Rant of the Exiles

I ran an idea by a mentor friend of mine. I told him that for Asian American Christians, shame is the elephant in the room. We hide from each other and God, afraid to fully reveal and expose our vulnerability. We operate in fear of disapproval and humiliation. He disagreed. Shame and saving face are issues but the biggest problem Asian Christians face is recognition of sin. He recounted a conversation with an overseas-born pastor. "I don't struggle with sin" the pastor told him. I'm inclined to agree with my friend that recognition of sin is the primary issue. Nothing in the gospel can happen without acknowledging our wickedness. And its true that most of us high-achieving, moral Asian American believers have a superficial sense of our depravity. But I wonder if shame and recognition of sin are close to the same thing. I was in a meeting recently where a person said he was hurt by another's comment. The meeting went silent after that statement. Out of awkwardness...

In most things, I love being coached. It wasn't always that way. In high school, I had some poor coaches. After playing a mediocre game, my water polo coach would yell, throw chairs, and curse at my teammates and me. Playing for him felt like living in a pressure cooker that might blow up any second. I have my own issues too. I often resent being told what to do. Most of all, its tough to hear that you're not doing something right. Its painful and annoying to have someone get in your face and tell you that your performance was sub-par. Two years ago, my brother-in-law taught me how to throw a football. He's a good teacher and a former athletic coach. He was very patient and gave me good feedback. You can watch a Youtube video about throwing a football but the video won't tell you that your arm is not going back far enough or that your shoulders aren't square. The feedback is precious. This article by Atul Gawande talks about coaching at the highest levels of perform...

I saw this book at my friend George’s house and had to take it from him. After preaching through Genesis and marveling at how Adam was with Eve and said nothing while she was tempted, the title jumped out at me. Its written by Dr. Larry Crabb with Don Hudson and Al Andrews . It’s a book about manhood. I love reading this kind of stuff. They awaken a hunger inside me. The awesome thing about this book, in contrast with a book like John Eldredge’s seminal “Wild at Heart”, is that there’s very little chest-thumping, outdoors/nature glorification, and references to popular movies. Manhood is not about raising wild boys, backpacking up steep mountains in Colorado, and re-enacting Braveheart movie scenes (I actually loved Eldredge’s book but his physical imagery gets a little tiresome). There’s something more powerful illustrating truth here – the true, personal stories of the authors and imagined stories that are a composite of the hundreds of men these authors have counseled over...

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...

Last Sunday, I talked about the pursuit of happiness as an one modern example of idolatry. After hearing my message, someone wrote me that he's looking for replacement words for happiness. That comment got me thinking. Do we need different words for happiness? Well, I think happiness is a perfectly good word albeit somewhat overused. But it might overlook the question of what idolatry is about. The question is not whether happiness as an idea is wrong. It is good to want to feel good, contented, joyful, etc. And I'm not trying to play with words here. When I mean happiness, I believe it overlaps with joy, peace, contentment, etc. and all those biblical words. So it is good to seek and desire happiness. The question is where does it fit in our pyramid? The pyramid is desires, ambitions, and values. As you progress from bottom to top, the least important things serve the more important ones until you get to the top, where we find who or what ultimately rules our live...