Is Green Mean?

Judging Books by Their Covers

I had heard that the musical production "Wicked" was good. We had to plan way in advance and thanks to my sister who kindly agreed to baby-sit the boys, we made it to the show before its run in Singapore ended.

I like the "Wicked" story very much. As you may be aware, it is a parallel story to the book "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum. The premise of the musical, as with the original story, is that we tend to judge others simply by their appearance. Just because someone is green, dresses in black and puts on a pointy hat - we think that she is evil. In contrast, the blond, pretty one, dressed in every girls' dream of a fairy ball gown - she's good. As one of the characters said, it's not a matter of what you are, it's what people you are that matters. This is the cause of many problems in our lives.

Put some powder on that green?

I thought one of the brilliant situations in the musical was working out how to make over a witch? A stylist's nightmare for sure, but if the problem is window dressing then let's put up a better one. Problem solved, right?

Last week a local newspaper reported that our nation has become the ‘OCD’ (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) Capital of the world. 1 in 30 people of our local population has OCD as compared to 1 in 40 in the U.S. OCD is an anxiety disorder that causes sufferers to have an uncontrollable compulsion to perform ritualistic and repetitive action like washing or checking (watch the YouTube Video – Jack Nicholson acts it out excellently). A common fear that OCD sufferers have is dirt and they are constantly washing themselves. Many of these people are totally incapacitated by these behaviours to the point that they can’t live normal lives. Sociologists and academics interviewed were of the opinion that the incessant drive in our nation to achieve peak performance and perfection contributes to the high prevalence of this condition here. 


So perhaps window dressing is not such a good solution. In the constant scrutiny that we're under, our minds still see imperfections that are not there and keep driving us subconsciously to clean up or cover up the spots.

Pin on badges to hide the green?

Beyond just trying endlessly to improve ourselves, we strive to window dress better by hanging external accolades, titles, validation to show the world how good we are. There is jubilation when this occurs but crushing defeat when it doesn't. I watched a BBC TV program called ‘Michelin Stars – The Madness of Perfection’. It is a documentary describing the intense pressure in the culinary world for chefs to receive and keep these stars as a nod to their cooking. The chefs both embraced this and vilified it for the intense pressure it put them under. There was an account of a French chef who took his own life at the rumour that he was going to lose his 3-star (world class) status.

My own experience
I re-wrote this blog several times because it just seemed so preachy. I realised that it is so because 1) we all know that we should not judge. I am not writing something new. From the time we're children we've been told that we should not judge others by their appearance; and yet we still do it; and 2) that this message is first and foremost for me. I should look at my own life first before writing this as if it is everyone else's problem but mine.


I know that I am a perfectionist and I judge myself and others more harshly than I need to. Reading my last blog about the lessons I've had to learn in my marriage would have illustrated this.


Just last month at a church-organized silent retreat, God gave me Matthew 8:2-3: A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean." v2. God reminded me that I was driving myself to exhaustion trying to cover up my spots. The irony was my immediate response to promise God I would do better – more Bible Study, more prayer, more discipline. God said “No! Stop!”. I did not need a self-improvement plan – I needed a God-transformation. Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. v3 



Change comes in a different way 

There is a need to break this vicious cycle of "I judge you, you judge me". I believe that in our society's drive to succeed and be perfect, we have placed on ourselves the heavy burden of a critical spirit. Matthew 7; 1-2 says:


 ¹ Do not judge, or you too will be judged. ² For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

I acknowledge that I am in need of such a change. The solution is not to tell myself "Don't do it, Don't do it, it's wrong" because that in itself is a judgment and will only stir up my internal critical spirit to judge others even more.

The characters in the musical also find out that they can't change the external colour of their skin or their own self, even when they use magical powers. The more they try, the worse it gets.

But they do find out that people can change on the inside. When people really care about each other, the good they show each rubs off on the other. The solution, as they learnt, is in relationships. In God I am learning "He who knows me best, loves me most". It is when I realise that my deepest, darkest faults are no longer judged that I can stop judging others.

 Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Romans 8:1, 33-34

 

I know this in theory now but it will be in living my life that my behaviour will change. As the story in the Wizard of Oz teaches us – the tin man looking for a heart, the lion looking for courage, the scarecrow looking for brains and Dorothy looking for the way home. It is in their journey and adventures on the golden brick road that they learn passion, courage, wisdom and direction. So pray for me that as I journey on my life with God, His grace and mercy will be more and more evident in my life. Amen.


Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight, declares the LORD. Jeremiah 9: 23-24

For Good (With Lyrics) - a song about how friends change each other for the better

I've heard it said
that people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn 
and we are lead to those who help us most to grow
if we let them and we help them in return
Well i dont know if i believe that's true
But i know i'm who i am today because i knew you.

It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime

so let me say before we part

so much of me is made from what i learned from you

You'll be with me like a hand print on my heart

Now whatever way our stories end

I know you have rewritten mine by being my friend

Marriage - Dance Lessons for 2

Conversations ...

6.45 am, Saturday morning, master bedroom, still dark out,

"Has Joshua woken up yet?"

"Yes, I thought I heard some sounds outside"

<Door opens> <Door closes>

<Door opens> <Door closes>

"He wasn't awake yet, all quiet outside. I've woken him up"

"So I'll drop him off at the MRT station and swing by the gym before I come back"

"OK, in the mean time I will make sure the other two do 1 hour of homework first. Is that Samuel crying?"                                   

<Door opens> <Door closes>

<Door opens> <Door closes>

"He's just making some sounds, not crying yet. So you're leaving at 10 for Caleb's tuition? Can you get lunch for me later?"

"What do you want - rice and vegetable?"

"Err...you can buy McDonald's for the boys and me too. Cheese burger and chicken wings."

"What is Jonah bringing with him - his science workbook?"

"Yes. So you're dropping Caleb and Jonah off at the MRT station after tuition? What about dropping them off at your Mom's p[lace instead?"

"Not unless you're driving down to pick them up"

"No, too much driving today."

"OK, so I will ride with them part of the way on the MRT so I can get to my lecture by 2. Jonah and I will eat first. I won't be buying drinks from McDonald's for you - very hard to bring back. Caleb can buy the drinks from downstairs when he gets back."

"OK. See you later, Samuel's crying now ...love you, bye!"

"Bye!"

Seemingly inane chatter ... certainly not something that TV studios would pay money to make into a reality TV series. This chatter though, gets Marie and I through the day with 4 boys, school, tuition, chores, work, homework. Without it, chaos would reign.

To me, this exchange is a near miracle - to start the day with it, barely see each other in the day, collapse exhausted into bed at night, a quick "I love you", fall into deep sleep and still feel connected as a married couple. It's a miracle because it takes 14 years of marriage to be able to have this awfully mundane, yet at the same time deeply intertwined conversations.

1998 - The start of it all

   When it began ...

Marie and I couldn't talk like this when we were newly married. We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into - wanting kids immediately after getting married. God blessed us with Joshua one day before our first wedding anniversary. I was also taking my post-grad exam the same year as well. Our stress level shot through the roof in this our second year of marriage.

Marie:
We had our second wedding anniversary celebration at Prego.  I can't recall much of that dinner save for a commemorative photo that the restaurant staff took of us.  In that photo, Chi Hong looked tired and unhappy while I had a practised smile.  That photo uncannily reflected the stress and strain our marriage was undergoing at that early stage.   Joshua had just turned one.  We had a first birthday celebration for him - a big party -  a milestone no doubt, but it tired us out even more.  Chi Hong was unhappy with his crazy workload!  My mum's cancer had recurred and was testy and difficult.  All these on top of learning to live with each other......

I can't remember exactly but I think that's when we started having arguments and quarrels. We quarreled almost every other day. All those romantic Hollywood notions of marriage just crashed and burned. How could anyone imagine that marriage was going to be like that? Wasn't it supposed to be happily ever after?

Marie:
We went on a trip to Bali with the extended family.  Somehow, we quarreled almost every day, back in our room, of course.  At that point in time, Chi Hong was taking an extended break from work, 5 months in all,  to recover from the exhaustion of taking that very grueling post-grad exam as well as the aforementioned horrible workload.  On paper, it was a good idea, lots of family time.  In reality, the family time was marked with a lot of tension.  I thought he got in the way of my household routines.  I didn't know what to do with him being in and around the home so much.

What were we getting ourselves into?

We also struggled with the feeling that we were leading two separate, individual lives. Living together but not as one. I handled the work outside the home and Marie handled the things at home. We each had our own things to do. The best way to describe it was that we felt like two parallel lines destined never to intersect each other, even if we stretched it to infinity (as my maths teacher taught me in school).

Marie:
"Never the 'twain shall meet."  (from my Humanities background)

This was exactly what we didn't want in our marriage but we were lost in the woods and didn't know how to get out. We asked our married friends if they felt the same way and they all said 'no'.That made us feel even worse - was there something wrong with us? Was our marriage salvageable?

The 'D' Word

Before Marie and I got married, God arranged for us to attend a workshop on the Biblical principles on marriage. The trainer had a good point - if you don't want to have a divorce then don't even entertain the thought of it. I don't think Marie and I were really anywhere near a divorce but the arguments were certainly frequent and fierce. The British actress, Sybil Thorndike put it across nicely - when asked if she would ever leave her husband, she said, "Divorce, never! Murder, often!".

One day out of the blue, a thought struck me. The apparent randomness of that thought but yet so totally true of the situation convinced me that it came from God. The thought was "We're both trying our best." The way we were arguing, it was as if we both didn't care about each other. The irony was that we were working ourselves to exhaustion trying to make our marriage work. Yet instead of appreciating each other's efforts, we were just criticising each other.

This thought was like a light bulb coming on in a dark room. It didn't make the arguments go away immediately but it made us stop and try harder to listen to what the other person was saying.

Happy Times!

Marie:
We attended a married couple's retreat in early 2007.  The retreat was just what we needed.  We had had a massive quarrel the night before and were feeling rather jittery around each other.  It was good to listen to the struggles of other couples, even senior couples with decades of married life. A wonderful takeaway from that retreat was about conflict resolution: rather than thinking we need to battle it out with each other when we hit a roadblock, husband and wife can remember that we are actually standing on the same side and we can work together to remove the roadblock which was our common enemy. We are not each other's enemy. This was another turning point for us.

Love Language

Along the way, Marie also discovered this thing called 'Love Language'. We learnt that we had very different love languages - mine was 'helps' and 'spending time', Marie's was 'gifts' and 'touch'. So take for example - if Marie lost her keys, I would hunt high and low for her and feel it a personal achievement if I found it and gave it to her. But Marie would seem under-awed to me - "unappreciative" in my mind. When I lost my keys, Marie would continue doing her work and barely look up - "unhelpful" in my mind. The problem was "helps" was my love language, not hers - so this meant that we were working and working to show each other love and it was just not being appreciated. Understanding this helped us to appreciate and know each other better bit by bit by bit.

Things get better

Marie:
I love giving and receiving gifts and I really appreciate a well-thought present.  There was one birthday (mine falls on Christmas) when Chi Hong merely gave me books - a book on leadership and a history book.  I put on a brave smile but was seriously disappointed and also hurt. I didn't want books from my husband on the most important day of the year and those books weren't even titles I was interested in!  I didn't feel very loved but kept quiet about it but the emotions couldn't be suppressed and eventually exploded in another big argument much later.  Over time, Chi Hong has understood this part of me better, taking time to think about what I like and enjoy at that point and blessing me with special presents.  Last Christmas, for example, despite still reeling from the upheaval Baby Samuel brought to our lives, Chi Hong made the special effort to bless me with a Bose docking station/speaker for my iPhone, something that I'd looked longingly at for quite a long time!

   Less Quarrels ... More Fun

Over time the arguments did lessen. We're also happy to report that the parallel lines feeling wasn't as prominent. As each child came, we became more practised at supporting each another and anticipating each other's needs, to the point where we were able to have the conversation at the beginning of this blog (being able to go for weekly dates when the kids were older also helped). Of course, sometimes we would still have a real bad argument - was it in 2010 or 2011 when we pulled an over-nighter quarreling about how we used money? As I'm writing this blog, there was also an incident when tension rose and thankfully, fell before it peaked into a full scale argument.

As I write this, I want to qualify that I am not trying to position what Marie and I have experienced as a panacea for all marriage ills (although I think there are some fundamental principles here). Nor do I want to use this judge those whose marriages have ended in a divorce. As I grow older, I am increasingly aware how complex life is; and sometimes people have to make the best out of an extremely difficult situation. Don't get me wrong, I don't support divorce.  The Bible teaches that it is wrong. The hurt it causes the couple and their children is obvious. As I write this, the local newspaper reported that divorce rates are still going up. What the world needs from the Church is not more condemnation but more grace and compassion. Remember what Jesus said when the religious elders came to stone the woman caught in adultery? "Let the one without sin cast the first stone." No surprise that not one stone was cast that day.

Celebrating 14 years!

    It's a Dance!

So marriage is like a dance. When we start out, we end up most of the time stepping on each other's feet.  Sometimes we try so hard it almost feels like we're stamping on each other's feet. But dance we have to because there is no other way of getting better at this then practise, practise and practise; and now that I'm wiser (I hope), I would also say forgive, forgive and forgive. ... and the dance will get better, smoother, more co-ordinated and beautiful. 

1,2,3...1,2,3, we're still practising every day ...

Marie:
Someday, Chi Hong and I will take formal dance lessons.  Seriously.

What? Seriously??!!

P.S. - the YouTube Videos were from one of our favourite movies - "When Harry Met Sally"

                                                          The Happy Ending