A Significant Life - insights from Friends, Diapers and Lord of The Ring (LOTR)

Success and Significance
Every Chinese New Year my buddies from school gather. We've known each other for decades and catch up several times each year. It's great to know that we've been able to maintain the friendship for decades.

It's always fun when we meet and sometimes, like this last one, it was special. Amidst the laughing and the eating, in a moment of spontaneity and totally without any guile or boasting, one of the guys lifted the veil and shared with us significant moments in his career - moments that we had not previously known about.

Old friends, good food and great laughs - what could be better?

Men of Substance
This guy, he was my best friend in school but over the years with career and family demands, we've had less time for our friendship and it's changed. We're still good friends but I'm less familiar with what's happening in his life.  So this was also the first time I've heard his account of how he came to the success in his career.

Career success aside, what impressed me more from his account was how he was recognised at work for courageously speaking up for what was right, even at the risk of angering his superiors. I couldn't help but feel happy and proud for him; that his character and moral fiber were made up of good stuff. No surprise then that God would give him the opportunities to find favour in the eyes of superiors.

There are many similar accounts in the Bible as well of men who were put into significant positions, men such as Abraham, Moses, Joseph, King David, Daniel etc. These men were not perfect but each chose at significant moments to stand up for what was right in God's name; and so God gave them the privilege of being his instruments of change in society for the glory of His name and the good of society.

Stay Home Moms (& Dads) are Significant!

Who would have thought -
something so small and so cute
would take so much out of us?

Marie and I have been talking about the significance of our lives recently. Before we got married, we agreed that when the children came, she would stay home as a full time homemaker. Credit to Marie that she has been doing this for more than a decade and has run our household excellently. What would we do without her? Yet, as many women (and I guess some men too) who have chosen to stay home full-time have experienced, Marie often fights this nagging feeling that she cannot justify the significance of her work. Honestly, there is nothing quite like a new baby at home to make you wonder what life is about - how can cleaning buttocks, breastfeeding, burping, putting baby to sleep, etc., compare to a top notch corporate career?

Even for myself, I would say that I have done fairly well (from a human perspective) in my career. But even then, I catch myself sometimes worried about the wrong things.  Honestly, for a period I loathed reading the Sunday Edition of the local papers because it was just full of stories of people who had money, who were making money, who wanted to teach us how to make money. But if I blame the papers, then I have also myself to blame because I choose to believe that money brings significance (the more money the more significance) and therefore be threatened by stories in the papers about people who can afford things that I cannot.

It's Who defines Significance & Success that matters
When looked at from an earthly perspective, Jesus' time on earth appeared to end in failure. His proclamation that He had come to fulfil the prophecies of the Messiah seemingly ended in a disastrous trial, torture and death on a cross - punishment meant for common criminals. Yet three days later, He arose from the dead, once and forever defeating sin and death, showing the world the significance of His life on earth.

Marie takes good care of us!

The issue I believe is that we want to define for ourselves what should be considered 'successful' and 'significant'; and too often this definition comes from the world. What Marie and I believe is that the lives we have are from God. He has already made us significant and give us significant lives to live. We don't need work or possessions to make us significant. The crux is we don't need to create our significance, we live out the significance that has already been created for us. Of course, this is easier said than practised.

Marie strives everyday to change diapers and clean milk stains with this in mind. She sings to herself this song that we used to sing in Sunday School:
"In the house and out of doors
Brushing shoes and scrubbing floors
Baking, ironing , brewing tea,
Sometimes making hokkien mee!
I do it all for Jesus, I do it all for Jesus, I do it all for JESUS!
He's done so much for me."

LOTR - What we learn from Sam Gamgee
I end this blog with thoughts about the ending in Lord of the Ring. For those who may not be familiar with this fantastic tale from J.R.R. Tolkien (now made into 3 movies), Frodo the hero of the story, supported by his faithful sidekick Sam Gamgee, goes on a quest. Frodo bears the burden of carrying an evil ring and finally throws it down a mountain lava pit to destroy it forever.

But that is not the end of the story. Frodo it seems, changed profoundly by the experience, could not find peace at home anymore. He decides to follow the elves to disappear into the ethereal mists as they leave human lands forever. Sam Gamgee, on the other hand, the more provincial of the two, decides to stay home, marry his childhood sweet heart and have loads of kids.

In the end, whose life was more significant - Frodo, the hero of the story or Sam Gamgee the side kick? As I thought about it, I realized that given a choice, I would rather choose to be Sam Gamgee than Frodo. After all, I married my sweetheart, had lots of kids and I'm not so hot about traveling to strange lands anyway (unless there's a nice hotel). My point is, each one of us has a significant life, it is created specially by God for us - some of us are created to be Frodo-s and some are created to be Sam Gamgee-s. Each should live the life he / she has and find significance in that. I think we'll all be happier hobbits* for doing that :)

This part meant for LOTR fans or those who want to know more about Hobbits:
*Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race which inhabits the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. According to the author in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are "relatives"^[1] of the race of Men. (Wikipedia)

Sam Gamgee playing his part to encourage to Frodo to press on in the face of great peril. 

As you can see in his words below, he likes a good story just like me!

"It's like the great stories, Mr Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were .. and sometimes you didn't want to know the end .. because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr Frodo, I do understand . I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going...because they were holding on to something."

"What are we holding on to, Sam?"

"That there's something good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it's worth fighting for!"

A final farewell from Frodo - and back to the Shire for Sam Gamgee. 

He props his legs up, asks his wife for a nice cup of coffee and reaches for the TV remote "Ahhh...that's the life"

(ok, I made up the last part... but I think that's what I would have done if I were Sam Gamgee)