to the winds. Gather the best seed from your barns, and sow it carefully in well-prepared soil--and expect a hundredfold return.

Dr. Bill
www.amoymagic.com
Note: Meyer's quote is from my favorite devotional, "Great Verses Through the Bible," Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1972 Inexpensive used copies are available online at sites like www.abebooks.com

Friday, September 12, 2008

Chinese Pew Perils


On Easter and Christmas, even Buddhists pack the pews to enjoy Xiàmén church choirs, so get there early. While you wait they will play recordings of traditional Christmas hymns such as Silent Night, The First Noel, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bells. (They fit right in with the “Santa Bless You” Christmas cards sold in book stores.).

Churches fill quickly so do get there early! Otherwise, Lǎowài-loving ushers will oust some 90-year-old granny from her front row pew so the foreign friend can better see the service and so everyone else can better see the foreign friend. Of course, once you gallantly refuse the granny’s seat and pick a pew, you’re a sitting duck for a member of that Chinese sect that believes ‘speaking in tongues’ means mastering English. They’ll plop down beside you and spend the entire hour practicing English nonstop. I really have had prayers go like this:

“Our Father who art in –”

“—What country are you from?”

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be –”

“—Where do you work?”

“Give us this day our –”

“—How much money do you make?”

“And lead us not into temptation.”

(Like murder?)

LINKS

Xiamen Christian History

Amoy Mission Project

Breaking Wet Noodles

Chinese Communion— Breaking Wet Noodles

For almost 2000 years, Christians have ‘broken bread’ together during Communion (Shèngcān 圣餐). But what about Christians who don’t have bread to break?

Until the mid 1990s, Christians in Xīnjiē Church celebrated communion not with bread but little squares of noodles. Personally, I liked the chewy texture, and the Chinese wine packed more punch than the grape juice.

Though now I see why communion cups are so tiny: to make sure we’re in the Spirit and not in the spirits.

Alas, Xiàmén churches have modernized. Now they use the round, flat imported bona fide communion wafers that look and taste like Styrofoam. Granted, they look nice, with that little cross stamped on them. It would have been tough stamping those crosses on wet noodles. But I kind of miss the noodles.
The wine’s still good, though.