Just Ask.

On Sunday, I was sitting in our big room with our Chinese friends listening to one man speak about this Book He was reading. Of course, it was in Chinese, so I may have drifted off and boarded my own train of thought. I started thinking about how I haven’t really got to spend a lot of time with my students and wanted to more and to share more.

Tuesday night some students texted me and asked me if they could eat lunch with me on Wed or Friday? Pssh, yeah. So Wednesday at lunch I met up with them. Walking there I just started lifting up the conversation and situation and asking that I might be able to talk about what makes me happy. After a while we made our transition though topics and somehow ended up on the topic of gays. “Can you accept this?” one asked me. (Translated that means, “do you agree with this?”) I reminded them who I believed in and then explained that I believe that He created guys one way, and girls another way. They’re both equally beautiful and very good, but they are much different from each other. They’re made to fit together just a certain way as guys are good at one thing and work one way, and girls are good at another and work another way. They fit very well together, but if two guys or two girls try to get together, then they don’t fit too well. They’re missing out on the fullness of what they were made to fit with.

“I have heard someone say, that they were born this way. I cannot accept this. What do you think?” Impressed that I was having this conversation with some of my freshman students, I nodded recognizing her statement and took a breath. (This is where it gets a little tricky to translate.) I tried to explain how there is a Good Man and an Evil One. That the Evil one hates the Good One and wants to hurt Him. (I looked over to see that only one student was keeping up, the others were lost somewhere in translation.) “Have you seen Spiderman?” I transitioned. “Yeah!” they all kicked in. Ok. So in Spiderman the bad guy can’t hurt Spiderman so he tries to hurt the girl that he likes. “Yeah.” It’s the same way with the Evil one and the Good One. Because the Good One loves us so much that the Evil one attacks what He loves to hurt Him. “oh…” (It started to click a little.) So sometimes He will try to separate the girl from Spiderman, and the Evil one tries to separate us from the Good One. He does this many different ways. One way is telling us to do bad things, or things we shouldn’t do that separate us.  He tells “do this it feels better. … well, you feel like this, you should do this. … If this is what you want, then go do it” even if it’s not right. I then tried to carefully explain how guys have the same urges towards girls as guys who struggle with homosexuality struggle with towards guys. But even though guys want to do those, we don’t do them because He said it’s not right.  --- They seemed to be tracking as the conversation took a slight turn and then we clarified that I wasn’t sleeping with all of the girls at Hua Qiao. (Crazy thought I know, but they think what they see on TV is true. Everyone on TV does it, so it must be true and they just assume.  – Have to intentionally make that one awkward to clarify.)

Later that afternoon, one of the Italian teachers came over and asked if I could help him with his spoken English. Sure, I said. Eager to help but ignorant in how exactly I was going to do that with a grown man who knows a good bit already, I sat down and just asked for wisdom and clarification and how to help. We just started talking and learning about each other and I started making notes on mispronunciations and grammar issues we could work on. It moved into the importance of individuals. How China has such a deep culture and so many people, but we often look at it as a financial opportunity. That lead into me agreeing with individuals and a story of a friend who was struggling with some things currently and how much it hurt (ultimately because He hurts) with it. How it blew my mind if there could be this much pain and frustration with the end of one person’s life, how much it would hurt after the Tsunami when hundreds of people died. Not just hundreds to throughout that blanket term, but that’s hundreds of stories. A story about Jane, Mark, Judy, Francis, Jill, Frank, Billy, Iasiah, Josh, Lyle, Claire, Crystal, Susan, Robert, Amy, Lydia, …..

He asked what I thought about the earthquake, did we cause it or is it just a cycle of weather every so many years. I could only think of this Story that I was told recently that makes since in Chinese culture.  I asked him what he thought first and let him share his thoughts. He thinks that we caused part of it due to the way we treat it, we’re not the only cause, but we are one of them. I agreed that I think we did play a part. I explained how I think the earth was created in harmony as a reflection of the Artist. Then there was imperfection, a reflection of humans which lead to disunity. Disunity between  man and man, between man and Artist, between man and nature, between everything. That’s why we don’t feel Him, see Him, understand Him anymore. That’s why people treat each other like crap, why there’s wars all the time. That’s why nature is falling apart around us and we don’t treat it very well either.  Then, if you follow the circle, Perfection came. Perfection fulfilled all that was required and all that was lacking. Perfection also brought back Unity in the relationship again. United within all things and then therefore harmony again. So when these people know, believe, and accept Perfection, they can be unified again and they’re life is different. They live and treat others, treat Him, and treat nature back the way they should and harmony is restored.  … So that’s why I think there’s earthquakes now is because I think so many people are stuck at the Disunity stage and I think the disunity between man and nature is causing part of it. This Book I’m reading says that all of creation and the earth cries out wanting to be restored back to harmony, but still so many people don’t know, don’t believe, or don’t accept, so they’re stuck in disunity.  “Oh yes, that makes sense.” He says. “So where are you?” he asked. “I’m here at the unity/harmony stage.” “Oh, good, good. Very good.” “Where are you?” I reiterated.  “I… I don’t know” he said.

He went on to tell me the story of how he studied Catholicism growing up, but he doesn’t really believe all that that the Man said, like that He was the Son. He told me about how when he was 4 years old he was in a car accident, many very good things happened. 2 minutes after the wreck, there was a car who drove by with a cell phone in their car “in 1982, in Italy! There was a phone in a car! There was maybe only 10 in the country but one of them drove right past!” Also, in that two minutes a doctor drove by and stopped and opened up his throat with a traek because he wasn’t breathing. The wreck happened just off of the interstate so the ambulance was there in 5 min. G had saved his life, but since then, many things happened. He doesn’t go to His house or read the Book or… and he mumbled off.

It was phenominal! We went on to practice a few more things and just talk openly. We just talked. He’s going to come back every Wednesday afternoon and we’ll sit down and work on some English and practice talking.  He’s an awesome guy to talk to and very open to the Reality of the situation we live in. I’m very glad that I get to know him and just hang out with him. I’m super glad that I get to know Him and hang out with Him too – that He comes in and answers when I call, complain, or even just ask.  I’m also glad you sat down to read all of this too. Whew. Thank you for that. I’ll quit talking now, but just wanted to share His coolness. Love you all.