Rant of the Exiles

Sometimes I have nightmares about my kids. Like I get really scared. Everything from nap schedules to choice of schooling, to bumps and bruises, to developmental milestones and appearance, are cause for me to worry. But they don’t bother me as much as my worst nightmare. My greatest fear is my kids won’t make the same life decisions I have. Its not about economic status, educational attainment or even morality and personal happiness. I worry they will not walk with God. My nightmare is that 20 years from now I’ll have adult children who are successful, well-educated, upright professionals who have no affection for Jesus. Judy and I can drag our kids to go to church (and we do), make them pray with us before bedtime (check), talk with them about God (yup), and even study the Bible with them (alright – sporadically) but the abiding decision of trusting Christ is up to them. It is a choice that is ultimately their own. And that is a scary thing. We can influence which God th...

Over Labor Day weekend, our church went on a retreat to Camp Sierra, south of Yosemite and an hour northeast of Fresno. We were surrounded by lakes – Millerton Lake, Shaver Lake, and Huntington Lake. There were boats and water craft (jet skis, wave runners) everywhere. Where you find boats, you find white people. Boatloads of them. White people love water. They like playing in it, riding on it, camping on it, swimming in it, jumping in it, whatever. Not Chinese people. They don’t like water. Sure, they drink it and all. They just don’t enjoy being in the water. And when I say Chinese people, I don’t mean me. I mean real Chinese people – as in FOB immigrants (I actually do see myself as “real” Chinese but I’m always amused when people say I’m not “real”). See, most Chinese immigrants don’t know how to swim. They may have grown up near water but being a member of the intelligentsia demanded time away from the water and in the classroom. I think that’s why Chinese immigr...

Reading the mega-hit "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Timothy Ferriss was like gorging one's self on ice cream and potato chips. It starts out amazing, towards the middle you start slowing down, and when the message from your stomach finally reaches your brain, you feel this overwhelming urge to vomit. It all starts in such a promising way. Ferriss' premise is obtaining the freedom to pursue life's most important goal - individualistic hedonism. Ferriss defines the New Rich (NR) as people who have both money AND time. Its a neat concept and appropriate for a generation weaned on entitlement and jealous of their baby boomer parents' success. But here's where things being to go astray: he tells us the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. That makes no sense to me. Isn't what makes a job perfect the fact you look forward to spending time doing it? Well, not in Ferriss' world of becoming a Chinese kickboxing champion, competing as a ballroom danc...