About Christianity

'do you... detest adults? i used to be like you, detesting adults a lot when i was a child. they always tell lies, and only think about themselves, always wanting the children to go along with them... and would do bad things as if it was nothing! but, now i have become the adult i used to loathe. you are the same... you will become an adult one day. you cannot carry a doll forever, and dream about being together with peter pan. because this world does not have utopia...'

'there are many people who will come here (the shop). although there are bad guys whom you dislike alot and liars who come here, but there are also very nice adults. you are only 14 years old right? giving up on the world now, isn't that too early? after you met more people, maybe your thinking will change. furthermore, there are people here who will smile and cry for you. so, stay here...and try to change yourself.'

the above was part of a one-sided conversation between a man and a girl who was sexually abused by her step-father, and who had lost practically all hope in the world of reality, and adults.

being 21 this year, stepping into the world of adults, and putting behind the life of a child and teenager (but not my childishness), am i, joining the group of adults whom i used to dislike? many of us, or maybe most of us would have at one point or another really dislike adults. maybe the reasons why we felt like that can be more or less explained by the above conversation.

but as we grow up from a child to a teenager, and from a teenager to an adult, do we become the kind of adults we used to loathe? an adult who cares for nothing but himself. maybe, when we were a child, we did not know why some adults did what they did. maybe, they really have some reason for doing a particular bad thing. maybe at that time, they were doing things for a reason that our childish and naive mind could not perceive.

as we were growing up, we face more and more of the outside world. from school, to workplace and more. as we get more and more involved with this world, do we forget the kind of people we used to dislike? i remembered telling myself as a child, 'when i grow up, i wouldn't be like that. definately not.' i think you were also like that, right?

even before i officially hit the day of adulthood, i knew myself that i was getting closer and closer to the type of person i told myself i would never become. sometimes for our own benefits we harm other people. or we tell lies. we forced people to go our way, especially the weaker ones. we spare no thought for others. are you like that? i guess you are sometimes, right?

as adults, we have direct influences on childrens sometimes. i have a little sister 13 youngers than me, and when i think of how she looked at me, i am reminded of how i used to look at my parents. i remembered the things i don't like about my parents (such as forcing me to do something i don't like. of course at that time i did not put myself in my parents' shoes). and even though adults may have a reason for doing something, kids may not understand it. it is then the responsibility of me to help my sister see things in a different way. if you are a parent, i guess it is also one of your responsibility to think in the shoes of your child, because most likely your kid view you as how you viewed your parents.

if i have to describe my view of adults when i was a child, maybe i would say adults love only themselves and they were insincere. although that might be wrong, but it was nevertheless my thoughts when i was a kid. children would show care and concern for one another. they show genuine love for one another, instead of a fake love we are so used to. if today you measure yourself using the standard you set for adults as a child, the adult you, would you fail to meet the requirements?

let's not talk about the reasons why adults did what they did. from our point of view, we saw adults as liars, as self-centered people (of course we had no idea what these concepts were but we now know), as people who do not do what they preach. so, are we now becoming the kind of adults we used to dislike?

kids are naive, but that is also why they won't do what is wrong and do what is right. of course, they must first have the concept of what behavior is acceptable and what is not. when they do something wrong, such as lying, they feel guilty, and their words and actions would give them away. because they know it is wrong. what about us? i know i can lie quite well, because my concept of moral values has changed from 'right and wrong' to 'benefits and cost'. are you like that?

we are called to love our neighbors are we love ourselves. how many of us do that? sometimes we not only do not love them, we end up hating them, or maybe we do something harmful to them for our own benefits. be it big or small, it is still the same. loving your neighbor, this might be a commandment i could fulfil as a child, but i realized that i could not do it now. i have to struggle to not even dislike some people, let alone love them. but if it is the second most important commandment, we as christians would have to do it. you know you cannot do it, that's why we have to ask for help. ask help from God.

it is a very hard thing to be the model adult i used to set for others. even if we do not harm people, sometimes we sin deliberately. even if we know it is wrong, we sin. and we tell ourselves, God will forgive us. nobody is hurt. let's say you used God's name as an exclaimation of surprise, or maybe we lie too often, or sometimes we just judge people too quickly. gossip, despising others, curse and swear...etc. each of these sins do nothing to harm others directly, except maybe for gossip. these were the very traits we know were wrong yet we still do it. and sometimes as adults we expect children not to do wrong things and punishing them when they stepped over the line, when we ourselves intentionally cross it ourselves. what made us different is that maybe we can cover it better, or to give a better excuse.

i guess that's why Jesus wants us to have the heart of a child. a humble, true and sincere heart. an obedient heart. children obey adults, even when they do not set a good example. children don't do what is wrong if they can help it. children won't do bad things as if it were nothing.

like what the man said, there is no utopia here. many things are messed up. but we do have a future home we can look forward to. to heaven, where there is the perfect home. a place where they are no more messiness that makes people give up hope like that girl. a place where we can become adults that exceed our own expectations we had of others when we were kids.

but just like that man who encouraged the teenage girl not to give up hope, in this world of messiness sometimes we see people who are giving up. if there are nobody, if there is no help, maybe, we can show them that there are kind adults too. that there are true and sincere adults too. that although this world is messy sometimes, there is still something good they can hold on to. life is precious. but a life with no hope is like a clump of living flesh stuck to the skeleton.

there were some people who think i am a good christian. like many adults, i too am a fake. just that it so happened i put on the mask of a 'good christian' when they see me. we put masks. you too.

and i hope one day, i can put that away and be an adult that can meet my own childish expectations. i wish to be an adult such that using my own childish standards, i can give myself a pass, or maybe an A grade. and of course, an adult that God would give me an A grade too.

chinese teacher left behind students and ran away on his own during the sichuan earthquake. what do you think of this statement which was in the news? what is the first impression you have?

let me see..... he don't deserve to live. he is heartless. he is a coward. he ought to die. he is not fit to live. a rotten man. are these the thoughts that came into your mind? if it is, see, you made another mistake. because, who are you to condemn him?

let me say first, i read the headlines, and not the article. but what i am saying is not related to that. that is not important, because, i am going to address the issue of humans judging one another too quickly. no, i am not defending him. i am not judging him.

so he ran, leaving behind his students and leaving them to die. he got slammed, he got flamed and he got condemned. maybe you think he deserved it, because if he just stayed, he might have saved some lives. some of you more noble people may have sacrificed your lives to save that few kids, or as many as you can. afterall, they are children with a bright future. fair? it seemed so.

how about we look from another perspective? his perspective.

what if his parents had not yet died? what if he has a family to support? here, i am assuming his parents are still around and he has a family to take care of. please note, in china, the women do not work, or seldom work after they got married. traditional thinking. the man brings in the bread. in china, you only have a kid. his parents most likely only have him as the only child.

now... the situation in front of you. an earthquake. someone got to die. you either save the kids and risk dying, or you leave them to die and get a higher chance of survival. obviously, he chose the second one. are you condemning him again? think about it again. if he die, who is going to take care of his parents? if he die, who is going to take care of his family? would you save a few kids and let your family suffer, or risk getting condemned and slammed and insulted and flamed but able to live on for the sake of your family? so what if your name got written down in the newspaper as a crisis hero who died but your living family suffered? if you die, that's the end of you.

no, i am not saying the reason why he ran is because of that. he might have other reasons. or he might just like you say, a coward who care for nothing else but for his survival. what i want to say, people do things for different reasons. who are we to judge him? if i have a family, i would rather get condemn and live, than to die a crisis hero. planning to slam me? you better not do it on my website.

same for other things. sometimes people do things that are 'evil' or 'bad'. we are quick to judge. we hear one side of the story and we jump to conclusions. always being full of ourselves, always think other people are no good. but what if, we are in the same situation as them, what would we do? 'i would definately save the children.' is that what you think? no. unless you go through the whole thing yourself, you are not fit to comment on anything. yes. not fit. because no one can talk about what they do not understand. it makes us an even worse hypocrites than we are right now. we may think we will save the kids, but when the real thing came, what would you do? what would you do?

i am not saying you are also another coward who will run away. who knows? you might be a hero. you might be a coward. you might stay. you might run. whatever you do, who are others to judge? everyone has different purposes in life. who are we to judge others?

so, the next time something like that happens, big or small, in war or peace, in any kind of situation, do not judge. of course, i am saying this as a person who has not undergo any tragedies in life. maybe, if something bad happen to me, like someone come and kill off my loved ones, i would condemn him too. because we always talk about things we don't understand. always.

but there is this statement (from memory) from a character in a game (True Tears) i played, which is translated as :

it is true i cannot understand you. but it is because i cannot understand the pain, that i can give you support. it is because i don't know the suffering, that i can encourage you. if i truely know and truely understand, then, maybe i could not even utter a single word.

what i want to say is, encourage people, and not judge them. i am saying this from the point of a person who never experienced a single tragedy in life, which is why i am able to say it. this post is kind of contradicting, eh?

this blog post is meant more for teens and maybe young adults, though it may be applicable too to adults. when people around us, say friends or siblings annoy us, we can tell them to shut up. 'just shut up,' we can tell them this way. done, they will just shut up, hopefully. but what if it is our parents who keep talking about something we don't wish to hear?

throughout our life in the family, we do make mistakes. sometimes we give trouble to the family. sometimes maybe it is not our fault. whatever it is, parents, yes i know especially mothers, keep harping about our mistakes. sometimes they keep talking about it non-stop. they talk about it for an hour today, repeating the same darn thing over and over again. tomorrow when we do something else, they bring it up. and then maybe a week and a month later they still bring it up again, along with other stuffs in the past days. we might think, 'yes i know i am wrong. can you please shut up?' i admit myself, though i didn't say it out, that i wish that my mum will just stop repeating my mistakes in front of me over and over again.

then again, some of us may not take it. we will just tell them straight to shut up. depending on how you say it, or how your parents react, it might turn out for the better or for the worse. in my case, it was always worse. when i was a teen, even though i know, even though i had made the neccessary corrections and do the things to patch up my mistakes, my mum still will not forget about it. sometimes she even dig out stuffs years back. familiar? your mum does that too? and yes, i was a kid who didn't know how to respect my parents. and i am not proud of that. yes, i am not proud of it, and now i am trying to change. i think i made some improvements. i learnt it the hard way over the years.

ok so i shouted back at my mum because she kept shouting at me over the things long gone. result? she shouted louder, and me even louder. yes i know it is bad to do that. respect your parents. one of the 10 commandments. in the end, both of us got hurt. sometimes she cried, sometimes i cried (actually only once). then the standard cold war. i hate it. why do i have to go through such a thing? whose fault is it? my fault for screaming back at her to stop saying the things which i have already been punished for, which i have made the neccessary corrections and stuffs?

both sides are at fault. but i have the bigger fault. i have to admit it. first, i shouted at her, and thus showed disrespect. second, by shouting and showing disrespect i am provoking her into a bigger anger. she screamed louder. cycle repeats. then it gets out of hand. you must understand, in my family, whether in the first place the kid is wrong or correct, the parents always win. parents don't lose an arguement, and they don't lose a fight. i guess this is true for many others. anyway, the result will be a disaster. the home is not a place where you want to return to for the next few days, or in my case, weeks.

so, then, what can we as children do? yes, it is darn annoying when they keep scolding, criticizing and list out a whole darn list of faults we did and conveniently forget all the contributions we gave for the family. yes, i experienced that for the whole of my teenage life. only until when i am near adulthood that i learn to shut up. now, i don't scream back at her to ask her to shut up. this time, i shut up. annoying? yes. irritating? yes. my temper still almost went out of control. but remember, no matter what, shut up. they can scold you for minutes, for hours. but if you shut up, they too will shut up. maybe just give them a nod or a 'yes' whatever to let them know what you are listening. main point : shut up and don't say anything to provoke them. don't even say anything else if possible.

reason? if you shut up....ok let me rephrase. would you talk to a person who shut up and don't even talk back to you? would you talk to a person who act like a piece of wood and show no reply? your head inside during this whole time may be a mess, you might be angry now and you might not know when you will lose control if they continue talking. but still, shut up. if you just argue back once, the case is gone. anger that is suppressed and finally let out will well...you know how a dam breaks right? then you provoke her, and gone. she became even more angry. let your anger subside once she stop talking. i learn that through experience. no matter what, control yourself. trust me, it is worth it to shut up for a few minutes than to have a cold war for weeks.

i guess it is the nature of all mothers to be like that. you may be like that too. but remember, if you are a mother, remember don't make the same mistake. forget the mistake your kid made if they have been punished, if they had done what is neccessary to correct the mess. i said parents, but i only reference it to mums. dads are usually not included. why? because all they did when they get pissed is to punish you physically, and then both will shut up. simple. dads usually don't talk. so that's why there is no need to argue with them. no place for even talking.

moral of the story? to keep the situation under control and to let your mums shut up about your mistakes you made 10 years ago, shut up. shut up. shut up. keep telling yourself that. it works for me. it should work for you. and maybe, you can try that to other people who do that to you. but if you know someone who can talk to a piece of wood for hours and for days, i think you need to find someone else for help. my experience is limited.