Cheap Words, Costly Life

Joy Davidman, an American poet, writer, a radical communist, and an atheist declared: “One sanctimonious hypocrite makes a hundred unbelievers”.

Joy Davidman knew intimately this dictum she had pronounced because, later on in life, she converted to the Christian faith when she married the famed Oxford don, C.S. Lewis as her second husband.

At the risk of being redundant, Davidman intentionally employed using an adjective which means the same as the noun-subject to highlight the ill-effect of fakery.

Davidman’s dictum applies in myriad situations that are beyond a life of faith. It can be applied in politics, economics, medicine, health care, social services, education, the judiciary, the military, business, industry, commerce, government, unionism, and law and order, just to name a few.

As one who embraces the loving grace that God has bestowed upon my life through His Son, Jesus Christ, I often wonder how many hundreds of thousands of unbelievers I have made through the way I live my life all these years.

To those who watch on, I may be the only word of God that they ever read. I may be the only glimmer of reflection of God’s light they ever see.

Approached from a round-about way in encouraging us to live in a lifestyle which we profess to live is St. Francis of Assisi’s famous advice: “Go and preach the Gospel to the world by all means. Use words only if necessary.”

As Paul says in one of his letters, we are living epistles for all to read.

"You yourselves are our letters, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. You know that you are a letter from Christ... written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." 2 Corinthians 3 : 3

Lifestyle and personal integrity speak louder than words. They shout out more loudly than a preachment from a pulpit.

Paul urges us to live "in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left..." 2 Corinthians 6 : 7

Let me live my life as God has intended for me so I may not do an injustice to His Kingdom's cause on earth.

The Heart of Teaching

Often we hear of the art of teaching.

How often have we heard of the heart of teaching?

Similar to all players in any arena of human endeavour, teaching falls into three categories: 1) as a job; 2) as a profession; and 3) as a personal response to a calling.

As a job, teaching is good.

A teacher is a paid well, and the working day is relatively short, about five-and-half to six hours per day, never mind the school year is only 200 days.

Having said that, if viewed and experienced as a job, teaching is a hard job indeed. A teacher has to daily plan and perform, contend with non-compliant and misbehaving students, belligerent parents, some over-zealous colleagues, and top-down curriculum expectations that translate into performance indicators by hard-nosed administrators.

Boy! Is it worth it? Give me a break!

As a profession, teaching takes on a noble tone, a respectable appearance, an academic and scholarly discourse, a learned pursuit, and, perhaps, an opportunity to make a difference.

However, as a profession, formal policies and procedures (developed to safeguard the welfare of those who serve in it in the first place) may ultimately reduce teaching to become an exercise in maintaining the status quo, as Neil Postman of Columbia University once put it, “Teaching as a Conservative Activity”.

What are you saying, Tom? I shall explain by way of the following observations.

When teaching is viewed and experienced as a personal response to a calling (that’s where the word “vocation” comes from), a teacher sees more clearly what the calling is all about. A teacher begins to serve in myriad ways to meet the needs of the learners, be they learning needs, social-emotional needs, or physical needs.

The key is service—the rolling up one’s sleeves to do whatsoever that needs to be done to help the learner meet needs.

To do “whatsoever” is HUGE!

It translates into working longer than five-and-half hours a day, offering help at preparation periods and lunch breaks (often in abandoned defiance of collective agreement guidelines), taking a sick child home, celebrating a child's successes, touching the inner heart and spirit of the students and their families, and perhaps, spending a few days more than 200 in a year to prepare for an awesome, exciting, and potentially life-changing-and-transcending growth experience for the students placed in our care.

That’s the heart of teaching. It goes way beyond the art of teaching. It steps outside the bureaucratic box labeled "teacher welfare" to facilitate learning, growth, and love in students for their welfare.

Ultimately, teaching is not at all about me, the teacher.

It’s all about them!

The key ingredient of leadership in any worthwhile human enterprise is altruistic service to others, not self; and educational leadership should reflect no less.

And, I am humbled and honoured to have this precious opportunity to serve in making this world a better place, one student at a time.

The blessing of being able to do so is all mine!

Life and Art

I was artistically challenged when I was a young child. I could not draw, paint, or play a musical instrument.

However, the very first art lesson I received was when my uncle firmly placed his right hand over mine and guided me to write my first Chinese calligraphy on rice paper as a rite of scholarly passage at age four.

At school age, I was taught and exposed to the heroic force and flowery elegance of language when my parents encouraged me to read the classic poems and laments of heroes in Chinese history.

I learned that the “tour de force” of Chinese poetry could fan the flames and command the direction of patriotism and revolutions alike.

I guess that was the germinal stages of development in my innate artistic seedling.

In my teen years, I discovered my love for language and its nuances while attending an all-boys ivy league high school. I began to love English poetry and essays.

Though English was my second language (We spoke Cantonese at home), I excelled in writing English, its grammatical application, and the subtleties of the language in poetry and song lyrics.

At 17, I did very well in English Literature and Writing in the University of London Advance Level Syllabus High School exam.

As a hobby, I began to write poetry, and even attempted two original song lyrics to guitar music as a teenager.

My love of the English language continued as I elected to be in an English Honours program in my second year at the University of Manitoba towards my first degree.

Language is an art of expression. Thus, it was not a far fetch for me to fall in love with another form of artistic expression: photography.

I began finding poetic expressions in the world around me through the view finder of a camera lens.

Over the course of three decades, I have taken countless photographic images of my world, documenting the events of my life.

Yes. Plenty of baby pictures of our children.

I attempted my first watercolour painting in 1982 when we were vacationing in a friend’s summer cottage by the Northumberland Strait in New Brunswick.

Using my two-year-old’s watercolour paint set and whatever paper that laid around, I painted two images: my two-year-old’s face and a New Brunswick beer bottle. Debbie’s remark was: “Not bad, Tom.”

I never picked up a paint brush again… for a long, long time… until Christmas of 1990.

It was a wintry morning during the Christmas vacation. Nobody was up yet. I once again borrowed my son’s (forgot whose) watercolour paint set and began painting what I saw through the window of my study… the big spruce outside with a shroud of freshly fallen fluff, sparking occasionally in the rays of the rising sun.

The end-result was, startling myself, not too bad!

I showed Debbie at breakfast time. She encouraged me to get some “real artist stuff” and pursue this new-found delight.

That was 18 years ago, and, proverbially, I never looked back.

I have been painting watercolours for 18 years. I have held about a dozen art shows over the years.

Purportedly, one of my paintings is hung in a church in Tokyo, Japan, and another is in the office of a general in Lisbon, Portugal.

Over the years, I have discovered that my techniques and subject matter have certainly broadened, but my style has become uniquely my own.

I love to share with others this passion of mine. I have been conducting a noon-hour watercolour painting club for students for the past 17 years! I have also been invited to conduct workshops for teachers annually.

Guess what Debbie has given me this past Christmas?

A classy painting easel and an acrylic painting kit.

“It’s time you should expand your horizon with mediums,” Debbie bubbled.

I guess it will be another brave new world for me to enter into.

Who says an old dog cannot learn new tricks?

New Trick for an Old Dog

Music has always been an important and joyous part of my life since I was a little boy. By osmosis, I began to be immersed in the pop music of the day and, surprisingly, fine classical music of by-gone eras.

As a teenager, I was mesmerized by the romanticism of the stories and the melancholic minor keys predominantly employed in ballets such as “House of the Rising Sun”, “Five Hundred Miles”, and, strangely enough, the theme song to an animated space adventure series of the ‘50’s, called “Fireball”.

My spirit leaped into action. With a couple of friends, at age 16, I formed a folk group, called “The Ripples”.

“The Ripples” did very well over the three years of its shelf-life, receiving popular acclaim in the local folk scene. We were invited to sing from campus to campus. We even performed in a city-wide folk competition at the concert hall.

Totally musically illiterate, I just learned to strum a few guitar chords from my band-mates. Having no musical training, I became very frustrated at how much I would like to do with music that I could not.

That frustration lasted long enough!

Two years ago, I decided to learn to play the guitar from a teacher.

Little did I truly know I’d experience the adage that “practice makes perfect”.

It was a daily grind, everyday for two years, with practicing the chromatic scale, the guitar version of pre-chopsticks.

Two years later, with about sixty 30-minute-lessons under my belt, I performed in public twice, not at all perfectly, “Romance de Amor”, admittedly a difficult classical piece.

Even my wife conceded that wasn’t that bad at all.

Debbie encourages me with this musical pursuit all the time. Her encouragement has helped me tremendously on those days when I didn’t feel like fingering the chromatic scale anymore.

Learning to play classical guitar helps me to stretch my stubby fingers, making them more limber to do other things, such as bar-chords.

By any standard, I am by no means good at the guitar yet.

But, I am pleased with the honest and simple fact that I now play the guitar, instead of pretending to play it as I have done my entire life.

Yes. Practice does make perfect.

And, yes again. An old dog can learn new tricks.

A Drop of Grace

Romans 8:28 encourages us that: “… in all things God works for the good of those who love him, and who have been called according to His purpose.”


While driving her jeep to work crossing over a bridge, which spans the frozen Red River, on a frigid Manitoba morning on February 5, 2008, Lisa Klassen, a 23-year-old pilot and gifted musician, skidded uncontrollably over the side of the bridge.

Her Jeep catapulted over a snow-and-ice build-up which acted as a ramp along the guardrails of the bridge and dropped 18 metres onto the Red below, puncturing a hole in the frozen river.

The vehicle landed on its roof while its front-end was submerged in frigid water of the puncture in the ice.

Lisa, still strapped in her seatbelt, was unconscious and drowning…

Then, God showed up! BIG TIME!

Several passers-by, who witnessed the horrific accident, sprang into action.

An off-duty fire-fighter and another man freed Lisa, with the help of two other women, pulled her out of the water and the vehicle, and performed C.P.R. to resuscitate her.

The whole world stopped and attended to how this story might unfold…

It unfolded as a perfect miracle would.

The right people were at the accident scene at the right time. (Did I say angels?)

Lisa is the sister of the famed Canadian Olympian gold-medalist speed skater, Cindy Klassen.

Lisa’s plight brought high-profile attention to how highway clearing has been done in the Province of Manitoba.

Lisa is miraculously and rapidly recovering from her injuries.

Lisa’s accident, rescue, and recovery have captured world-wide media attention… CBC, CNN, NBC, ABC, just to mention a few.

Throughout this ordeal, Lisa attributed her survival as the miracle wrought by “God’s hand” and the cumulative effect of unceasing intercessory prayers raised up around the world to the Throne of the Almighty.

God is glorified through this potential tragedy by the 23-year-old beloved child of His.

His glorification does not end there.

Cindy Klassen, the Olympian, is sacrificing this year’s competitive skating events in Europe to remain by her sister’s side until she fully recovers.

“Skating is important to me,” Cindy confessed, “but, my family comes first.”

The Klassen family has just highlighted to a world (that is so pre-occupied with things that are countable) that the most important things in life that count are NOT COUNTABLE, such as faith in God and love for one another.

Through a "drop of grace", we have a God sighting in Winnipeg!

A Father's Heart

Last evening, I took our second son to Greyhound station downtown as he was taking a trip to Lethbridge, AB, to visit his girlfriend for a couple of weeks.

We arrived about 45 minutes before boarding.

We sat side-by-side at the waiting lounge, pretending to watch the TV dangled from the ceiling, while we awkwardly didn't know how to say good-bye.

Two guys sitting on a log... you know, the strong silent type.

I made two-bit conversations, asking him when he'd arrive and how long he planned to stay at Lethbridge.

When it was announced that passengers would board soon, we got up and stood in line with the others... in silence.

At that moment, I looked at my son, 25-years-old (a strapping handsome young man about whom my wife had remarked one time with pride and admiration with: "What an all-Canadian boy!") and remembered him lifting up his head while lying on his tummy when he was only two weeks old, him wearing a cool grey flannel hat, a legacy from Grandpa, with curls cascading from the sides at age three, and him getting upset with me (for whatsoever reason of which I had not an inkling) when I watched him play "Pee Wee" soccer at age 4.

Wow! My heart began to journey down this memory lane; and for a moment, it tendered in tears!

This young man is my son, my flesh and blood whom I love dearly as the other three sons.

And, he is just taking a Greyhound a quarter way across the country to see his girlfriend. What am I thinking?

Better yet, what am I feeling?

_______________________________________________

I just called my third son, who is 23, to see how he is doing.

He is suffering from a mysterious and inexplicable pain in his shins, costing him his new job of two weeks.

He's been to several doctors and had tests and x-rays. They all came back negative. But, he cannot walk!

And this is an athletic and strong young man who, five years ago, rode his bike solo all the way from Winnipeg to Sault Ste. Marie in a week.

He lives independently on his own in an apartment downtown, and I think of him all the time.

"How are your legs?"

"Are they better?"

"How is your food holding out?''

I ask the same questions whenever I call.

_______________________________________________________

And, here is our eldest son who is exceptionally gifted musically and technologically.

He has discovered on his own that he would enjoy returning to university to finish his degree which he had begun several years ago.

He made the decision (to which my wife and I silently, and, at times, not that silently, gave assent and applause) to take a year of leave from his technology job to pursue his interest in scholarship.

Great job! We all rejoice!

Even if it means a grown-up child is about to move back home under his parents' roof.

They say that would happen.

I refused to believe it.

Guess what?

Surprise! It's about to happen.

________________________________________________________

Then, there is our youngest son who, upon graduation with a first degree, moved to Vancouver to be close to his girlfriend and chose to take on any job that pays two bits.

Now, he is a university-educated bicycle courier in Greater Vancouver.

Miss him. Yes. Indeed!

Pray for him daily for his safety, for sure.

Why am I dissecting my heart for all to see?

I guess how I feel about my fours sons in their respective circumstances is just a small ripple in the tsunami of the Father Heart of God for each one of us.

God cares about us.

He wants us to keep in touch with Him DAILY.

He proudly displays each of our photographs as wallpaper on His laptop.

He thinks about us ALL THE TIME!

Why? He simply loves and adores us.

That was why He traded His only precious Son as our ransom for freedom from sin and death.

I am free today and I am assured of His eternal love forever because He loves me much, very much... and first!

That's the Father Heart of God.

I have just gained a tiny insight into how it feels to be a loving father.

To beat just a little like how my Creator-God's heart thumps for me as my Heavenly Father... Wow!

Is this part and parcel of being created in His likeness?!

That blows me away.

Thank you, Father.

Amen.

Revelations II

Have you ever wondered why over time, as the proverbial "The Honeymoon is over" says, most marriage relationships metamorphosed from the "lovey-dovey" state of romantic bliss to "nag-nag" and "pow-pow" state of dread?

According to Andy Stanley, a pastor and marriage counsellor, the author of "i-MARRIAGE", the capital "I" gets in the way of a married couple.

When a man and a woman court and look forward to a future of "living happily ever after", they enjoy sharing their hopes and dreams together... of having a family, a comfortable home, a car or two, satisfying careers, the occasional vacations, and financial indepenedence, and helping to save a fallen world, just to name a few.

Those are legitimate and worthwhile hopes and dreams with which to share between two people who are in love.

Let's place those hopes and dreams in a box labeled "Desire".

In the box of "Desire", we find plenty of unconditional love and an abundance of "What would you like's".

When the honeymoon is over, the married couple have a tendency to switch from watching out for "YOU" to what's in for ME, the subject of which is the Big "I".

As soon as "I do" is pronounced at the altar, there seems to be a devious and sinister detour which follows, leading us to announce loudly, both in words and deeds, "I want".

When two big "I's" collide in a marriage, "Ouch!" happens.

Stanley paints a vivid picture analogous to dumping the contents of the "Desire" box into a new box labeled "Expectations".

When legitimate desires turn into expectations, the marriage relationship turns from one of unconditional love to that of a debt-debtor relationship.

"You owe me!"

When legitimate desires become "you owe me" expectations, the sweet "lovey-dovey" unconditional love evaporates like morning dew, and we begin to make demands of each other.

Stanley reveals that the secret of reversing the state of dread to that of romantic "lovey-dovey" is found in Ephesians 5:21.

"Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ."

This, of course, is a Christian advice for a Christian marriage. But, anybody can subscribe to it if it truly works. It costs nothing!

To show my gratitude for what Christ has done for me, He prefers that my expression of thanks be shown through loving my spouse unconditionally.

This is analogous to "Don't thank me with a gift, but donate your gift to a charitable organization instead." Except, in this case, you give to your spouse ("loving entity"="charitable organization") in His name.

God has chosen me to show my love for my spouse unconditionally as His preferred way of having me say, "Thank You, Lord, for redeeming me."

Why he has chosen me, I have not a clue.

Perhaps, it has to do with God's view of His people, His church, as His bride.

Living from this perspective, we begin to pour the contents of the "Expectation" box back into the "Desire" box. We will, then, be enabled to love unconditionally again.

What would that eventually bring about?

The romantic candle-lit dinner, bathed in the nuances of "Romance de Amor" that you enjoyed years ago, and the desire to please the "You", instead of the "I".

To begin this reversed journey to romance in marriage, one must honestly ask: "What does my spouse owe me?"

Well, what's your answer?

Stanley suggest two remedies which we can apply immediately and daily :

1) Express my gratitude to my spouse for the smallest things.

2) Perform for my spouse acts of unconditonal service.

Then, "Da Da!"

Watch a miracle happen.

Romance!

Can you handle that!

Revelation

This world proffers and offers an over-abundance of information.

I am fed and equally responsible for self-feeding with information all the time.

However, as I have discovered, it's not information that I need in life, but revelation.

Revelation is the "Ah Ha!" moment when the head and the heart connect; when the incomprehesible becomes as plain as day.

I never knew that, although Adam had sadly thrown it away at the Fall, Jesus, our Redeemer, has re-claimed the God-given authority for each one of us who believes in Him.

It is by this same authority that Jesus' victory is implemented and enforced on earth.

What authority?

Remember that God created man in His image?

Man's likeness with his Creator-God included being gifted with and given His divine authority.

However, not only did the Fall cost us eternal relationship with God, it cost us the authority that God has given us to have dominion over the earth in the first place.

God, in His eternal wisdom, had a Plan B... the Salvation/Redemption Plan.

God loves us so much that He cannot bear having the Parent-Child relationship severed forever. So, He gave His all, His Son, Jesus Christ (His One-Man S.W.A.T. Team) in exchange for us.

That's the story of the Cross... and the Victory of the Cross!

Jesus went through physical, mental, emotional, spiritual anguish and suffering to re-establish our relationship with God and to re-capture for us His authority to do Kingdom work on earth as His representatives.

Jesus has won total victory for us, over sin, illnesses, danger, bondage, strongholds, and even death.

All we need to do, in our communications with God, is to seek His blessings of protection, healing, forgiveness, mercy, grace, joy, love, hope and His ever-comforting-presence by invoking His authority and enforcing His victory won 2000 years ago on the Cross.

By the same authority, we are empowered to cast out evil influences in our lives, be they addictions, strongholds, fears, sicknesses, disabilities, iniquities and sins.

What Christ has accomplished on the Cross is awesome and powerful! Amen.

How and when are insights revealed?

Listen to His still, small voice.

Keenly observe God's presence in daily happenings.

I began, a while back, a log of "God Sightings". Anything that has the nature of God (The nature of God is His incomprehensible GOODNESS.) written all over it is a "God Sighting".

God speaks to us through people, circumstances, events, His Word (the Bible), and His Holy Spirit's tuggings (that's His voice).

Yes. It is not easy to discern whether a voice is that of God, or of something else.

God's voice is always soothing, comforting, edifying, affirming, confirming, never accusatory and condemning.

Remember what Jesus said about this point: "My sheep hear my voice."

The more we learn to listen to God's voice and obey, the more clearly His voice comes to us.

Tombeginnings

I pride myself as a writer. But, I suck at technology. This a Tombeginning, suggested and assisted (Big time!) by my wife. This blog will serve as my musing in and about life.

There will be frivolous moments, poignant ponders, funny (as only I may see it) tidbits, and, at times, outrageous ravings about the world in which we live.

I shall begin journalling when I become more at ease with this 21st Century message in a bottle.