Loss of Control == Faith in God?

In a recent blog posting on the NYTimes.com site, the author posited a correlation between a tendency to see patterns where none existed, and the perceived level of control (or lack thereof). His hypothesis was that when people are feeling out of control, they tend to see patterns where there is none, which is why people who are working in dangerous professions such as deep-sea fishing tend to have more superstitions than people who work run-of-the-mill jobs.

(He has an experiment that you can try out on the blog as well. Try it. It's interesting.)

Among the comments on his blog posting was one in which the reader pointed out that people of low income, who, by nature, have less control over their finances, are more likely to be superstitious or do irrational things like buy lottery tickets, etc.

Which then made me think: people of low income and those who don't have much control over life's events also tend to believe in God more readily. What does that mean? To a statistician, it might mean that "seeing God's hand at work" is seeing patterns where there were none, and faith in God is simply superstition.

What do you think?

The convolution that is life...

I got my graduation gown in the mail today. And if you are wondering, what the heck, I didn't know she was going to school again -- well, what happened was that when I graduated from JHU, I never bothered to actually buy the official gown. Part of it was because it's so expensive, another part of it was because I was COMPLETELY sick of academia by the end of my PhD and wanted nothing less than to be reminded of the trappings thereof. (Against the advice of my supervisor, I didn't even try to interview for academic jobs then.) I was fine not having my own gown until last Fall, when the new graduation ceremony required most of us faculty to be present, in full academic regalia. And the incongruity of wearing a gown that I did not earn finally drove me to order my own.

Looking back now, it's kind of weird, the convoluted path that life weaves for us. I don't think I would have ever imagined myself staying in Hong Kong for this long. Never imagined myself going back to the hated academia, either. Certainly would never have dreamed that I would actually find a love for education and be doing all those projects that have been keeping me busy.

I do wonder: is it me who has changed, or is it simply that I have learned to know myself better? My supervisor told me when I graduated that he did not see that the cut-throat corporate environment would suit me; he told me, even then, that I would probably be happier in a more nurturing environment. Maybe it was obvious to those around me, just not myself? My pastor said in his sermon last week that the further we get away from God, the less we know ourselves. I haven't given that enough thought to have an opinion about it one way or another, but in a spiritual sense, that wasn't one of the best times in my life, either.

Maybe it was God guiding me when I didn't know myself. I certainly would like to think so.

Where is my Galilee?

Our pastor today gave a wonderful sermon on Matthew 28, which I guess is pretty much standard Easter fare. As usual, our pastor had a lot of points that he was trying to stuff into the 35 minutes, from the role of women in the church to that of worship, to the part that doubt plays in the Christian faith.

The point that struck me the most, though, was his closing message. He took a combination of words from the angels at the tomb and Jesus' first words to the women who came to look for Him, "He is not here. He is going ahead of you to Galilee, where you will find Him." In other words, go into the world, where He has already gone ahead of you.

Where is your Galilee? He is ahead of you, and you will find Him there.

Art and Beauty

A good friend and I went to see the Stuttgart Ballet perform "Swan Lake" tonight. It has been a while since I saw "Swan Lake" -- I know it's been performed several times by the Hong Kong Ballet, but unfortunately (or is it fortunately?) I missed all of them. So this was the first time in a long while since I had watched a classical ballet piece. And it didn't disappoint -- the choreography was inspired, the dancers were talented and the dancing was beautiful. It was amazing to watch how the same steps, by the same dancer, could convey two different characters with two completely different sets of intentions and emotions.

In a book that I have been reading recently, "The Case for a Creator", by Lee Strobel, and one of the pieces of evidences put forward is that of the human consciousness. One of the illustrations is this: supposing we could somehow characterize every action of a bat, and build the perfect model of how a bat behaves. Then we could make a computerized bat that would act exactly like a real bat. It might even fool real bats. However, there is no way that we could ever find out from this bat, what it's like to be a bat. How bats think and feel, in other words.

In the same way, I think that the fact that we can appreciate beauty and emotion has got to be a piece of evidence for the case of an intelligent Creator. How else could this be explained, but for the fact that somehow, we were programmed to love beauty, to recognize it, and to cherish it.

As Christians, we believe that we were made in the image of God. Therefore, what we love must be a shadow of what He loves as well. And since He created us, I suppose that He must have made us to be lovable by Him. And yes, the Bible tells us that we are "fearfully and wonderfully made".

Isn't that a lovely promise to have, especially as we face a new year, and wonder what's ahead of us? When the future seems pointless, as it does sometimes, and we wonder if we are simply human hamsters running on a treadmill, going nowhere with a life that's pointless? Surely, God, who made us to love, who made us beautiful in His eyes, wouldn't do that to us?

The Spirit of Christmas

Walking through the shopping malls and business districts during Christmas is quite an experience. Maybe it's the booming economy this year, but somehow, the usual orgiastic shopping experience that cumulates around Christmas seems to be especially pronounced this year. Being at St. John's on Christmas Eve was especially revealing -- it's always glam at St. John's, but somehow this year seems especially so -- almost everybody is dressed up to the nines, more as if they were going to a party or a dance than going to church.

I wonder -- where is Christ in all of this? It seems that the more blessed we are, the less likely we are to remember God. Maybe it's a hazy memory biased by the nostalgia of childhood, but I remember when I was growing up, and the society as a whole was less prosperous, every Christmas brought hope and joy. Maybe it's because now I am older and more cynical, but I find it hard to recapture those feelings nowadays. Christmas almost seems to bring more pressure than relief.

On a personal level, the closest I felt to God this Christmas was not at a church service, but among the mentally disabled children that we spent Christmas Eve with.

(BTW, this picture above was taken at the Central escalator. I was surprised to see such a strong religious statement in the midst of the business district. It's a good reminder of what Christmas is all about.)

In the Image of God

For Christmas Eve this year, we brought a group of our students to a home for the mentally disabled to throw a Christmas party for their kids. This is mainly due to the efforts of one of my colleagues, for whom this has been a family event for many years -- and made the extra effort last year to extend it into a school event for our students.

Spending several hours with the kids at the Home is quite an experience. It is challenging -- children with mental disabilities also often have physical disabilities and emotional/behavioral handicaps mixed in with it. Some of these children are so severely underdeveloped that they have trouble holding their own heads up, or they do self-destructive things like putting their hands so far back into their throats that they choke themselves, or even go about running into things and hurting themselves.

A friend and I went to midnight mass at St. John's the same night. The service started with the traditional hymn, "Once in Royal David's City". Listening to the choir sing the words "with the poor, the scorned, the lowly", and "he was little, weak and helpless", images of the children kept on popping up in my head, and I was so overwhelmed that I broke down in tears. Indeed, each of them were made in His own image, and He obviously loves them as much as He loves each of us. And we can be thankful for the hope that He promises for all of us:

we shall see him; but in heaven,
set at God's right hand on high;
when like stars his children crowned,
all in white shall wait around.

Those children will be at His feet, healed of the afflictions that handicap them here on earth.

Is God There?

Taking a break from preparing course slides tonight, I scanned through the New York Times Op-Ed and caught sight of this article: A Saint's Dark Night. It talks about Mother Teresa's private journals and letters, excerpts of which were recently published. Interestingly, instead of a person who was always grounded in God and never doubted Him, apparently Mother Teresa suffered from long periods of darkness and doubt which lasted for decades.

When I was reading that, my first thought was to say, "No Way!" How could this wonderful woman, whose life personified what God would have wanted us to do with our lives, even have periods of doubt -- let alone a protracted period lasting for decades?

On second thought, however, I thought of a good friend whose faith I greatly respect -- one of those rare peoples whom I can point to and say that his life lives out the faith that he believes in. And yet he has also said to me that he thinks that there will always "be an element of doubt that will never be removed". Even Philip Yancey says that he wishes that God would just work a miracle for him and remove all shreds of doubt.

Maybe doubt is something that is inevitable, it will stay with us as long as we are on this side of heaven.

How horrible it must have been for Mother Teresa, though, to have such a long period of darkness, lasting *decades*! But I guess that God would not have put her through that if He had not known that she could have borne it. And the article writes that through these periods of darkness, she experienced an inkling of the sense of abandonment that the poor and destitute must feel, possibly contributing to the efficacy of her ministry to the same poor and destitute.

I guess, in Him, all things work together for good. Even if those things suck.