Author: Suzanne

Darkness – despair – does anyone know or care?

And even if they do care, can they help?

Dragon Boat Festival

As I write this blog post, it is 22nd June 2023, or the fifth day of the fifth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. In some places, people are celebrating 端午节, known as ‘Dragon Boat Festival’ in English. It’s a time for fun on the water, as competitors race ornate boats decorated like dragons. It’s a time for munching 粽子 (zongzi), pyramid shaped dumplings made with sticky rice, often with a tasty centre and wrapped in banana leaves.

I wanted to buy ready-made zongzi today but had left it too late. The helpful lady in the fruit and vegetable store offered to sell me the leaves and string needed to wrap the tasty bundles. “It’s easy,” she assured me, before relaying a long and complicated list of instructions about the filling and the sticky rice and how to form and fold them. At the end of her impromptu lesson, looking at my furrowed brow, she added, “Perhaps it’s not that easy, actually. Why don’t you try the Asian supermarket down the road?”

The origins of this festival are sombre. An ancient Chinese official and poet was rejected by his king and banished to a distant land. In despair, he walked into the river and disappeared under the water. (That happened in about the year 278 BCE.) Local people frantically searched for him with boats, and threw lumps of sticky rice into the water to try to keep the fish from eating the body of this poor fellow. But alas, it was for nought.

A missing submersible

Many modern netizens, like me, are today repeatedly refreshing our news apps, hoping and praying for a miracle. We are following the huge sky and sea operation which is underway. People are searching for the five hapless adventurers aboard the submersible that went missing near a deep sea graveyard – the wreck of the Titanic which sank in 1912. Experts expect that the chances of survival will be negligible if they’re not found by today……

Noah’s flood

In a passage I cannot begin to understand, the apostle Peter writes about Noah’s ark and relates what happened then to us now. In that vessel of ancient times, eight souls and a menagerie of animals were saved from the devastating flood in which all other living people and land creatures perished.

For Christ …. was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits – to those who were disobedient long ago when God waited patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. In it, only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolises baptism that now saves you also—not the removal of dirt from the body but the pledge of a clear conscience toward God. It saves you by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand—with angels, authorities and powers in submission to him.

1 Peter 3:18b-22 NIV

I have little idea of what Jesus proclaimed to those hapless spirits who were submerged by the waters of judgement in Noah’s day or where he made his proclamation. Even questioning what and where reflects my limited understanding.

But this I know for sure. Those of us who trust in the risen Jesus are saved. Baptism is a powerful symbol of that salvation.

Hope

It seems crass to contrast our hope of salvation with the plight of those five souls adrift in the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the coincidence of today’s Chinese festival commemorating the drowning of a great man occurring at the same time as the frantic race against time as the search for those lost souls in the submersible draws to a crisis point is uncanny.

As I write this blog post, I continue to keep an eye on the news, hoping against hope for a happy ending. My hope is not based on anything secure. The most advanced scientific gadgets and the skills of the people aboard the myriad of planes and ships searching for them are limited.

Though followers of Jesus may sink beneath physical and/or metaphorical waters, our suffering but now risen Lord has a hold of us. The one to whom all heavenly powers submit is watching out for us. He is not limited. No, his search and rescue mission was conducted from a position of sovereignty.

And so we have hope. A sure hope.

Yet our hope is tinged with sadness for those who are lost……

It was a foretaste of heaven.

Magnificent floral displays filled the park in Chiang Mai. I could hear marching bands in the street outside, the drum beats getting louder the closer they came. I would go out to enjoy the festivities when they arrived. Inside the park, music played through loudspeakers inserted in fake tree trunks, interspersed with announcements in Thai, English and Chinese. Excited people photographed one another in front of beautiful floral arrangements.

I, however, had another goal. You see, I’m part of a walking group, and each week we have a theme. My aim was to take photographs relating to the triple theme of #numbers, #celebration and #to_life (as in ‘enjoy life’, like the theme song from ‘Fiddler on the Roof’). The Chiang Mai Flower Festival ticked all the boxes.

Of course, I found myself with far too many photographs to use, but had an absolutely wonderful morning wandering about the festivities with my camera.

It was a prompt for a ‘photo walk challenge’ and not a ‘writing challenge’. However, I can’t resist putting words to some of my favourite photographs from the walk.

Hence this blog post.

#Celebration

It’s time to celebrate!

Old and young, men and women, visitors and locals, we all lined the streets as the parades, including colourful floats, made their way to the park.

Various businesses, schools, bands, special interest groups and more marched around the city. Some of the floats were ornate, while others were simple. People representing various ethnicities and regions radiated joy as they celebrated their identity. Young people represented groups such as a ‘go-cart club’, and parents walked to the side beaming with pride and occasionally ducking into the parade to hand-feed their young family members a piece of fruit or a sip of a drink. Men from around Asia who were participating in the ‘Mr Global’ competition paraded too. They were handsome and they knew it.

Pride, joy and excitement pervaded the atmosphere.

I wonder if this is something like the vision that the apostle John was given?

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.

Revelation 21:23-24 NIV (my emphasis, obviously)

#to_life

The past three years have been difficult for the city of Chiang Mai, known as ‘the rose of the north’. It relies heavily on the tourist industry, including people who come here for medical treatment, to meet with colleagues and who want a good rest. Last year, they didn’t even hold the ‘Flower Festival’ due to pandemic management restrictions. In a ‘touristy cooking class’ I took a couple of weeks ago, a teacher explained, “We all went home to our villages. We were given 800 baht a month (AU$35) to help us pay the bills, but that wasn’t enough.”

But now we’re back … ‘we’ being the tourists, and the business that we generate. And the ‘Rose of the North’ is getting back to enjoying life again.

I’m reminded of another passage of Scripture as I watch people stream towards the gate of the city and then to the park. It’s an ancient prophecy about another city and another time; a setting in which the nations will stream towards the city of God.

In the last days

the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
    as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
    and all nations will stream to it.

Isaiah 2:2 NIV (again, my emphasis)

#Numbers

But … there is a significant reason why few of those dear souls so proudly parading their best in the city today will be part of that crowd in the age to come, representing the nations, pouring into the city of God.

Very few Thai people follow Jesus as Lord. Thai government data from the 2018 census suggests that about 1.13% of Thai people are Christians. The Thai church, however, says that the portion of Christians here is only about 0.75%. (I think that they’re only considering Protestants, but I’m not sure.) What’s more, most of those Christians are concentrated in the north-west of the country, with very few elsewhere.

There is a Thai church here and of course they should be at the forefront of outreach to their own people. But is there a place for people like myself who are followers of Jesus but from places far from here?

I would fervently and passionately say ‘YES’! Of course outsiders should work under (or at the very least alongside) the Thai church wherever possible.

These days, there is a shift in emphasis in many cross-cultural mission agencies to focus less on sending people to other places and more on people from around the world who are now living in the neighbourhoods of our passport countries. I agree that this is a very good avenue of service for people such as myself who have lived cross-culturally for a long time and now, for different reasons, find ourselves ‘at home’.

However, when you stand as part of a crowd at a celebration such as the Flower Festival today and see precious souls all around you who, statistically, are unlikely to know the Saviour, reality hits home. Some of us surely can and should relocate from our passport countries such as Australia, where 43.9% of the population identified as Christians in the 2021 census. Thailand welcomes foreigners in a variety of capacities – as retirees, in our professions, and even in certain Christian ministry roles. We can find a place for ourselves in Thai communities.

And so….

I think of my Saviour’s words:

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Matthew 28:18-20 NIV

Yes, I know that grammatically, in the original language, the emphasis is on ‘making disciples’. This would perhaps have been better translated, “… as you go, make disciples ….”

But the ‘all nations’ part is clear. Jesus’ heart is that representatives of all nations will be part of his kingdom.

And so, as I visit this very beautiful part of the world at a particularly festive time of year, I find myself challenged afresh.

#celebrate #to_life #numbers

Bring on that day when we stream into our heavenly home in the ultimate celebration of eternal life, amongst the numbers of God’s people with people from all over the world.

“Pay attention to where is your attention drawn,” the retreat leader instructed. “What is the Lord saying to you through that?”

Bees. That’s where my attention was mostly drawn again. Plus some mushrooms and a bird later in the day.

Similes and metaphors – a simile is when we say that something is similar to something else (‘You are like a breath of fresh air’) while a metaphor is when we say that something IS something else (‘You are a breath of fresh air’).

The Bible is full of similes and metaphors. Consider the following quotes: “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field” (Matthew 13:44 – simile) and one of my favourite metaphors, “He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge….” (Psalm 91:4 NIV).

Find joy in your work

Is it Biblical to enjoy your work?

The Bible has a lot to say about ‘work’ and a lot to say about ‘joy’. But what about finding joy in my work?

This bee – above – seems to be thoroughly enjoying its work of collecting nectar. And it is covered in pollen. I enjoyed watching a great variety of bees flit about the gorgeous gardens of the retreat centre on day four of the retreat. In the process of carrying out its own work – collecting nectar – it is also nourishing itself, serving its own community as well as blessing other parts of creation through pollinating plants.

Is it too self-centred to think that God could be encouraging myself to throw myself into my work with joy?

It’s not that I don’t enjoy my work. It’s just that I feel guilty at times for enjoying the ‘perks’ that come in my line of work. Travel (including this trip which was primarily for meetings the following week), time with special people, pursuing my interests of languages and cultures – these are just a few of the lovely parts of my ‘job’.

I’m reminded of ‘The Philosopher’ of old, who comes across as a grumpy old fellow but penned these wise words:

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing. better for a person under the sun that than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 8:15 NIV

What about bad weather days?

It’s all very well for bees to enjoy buzzing about the garden on a beautiful day, but what about bad weather days? And what about when winter comes and the flowers have finished? What then?

Though I LOVE my job (if one could even call it ‘a job’), it’s not all pleasure. I enjoy travelling, but dietary limitations these days make travel stressful at times, and my digestive woes often flare up. The first two weeks away are usually nice but after that I long for the familiarity of home. (I’m usually away for a month or so each time.) I envy friends with careers which bring financial security, though don’t regret for a moment my own career choices. I hugely appreciate the kind people who support me financially. ‘Living by faith’ is a grand old adventure … most of the time.

What, if anything, would the Lord say to me about that?

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Romans 12:12 NIV

Right. Good point.

Pushing through

During a delightful wander in what is known as ‘Rosalind’s Forest’ in the afternoon of day four of the retreat (named for a cross-cultural worker who loved that forest), I spent time admiring two mushrooms. Fungi are soft and easily broken. Yet one had already pushed through the leaf litter and moss on the forest floor, without force but with persistence. The other was still working its way up.

I identify with these fungi in some ways. I don’t feel big or strong or forceful, but I can still be useful in God’s kingdom work.

I think of the Bible’s metaphor of the community of God’s people as a body, with the head being Christ (1 Corinthians 12). Some parts look more impressive, while others appear weaker, yet all belong to the body and each brings its own unique contribution. Similarly with a forest – there are trees and there are mushrooms, amongst other things. In contemplating this pair of mushrooms, I am reminded of the value of persistence in the roles that God has entrusted to me.

Fun times or not, just keep pushing on.

Joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer.

Up, up and away

I wasn’t looking forward to the meetings that I was travelling to right after this retreat. In fact, I felt quite out of my depth, and that was just through the pre-reading we were asked to do. It was a ‘leaders’ consultation’ for the agency through which I work, and I kept telling anyone who would listen that I didn’t really belong there. I was only attending because my team leader couldn’t – I would be representing her.

Everything in that paragraph is true, but as I watched this bird take off, I felt God’s nudge to do likewise. The retreat had been lovely, but this wasn’t where I belonged. Not for long, anyhow.

As our retreat leader had explained at the beginning of our week together, one retreats in order to re-group, re-strategise, then from that position, to re-advance. If we stay in our retreat positions, then that is not ‘retreat’ – it is ‘surrender’.

As the retreat drew to a close, it was time to pack my bags. God had work for me to do, and the following week, that work would be to represent our team and speak into relevant matters at the leaders’ consultation.

It had been a delightful week of practising ‘visio divina’ each day in the company of fellow travellers. I was very thankful to have had such a special week away.

And so, re-visioned, re-focused, re-energised, I said goodbye and thank you.

It was time to re-engage.

I dragged myself to the morning devotion on the third day of our retreat. It had been a shocking night.

Cauliflower. Too much cauliflower was the problem. Okay, so the root cause is my pathetic gut, which freaks out if it encounters more than a little mannitol … and a whole lot of other things. Covid considerations mean that there are no common serving implements. Everything is plated up for us. Although I had asked for gluten free meals, I hadn’t said anything about cauliflower. I have a new enzyme powder which I add to potential ‘trigger foods’ and that is helping for some things … but it doesn’t work for mannitol, I now realise. And mannitol is the culprit in cauliflower.

I hate being flawed. I try to pretend to be ‘normal’ sometimes, but it usually backfires. Like last night.

Life isn’t all hunky dory

‘Light and shadows’ was the theme for the day. At the time, the point that made the deepest impression on me was this: we shouldn’t expect life to be all hunky dory. I blogged about that in November when writing up an overview of the whole trip ( https://aussie-rambling-rose.com/2022/11/19/light-and-shadows-travel/ ).

As I prepared this blog post, however, looking again at my photos from the retreat, re-reading my journal entry for the day and meditating on particular Scriptures related to light and shadows, I was reminded of a few more insights. These are what I shall share below.

Light

The Bible has a lot to say about light. And darkness, actually.

I could write a l-o-n-g essay on the various ways that ‘light’ is portrayed in the Bible, but won’t. I’ll just focus on one aspect.

 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.  If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:5-10 NIV

When it comes to photography, bright light is harsh. Imperfections are revealed. Nothing is hidden. And so it is with God. When I ‘walk in the light’, nothing is hidden. All my imperfections are revealed.

I like to pretend to be ‘flawless’ in digestive matters as well as in character and behaviour. But the truth is that I am not. The cauliflower catastrophe had reminded me afresh of certain physical imperfections, at least. ‘Walking in the light of God’ does not mean ‘being perfect’.

Of course we are slowly but surely being sanctified, and there is no excuse for intentionally continuing to sin. We are called to frequent confession in the passage above. ‘Walking in the light of God’ means acknowledging our imperfections and flaws, and throwing ourselves time after time upon the mercy of God.

Living under the penetrating light of God impacts my relationships with other fellow ‘walkers in the light’ too. When we are open and vulnerable with one another, our relationships deepen. Not that we should focus on our flaws all day every day. Our focus is on our Lord and Saviour as we muddle through life together in community. We do not pretend that we ‘have it all together’ but we support one another.

A photography tip

I learnt a few tricks with the phone-camera that day too in which certain aspects of light and shadows are emphasised. We were encouraged to try shooting in black-and-white, since that removes the distraction of colour and emphasises other facts of the picture, such as shapes, lines, textures and composition.

The photograph above is obviously of a tree that has fallen over. Do you think that the use of black-and-white emphasises the lines in those poor exposed roots? I find this scene rather pathetic, but it reminded me of the way that the deepest parts of us are exposed in the all-revealing light of God. Perhaps I’m stretching the analogy a little far……?

I also photographed this flower, below, three times within the space of half an hour – once in bright sunlight (bottom right), once when the sun was hidden by a cloud (bottom left) and once in black-and-white (top). Although I adore the deep red colour, I actually like the black-and-white shot too. The rose appears ‘flinty’ and ‘steely’. In fact, it seems stronger without colour.

Diffused light

Direct sunlight is harsh. Diffused light is gentle. It’s kinder in portraits, too, as every wedding photographer knows.

In the Old Testament, God was portrayed as inapproachable in his holiness. But then, in Jesus, that blinding light was diffused.

Jesus was identified by both his followers (John 6:69) and demons (Mark 1:24) as ‘the Holy One of God’. The Holy One of God walked amongst us two millennia ago, and perseveres with us still.

We flawed and fragile followers of Christ have the light of God within us. We radiate the light of Christ to those around us.

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

1 Corinthians 2:6-7 NIV

Shadows

Shadows in a photograph add depth and direct our attention to the light. Shadows exist because an object is blocking the light.

Shadows are a frequent theme throughout the Bible too. They’re both positive and negative, depending on the context.

Shifting shadows

When portrayed negatively, it is the unreliable, short-lived and ever-changing nature of shadows which is emphasised.

Consider these two passages of Scripture:

Lord, what are human beings that you care for them,
    mere mortals that you think of them?
They are like a breath;
    their days are like a fleeting shadow.

Psalm 144:3-4 NIV

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 

James 1:17 NIV

Protection

On the other hand, ‘shadow’ in the Bible often points towards ‘protection’. The emphasis, of course, is on the object that provides such protection – a faithful, unchangeable all-powerful Presence.

Consider the following verse in which the writer was in a absolutely awful predicament. (The rest of the Psalm fleshes it out further.) Even as his very life was threatened, he turned his focus to his God, in whom he found refuge.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
    for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
    until the disaster has passed.

Psalm 57:1 NIV

What shadow do I cast?

Finally, I think of the exciting – though dangerous – days of the early church and the benefits that Peter’s literal shadow brought to those on whom it fell.

…. people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by.

Acts 5:15 NIV

What shadow do I cast as I muddle my way through life? I was encouraged by the image of this butterfly – above – and the great shadow it is casting. It is such a frail little creature, and those wings are particularly flimsy.

I am frustrated by my finicky body … but that needn’t stop me from casting a decent shadow in life. In fact, perhaps our frail and fleeting existence serves to enhance the magnitude of the One whose light shines in our hearts and through these cracked ‘jars of clay’ (1 Cor 2:7).

Okay – so I am confusing my analogies here … but you know what I mean, right?

Hope

Life isn’t all hunky dory. Our world is broken and evil continues to wreak havoc in God’s good creation.

BUT there is hope that one day all will be as it should be. It’s not just a ‘maybe’ hope. It’s a certain hope for those of us who belong to Jesus.

One day, the Bible teaches us, all creation will be restored to our Creator. The book of Revelation has some magnificent prophecies about that day.

Will there be shadows in our heavenly home? There will be no more sun, no moon, and no night. Will there be stars?

The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it.

Revelation 21:23-26 NIV

As I cut and pasted these verses into this blog post, I considered replacing with ellipses the two lines about the nations’ glory and honour, since they’re not directly related to the point here. (An ellipsis its a punctuation mark consisting of three dots which show that something has been removed from the original ie ‘…’.)

But then I stopped myself. It’s not just me as an individual that lives in the light of God – in a sense now, and in fullness in the future. If I remove the sections about the nations, I’m behaving like an individualistic modern Westerner. That is is what I am, but perhaps that individual perspective isn’t the whole picture.

Anyhow, there you have it. A tremendous hope.

In summary

There is SO much more that I could write about light and shadows. However, this blog post is quite long enough. In summary:

1. Life isn’t always hunky dory.
2. ‘Walking in the light of God’ means acknowledging our faults, dealing with them as we are able, and pulling together with other parts of the community of God’s people.
3. Jesus is the only one through whom we can be reconciled to the All Holy God.
4. Shadows shift and fade but our God is eternal.
5. God offers us refuge in his ‘shadow’ even while chaos reigns around us.
6. Though we may be flimsy and mortal, like ‘jars of clay’, God shines his light through us to a broken world.
7. Our hope of eternity includes citizenship in the City of God … when life WILL be hunky dory!

All these deep and meaningful thoughts came from spending a few hours wandering about a gorgeous garden and old church. (Okay – a few of these thoughts were fleshed out further today and yesterday too, but all directly related to that day’s retreat.)

My frustrations with this fickle body remain but my focus is restored to a sensible place – the Father of Lights.

That’s the beauty of Visio Divina. It restores our focus.

A vibrant pinky-red colour filled my mind.

Okay, so the first full day of our retreat pushed me a little out of my comfort zone.

I have great respect for the retreat leader, so please don’t hear me criticising his instructions. You can read more about him and the retreats he runs here if you’re interested: https://www.soulfulvision.uk

I was open to connecting with the divine but the instructions for the day caused me to squirm just a little. I prefer to use my brain to meditatively analyse Bible passages and so on. I like to be in control.

“Close your eyes,” our retreat leader said. “Breathe deeply – in, out, in, out. Now visualise a colour. That is your colour for the day.”

Where on earth would I find pinky-red objects to contemplate on this autumn day in England, I wondered?

I walked out of the chapel and noticed the fuchsias.

What is colour?

First, though, let me backtrack. Before we began our ‘visio divina’ exercise, we considered the nature of colour. Did you know that colour only exists because of light? Without light, there is no colour. Different objects absorb and reflect different parts of light, which is why they appear to be different colours.

Colour is significant in the Bible, though we didn’t take time at the retreat to think about this at length. However, as I prepare this blog post, I am reminded of the rainbow that God gave us as a symbol of his covenant with “all living creatures of every kind” after the flood. (See Genesis 9:12-17, with the quotation being from verse 15 in the NIV.)

Light shines through rain, breaking into the seven colours of the spectrum.

Our little group of seven retreatants (six of us plus the leader) emerged from our devotion on ‘colour’, all with quite different hues to focus upon.

Busy as a bee

Busy, busy, busy…. How much of my identity comes through being busy? Oh yes, I’m vocal about avoiding the word ‘busy’, and can be critical of others whose identity revolves around being busy. Yet the truth is that I often succumb to that temptation too.

I enjoyed watching bees in England. Big bumble bees that bumped from flower to flower. Small delicate bees. And everything in between.

It’s good to be busy doing meaningful work. In fact, I often sense God’s pleasure as I do so. Like the bees, I drink deeply as I buzz from here to there and gain nourishment along the way.

Teasels in transition

‘Teasels’ … what a fun name. I sat by a bed of teasels, drab brown, magnificent in their own way but definitely decaying.

Is this where I’m at in life, I wondered? My productive, busy years already behind me? I’m not old yet, but certainly feel the limitations of focusing on but living far from Asia, and of a body that is increasingly demanding with its needs and sensitivities.

I continued on my contemplative wander.

Apples

I wandered through an orchard. Fresh apples lay on the ground or were caught between branches. I picked one up … only to find that the underside was soft and rotting.

Is that indicative of my life? Still looking reasonable from the outside but definitely past my ‘best by’ date? Oh what a depressing wander this was turning out to be.

Great God, do you have any word of encouragement for me?!

Rose hips

Red roses are special to me and have been so since my first cross-cultural adventure in India as an idealistic university student back in 1987-88. These gardens are full of roses, but it was a rose hip that caught my attention this day, in part because of its colour – a vibrant pinky-red – ‘my’ colour for the day.

Roses are magnificent, but after their showy display of petals have dropped, they can still be useful. In fact, they’re perhaps even more useful. Jam – syrup – tea – wine – soup – oils – not to mention the potential of new life hidden in the seeds within – and, er, itching powder.

I think about the various ways God uses me in my circles of influence. No longer am I able to keep up the frenetic pace that I did when younger, but I like to think that I’m a much better ‘thinker’ these days, not least due to my never-ending study regime.

In my ‘maturity’, are there ways that God is using me? Different ways to the past, but equally or perhaps even more valuable?

I think so.

Pulling it together

Through this meditative wander in the grounds of the retreat centre, I sense that I have begun to grieve the fading energy and activity of my youth and the frustrations of a body that has … er … limitations. Yet at the same time, I sense that God still has a role for me to play in his work.

Ageing sucks. But it’s okay.

Most of the time.

Well, at least when I’m in the right frame of mind.

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That’s all I plan to write about my rosy-pink visio divina experience, but here are a few more photos from the day.

This is part one of a run of blog posts looking back on a very special experience – a ‘Visio Divina retreat’ a few months ago. Actually, it would perhaps be better termed a ‘contemplative photography retreat’, in my humble opinion. I wanted to write these posts at the time but was in the middle of a busy semester, then it was Christmas, then I was travelling and conferencing. Instead I just scrawled some notes in my journal each day, and, of course, enjoyed a great many images which I recorded as photographs.

Now – finally – I plan to indulge in re-living some lovely memories and re-inspire myself to practise ‘visio divina’ more frequently. If all you do is skim these posts to enjoy the photos, I completely understand.

Before I get underway, however, let me describe ‘visio divina’, and address a couple of concerns some friends may have. Rest assured … I remain a reasonably mainstream modern Australian Christian woman.

What is ‘Visio Divina’?

The Latin word ‘visio’ is the same word from which we get the English word ‘vision’, and the Latin word ‘divina’ is the same word from which we get the English word ‘divine’. ‘Visio divina,’ then, means ‘sacred seeing’.

Before reading about this retreat, I was more familiar with the term ‘lectio divina’ – ‘divine reading’ – in which a passage of Scripture is read slowly and repeatedly and the listener is encouraged to ‘listen with the heart’. I understand that in many traditions, ‘visio divina’ involves the use of art or icons. We had a devotional time each evening in which we would use prints of one another’s favourite photograph from the day to focus upon and see what God would say, and which, in the retreat description (above) are referred to as ‘modern icons’. However, most of our ‘visio divina’ time was spent wandering the gardens of the retreat centre, the church next door or nearby forests. In that respect, our practice of ‘visio divina’ wasn’t quite like the more ‘traditional’ practice which uses a work of art or a religious icon as a focal point.

A simple internet search will bring up various sets of instructions for ‘visio divina’ written by a variety of experienced people. At our retreat, we were simply advised to wander and look for what caught our attention, then to stay with that image for a time. I’ll give some examples as I write up some highlights of each day in coming blog posts.

If you’re interested in reading one example of how to carry out this practice, here is a link to an example of both a Lectio Divina and a Visio Divina exercise with what is often considered an evangelical ‘stamp of approval’ … it is published by an arm of the Lausanne Movement.
https://www.lausanneeurope.org/lectio-divina-visio-divina/

What are the origins of ‘Visio Divina’ ?

‘Visio Divina’ is an ancient practice, and along with ‘Lectio Divina,’ dates back at least to the sixth century AD and perhaps even earlier. When you think about it, it has only been in fairly recent history that ordinary people like us … or like me, at least … have had the Christian Scriptures in our own languages. High levels of literacy amongst common people like myself is also a privilege, though these days we consider it a right. In my subculture of Christianity, faith practices are predominantly individualised and an emphasis is placed on the cerebral, but in generations past, faith was a far more communal affair with an emphasis on ‘belonging’. In past centuries, access to written Scriptures was limited, and the place of religious art, icons, chanting Scriptures, and hearing the word of God read aloud in community was more significant.

Prior to ‘Visio Divina’ being ‘a thing’, people drew near to God through creation, through symbols and other images. They may not have called it ‘Visio Divina’, but, as I hope this next paragraph will show, the practice of intentionally seeking God through the our senses, including that of sight – through creation and symbols, at least – is indeed ancient.

Is ‘Visio Divina’ Biblical?

The Bible clearly teaches and models a sense of connecting with the divine through creation (as we practised during the retreat) and through imagery (the more traditional’ way of practising Visio Divina). Here are a few verses to illustrate my point, but there are many more I could have included here:

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

Romans 1:20 NIV

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

Psalm 19:1-4 NIV

The Jewish temple was rich in imagery, and was intended to point people towards God. It wasn’t just the sense of sight that was engaged, but also of smell, touch, hearing and, in some cases, even taste. The sacrificial system, ritual washing, burning of incense, the robes of the priests, the decorative features throughout the temple, the Ark of the Covenant (in Israel’s early years) and more – all these images were designed by God himself and given to Israel through Moses (Exodus 35-40).

And finally, Jesus, of course, time and again looked around him and drew out spiritual lessons from what he saw. Consider what he had to say about birds and flowers (two of my favourite images), for example.

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.  For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.  Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

 “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith!  And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it.  For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them.  But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

Luke 12:22-31 NIV

Two warnings

1. Test insights within the community of God’s people

Some people will claim that God speaks specifically to them through what they see. I’m open to hearing personally from the Creator through this practice too.

However, I am also aware that anything I hear / sense / interpret must be in line with Scripture. Furthermore, it is best tested by other members of the community of God’s people. It’s very similar to the situation regarding prophecy that the apostle Paul addressed when he wrote to the early Thessalonian church that they should not treat prophecies with contempt, “… but test them all…” (1 Thessalonians 5:21a NIV). We are a community. It was lovely to do this ‘Visio Divina retreat’ as part of a small community of God’s people and to debrief together over meals and each evening.

2. Worship the One to whom images or creation points and not the images or creation themselves

As a Protestant, some of my spiritual forebears took a stand against the abuse of imagery, amongst other things. Clearly, images, icons and nature should point us to God, but may they never become objects of worship in themselves. God decreed to the ancient Israelites of Moses’ day, “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God….” (Exodus 20:4-5a NIV).

The retreat begins

And so, after that long introduction, I am ready to start re-living the retreat. At the time, I wrote in my brand new shiny journal the following words….

Arriving this afternoon felt like a scene from a Sharon Garlough Brown book. (Sharon Garlough Brown is the author of the much loved ‘Sensible Shoes’ series of books, based around a little retreat group that journeyed together through life for a season.) We arrived one by one and sat around an open fire in comfortable padded chairs, observing one another.

I’d love to describe each retreatant in detail, with their very British mannerisms, their unique personalities and idiosyncrasies, yet universal needs and desires … but I won’t. For a start, it isn’t appropriate because they are not characters in a novel but real, live fellow pilgrims, and so I shall respect their privacy. And second, my aim this week is to marvel in God’s kindness to me and work in me. I hope to write some of it up later so that others can perhaps benefit too.

My journal entry from 27 September 2022

Introductions over, we were fed a delicious dinner then made our way to the chapel for our first group devotion. The Visio Divina retreat was underway! Over the course of the week, we would consider themes of colour, light, simile and metaphor, then pull it all together on the last day. I have pictures to share and stories to tell but this blog post is already quite long enough.

Here ends the introduction to a series of blog posts about a very special week late last September – a ‘Visio Divina retreat’.

Flustered, frazzled and unfocused … that was how I entered today’s mini-retreat.

Despite feeling frustrated by my messy mind, I dug deep, breathed from the diaphragm, and resolutely wrote in my journal, as a prayer, “Drop thy still dews of quietness……”

Of course, I can’t claim credit for the poetic image. It comes from a hymn written in 1872 by an American Quaker. The background to this hymn is quite interesting but beyond the scope of what I intend to be a brief blog post to share a short testimony about God’s gentle handling of this scatterbrained Australian.

‘Still dews of quietness’? I wrote those words in my journal in sight of a tacky manmade waterfall, drops of water flying everywhere until they hit the concrete and ran into a drain. There was not a drop of ‘still dew’ in sight.

The rest of the setting in which I wrote also echoed my attempt to wrestle calm within. I sat on the porch of the ‘Amazon Cafe’. In front of me was a carpark, at the edge of which was the waterfall. Behind me was a small but busy road. Motorbikes, cars and delivery trucks rumbled past. On the table next to me, a woman peered intensely at her laptop while on a video call, her Thai interspersed with English phrases such as ‘team leader’, ‘finance’ and ‘Asia’. Within me, my gut gurgled, demanding my full attention and a quick trip to the bathroom.

Still dews of quietness?

Trying, trying, trying … stop!

I came to this city for a conference last week. I learnt lots, had my thoughts stimulated and made some good connections. And now it is time to knuckle down and formulate some action plans. What will I do? How will I do it? What resources do I have? What do I need? How can I best steward the privileged position I have been given in terms of access to education and time in which to read, write and train?

This half day retreat is intended to help me address some of these questions.

A comment by someone I know caused me to turn to Isaiah 30 today. A full exposition of this, too, is beyond the scope of this brief blog post. Suffice to say, the original recipients of the of prophecies of Isaiah had tried so very hard to strategise well, use the resources and connections available to them, and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps … something which is, of course, quite impossible.

“This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength……” (Isaiah 30:15a NIV)

(I’m deliberately omitting the last phrase of Isaiah 30:15 which is, sadly, “… but you would have none of it.” Isn’t that tragic?)

Of what do I need to repent, I wondered.

The very existence of this blog post … as much as anything can ‘exist’ on the internet rather than ‘be’ something physical … is part of the response to that question. I have said before and I will say again … I have long sensed a call from God to write. Not to write big, important things … just to write. But I keep doing anything but writing because I’m afraid I can’t do it perfectly.

Repent.

Blog.

Stop trying to be perfect and just be who our Lord knows I am.

Ask for help

I continue reading Isaiah 30. The sophisticated political alliances of those foolish Israelites of the seventh or eighth century BCE crashed and so did they. The Bible puts it like this: “A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away….” (Isaiah 30:17 NIV)

But that’s not the end of the story.

“Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion….” (Isaiah 30:18a NIV)

“How gracious he will be when you cry for help!” (Isaiah 30:19b NIV)

Once the people had turned back to their God in this chapter, Isaiah prophesied a precious promise that is often quoted out of context. Isaiah gave a dramatic description of what repentance from idolatry and dependence upon God looks like. They defiled their idols overlaid with silver and gold (I wonder how they defiled them?!) and threw them away like menstrual cloths. Now that is an earthy image!

In that context – a context of repentance and trust – God promised, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

Although I am just one little individual – part of the community of God’s people, but just a small part – I think it is fair to take this promise and apply it to myself too. When I stop trying so hard to be clever, when I repent of trying to figure things out in my own strength, and when I cry out to God for help, he will answer.

Of course, my situation is nothing like that of the poor afflicted Israelites to whom these precious promises were given. I’m well provided for and even have the luxury today of sitting in a coffee shop journalling. But it is a good reminder, nonetheless – Repent and rest; be quiet and trust. Wait and see what God will do.

Still dews of quietness

Isaiah 30 finishes strong. After the Israelites turned back to their God, things look up. That’s not to say that bad things don’t happen to God’s people if we walk with God in repentance and rest, quietness and trust … just look at Jesus’ life! … but the principle remains: God’s people are to look to the LORD and let him direct us.

I left the cafe and walked over to the man-made waterfall to take some photographs, partly for this blog post and partly just as a means of enjoying the atmosphere. I looked in vain for ‘still dews of quietness’ … but just look what landed right in front of me as I sat there quietly?!

A magnificent dragonfly.

Right there, in the middle of the water spray, by the wet concrete structure, and with the background traffic noise.

We sat there for several minutes, the dragonfly and me.

I think back to the way I started this mini-retreat, with a prayer that God would ‘Drop still dews of quietness’. In fact, let me share the whole verse from the hymn in which that phrase appears:

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
till all our strivings cease;
take from our souls the strain and stress,
and let our ordered lives confess
the beauty of thy peace.

‘Dear Lord and Father of mankind’, by John Greenleaf Whittier (1872)

The hymn-writer suggested that it is our ‘ordered lives’ which should ‘confess the beauty of God’s peace’ but that’s going to take some time, especially for someone who isn’t very organised. (Again, the background to the hymn on this point is fascinating – follow the trail from footnote 1 below if you’re interested.)

But this dragonfly will do me beautifully as a reminder of the beauty of God’s peace – of being still, not striving but just ‘being’, amidst the chaos.

Like those repentant Israelites of old, may we look to God for direction rather than to our own cleverness or strategies. May we find our strength in ‘repentance and rest’, ‘quietness and trust’.

And as we do so, may we hear God’s voice say, “This is the way; walk in it.”

---

Footnote 1: The hymn, ‘Dear Lord and father of mankind,’ is actually part of a longer poem written by Whittier in which he contrasted the devout Quaker way of connecting with the divine with that of using intoxicating substances or other methods of whipping people into frenzies! Fascinating, don’t you think?
See https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Brewing_of_Soma

I had been officially asked to travel! After the covid chaos of the last couple of years, I jumped at the opportunity. Albania would be my destination, and I was to participate in a week of meetings. However, given that I was going all the way from Australia to Europe, I added on three weeks of vacation leave, one before the meetings and two afterwards. I would visit England, the land of my heritage. For months I dreamt, planned, talked about it to anyone who showed an ounce of interest, and saw God’s goodness through serendipitous coincidences and the generosity of his people.

Now I’m back and kind people are asking, “How was the trip?” Usually I just say, “Good, thanks” or occasionally add a note of frustration about getting covid halfway through. This blog post will provide a bit more of an answer for those who are interested.

I am also pondering the fact that rarely is life all good or all bad. To classify a whole month of travel as one or the other is unrealistic. But some people – okay, actually I’m talking about me – seem to expect everything to be all good all the time. Strange.

In fact, one theme of the trip could be this: light and shadows. In the physical world around us, we see both light and shadows. One without the other would be flat or dark. That’s true of my trip too – it was full of light and shadows.

(By the way, I’ll avoid naming or showing photos of people in this blog post. That’s out of consideration for their privacy. Despite not mentioning them, however, please note that I appreciate family and friends in the UK very much indeed – without them, the holiday part of trip would not have been possible.)

Pre-conference – Oxford

The long weekend I spent with friends in Oxford was fabulous. I thought that staying with them would give me a chance to overcome jet-lag before the Visio Divina retreat that started three days after I landed in the UK. And it did. But it became a highlight in its own right.

Yet a hint of the first shadow of the trip began before I even left Australia. I tried to activate ‘global roaming’ with my phone carrier, but kept getting the response, “Technical difficulties – please try again later.” I hadn’t wanted to activate it early because of the $5 a day fee. I left on 22 September 2022 – the day that Optus (my telephone server) was hacked. Within half a day of arriving in England, I was notified that I had already run up over AU$50 in data usage. Mega oops. Why didn’t I switch off my mobile data?!

In the end, it worked out okay. I couldn’t get onto Optus and so bought a local SIM card. I lodged a complaint with Optus but, despite multiple messages, they didn’t seem to understand that I couldn’t be contacted on my Australian phone number. Twice, they sent me emails explaining that they had tried to call me five or six times but that I was not answering their calls and so they closed the case. Nevertheless, even with the cost of the British SIM and paying the extra data-use fee, I still ended up financially better off than I would have been had I used global roaming. Lesson learned.

Apart from that, my time in and around Oxford was BRILLIANT. I’m so grateful to my kind hosts who showed me the sights and looked after me beautifully.

A retreat

I had been talking about this ‘Visio Divina’ retreat for months. I love photography and Christian meditation, and this retreat promised to bring these together. It did not disappoint.

I heard about the Penhurst Retreat Centre through friends in missions circles because they have a strong history of supporting cross-cultural mission workers. The venue had been the grand old home of the Broomhall family for many years – a family with strong connections with my sending agency in particular. I was happily surprised to find myself allocated to the ‘Sundar Singh’ room – a room decorated with an Indian theme. Sadhu Sundar Singh just happens to be one of my ‘heroes of the faith’ – an Indian man who took contextualisation to an extreme and, despite a privileged upbringing, wandered about as a penniless religious man (a sadhu) in Tibet a century ago. What’s more, I was surprised to realise that Paul Broomhall had been born in a part of Asia very dear to me – the city of Taiyuan. And now here I was, in the Sundar Singh room in his family home. It was quite special.

I could write a lot more about the themes of the Visio Divina retreat, but will save that for a set of blog posts with more photographs sometime soon. For now, suffice to say that the retreat was restorative and restful, just as I had hoped it would be. But it was not without shadows.

Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) is something I don’t write about much but it drives me absolutely mad sometimes. I’ve recently been working with a dietician on identifying triggers, which has been helpful. I’ve also got some new medication – Fodzyme, an enzyme powder, which can be sprinkled on food. It works really well for things like onion and garlic. It does not work at all for cauliflower, which contains mannitol – something that adversely affects me but which the enzyme powder doesn’t break down. Yes, you know where this is going, don’t you.

The kitchen staff prepared incredible gluten free meals for me. They really went out of their way, and I appreciated it a lot. One particularly tasty Cornish pastie – yes, a real (GF) Cornish pastie! – was served with a huge pile of cauliflower. Why, oh why, didn’t I leave the cauliflower?

I missed an evening session and a night of sleep because of that mistake. I’ll spare you the details, but even after the silly body had settled down, I remained ‘delicate’ for a couple more days. That happened on the day that our theme was ‘light and shadows’. Yes, but I don’t like shadows……..

It was still a wonderful retreat week, by the way.

Conference

To be honest, I was not excited about going to the conference. I was willing to go, of course, but felt quite out of my depth amongst our most senior leaders. I had only been asked to go because my team leader had been unable to attend. Nevertheless, it turned out to be a really good week. It was a privilege to contribute to discussions that will shape the direction of our organisation over the coming few years.

Each day was full, with meetings scheduled from 8.30am to 6.15pm and sometimes in the evenings too. The conference venue was right by the Adriatic Sea, facing west, and the sunsets were incredible. A group of us would race down to the water just as soon as we finished each day and stand there in wonder. The sunset was different every single day – the colours and the cloud formations varied a lot.

The shadow side of the week’s conference, however, was a blow that I’m still processing – a healthy blow, but a blow nonetheless. Early in the week, we had a session called ‘Re-imagining our heritage’. It was led by two sisters in Christ of Indian heritage. We had been asked to pre-read an excerpt from a missionary biography of an English lady in India in the 1850s. The heroine of the story “… quickly slipped into the routine of Anglo-Indian missionary life in the mid-nineteenth century…. She was a Miss Sahib through and through, as were they all, members of the dominant race….” And so the chapter continued. (I can provide the reference if you ask me, but hate to publicly criticise the book here.) I grew up on missionary biographies like this, and it is no exaggeration to say that I chose my own life direction in part because of a desire to have an impact in the world, just like those ‘heroes of history’ had done.

Of course, we know that biographies only tell one side of the story, and, these days, most of us would agree that there were aspects of colonial rule that were simply just not right. However, it was shocking to hear these dear colleagues at conference powerfully and dramatically present a session considering the same events that the chapter described, but from the perspective of their ancestors – women just like them. ‘Invisible’, ‘unseen’, ‘belittled’ and ‘torn from family’ were some of the words and phrases used to describe the local Indian women who were barely mentioned in the story.

Our international director, himself an Indian man, later added that history is just that – history – and we are not responsible for what happened back then, be it good or bad. Furthermore, in God’s sovereignty, empires rise and fall, and have done for millennia. We are, however, responsible to learn from history and not repeat the mistakes of those in whose footsteps we follow.

Nevertheless, I admit that this reinterpretation of history rocked my little world…..

The other downside to conference was that covid circulated amongst us. One by one or two by two, conference delegates would disappear, only joining the meetings by zoom from their hotel rooms. We would take turns at delivering meals to their doors. Thankfully, I remained healthy throughout the week.

British family holiday

I had been SO looking forward to spending time with British relatives and to glimpsing their lives. However, I unwittingly brought a souvenir back from conference……

After purchasing a ticket for my luggage (which I’d apparently neglected to do earlier) then a l-o-n-g trip by plane, train, underground and another train, it was lovely to be reunited with my father’s cousin and his wife, The following morning, however, I woke up with a bit of a sniffle.

Before poking my snuffly nose beyond the bedroom door, I did a covid test. As I watched the second line develop, my heart both plummeted and pounded. I masked, sanitised, investigated local accommodation options and broke the bad news to my relatives.

I had been so very very careful, masking for everything except for meals and when outdoors, spraying ‘First Defence’ up my nostrils after any potential exposure (which had included every day of the week of conference) and going through bottles of sanitiser. And now, of all times, I come down with covid on day ONE of this family visit?!

My cousins suggested that I should stay with them despite the covid, but I was adamant that I would not pose any more of a risk to them than I had already done. Furthermore, I insisted on walking to the hotel. A planned family gathering with cousins in the south of the country was postponed.

Just the same, despite coming down with mild covid symptoms, I actually enjoyed a lovely week, outdoors, masked, but still seeing plenty of my relatives. The culture around covid is far more relaxed in the UK than it was at the time in Australia.

I stayed a little longer than originally planned up in the north of the country because British covid guidelines suggested that one should keep one’s distance from others for five days. After that, the NHS guidelines suggested, one could mingle again, but should mask for a further five days if one couldn’t socially distance.

After five days, I double masked and travelled to a caravan park in the south of the country, near the town where my father grew up and where cousins still live. It was lovely to have my own space and kitchen facilities, but I felt bad that cousins would drive half an hour or so each way each day to show me round. And I’m very very grateful. Again, we limited most activities to those which could be enjoyed in the fresh open air.

Time and space don’t permit me to write up all we did each day, but, in short, it was an excellent visit. In the company of various cousins, cousins’ adult children and grandchildren, I enjoyed beaches of stones and beaches of sand, cliff tops, forests of trees tall and short, castles, villages, gardens and even fossils (at the Jurassic Coast). My goal of photographing a red squirrel (as opposed to the more common grey squirrels, which I had photographed earlier in the trip) had been a bit of a running joke, but to my delight, we did it!

The end

It felt ‘safe’ to mingle unmasked and to stay with a couple more cousins for the last few days of my trip. The rescheduled family gathering was delightful. And before I knew it, I found myself on a l-o-n-g journey back to the other side of the world, to a place I call ‘home’.

So how was the trip? Well, overall good, But not perfect.

Does that matter? That’s life, right? Life is full of light and shadows.

I’m still disappointed that covid (and cauliflower) mucked up my expectations for the trip, but ever so grateful that none of my kind relatives caught covid from me. And I must admit that it was actually rather nice to have my own space and manage my own diet.

Despite the trip not being perfect, I still had a good time. I came back to Australia wiser, though a tad disillusioned about those heroes from history who turn out to be just as flawed and ‘products of their time’ as we are today.

That’s the longer answer to the question, “How was your trip?” Light and shadows … just like life.

Thanks for asking.

This is the question I was asked yesterday.

I wish I had a good answer.

After I waffled for a while, the person who asked tried a different tactic. “Can you recommend a good book on how to overcome culture shock?” she asked.

Um … nope. If you can, please tell me about it. I can recommend books on differences between cultures, and a few articles about what to expect when in a new-to-you culture, but not one book which specifically addresses strategies for overcoming culture shock.

Hence this blog post.

What is culture shock?

It was a hot and humid afternoon. All day I had been in class trying to get my tongue around the sound ‘ts’ – a sound I can say easily when it ends a word like ‘cats’, but couldn’t say at the start of a word like ‘tsai’ (菜 – vegetables in Chinese). Then I returned to my homestay accommodation, where a kind and generous Taiwanese family hosted me. I climbed the stairs and turned my key in the lock.

Removing my shoes, I entered their home and sat wearily on a tatami mat in the Japanese style bedroom in front of the fan. How could I be so exhausted this early in the day? The mother came in and said ‘Blah blah blah ‘ … something I didn’t understand. Then taking me by the hand and leading me to the bathroom, she gestured to the toilet paper and the bin and the toilet and suddenly I understood. I should throw used toilet paper in the open topped rubbish bin rather than flush it.

Had I clogged their system? I hadn’t noticed, but then again I don’t usually stand around and watch the paper go down … or I hadn’t up until that point. I do now.

Tears flooded my face. It was an over-reaction, I knew. It wasn’t just the toilet paper. It was everything.

The kind lady took me by the arm and led me out of the apartment. Her kids didn’t need to witness this meltdown. We walked down the street, around the block, me sniffling and dripping sweat while she talked. What she said I don’t know, but I did understand the words ‘Home’, ‘mother’ and ‘father’. They brought on fresh paroxysms of grief.

And that, friends, is culture shock.

An official definition

Culture shock: a sense of confusion and uncertainty sometimes with feelings of anxiety that may affect people exposed to an alien culture or environment without adequate preparation

“Culture shock.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture%20shock. Accessed 11 Aug. 2022
(I added the strikethrough since some of us can be quite well prepared but still experience culture shock, albeit perhaps less intensely than had we no preparation at all.)

When in the midst of this confusion, uncertainty and anxiety, we may react in different ways. In my case, I was constantly exhausted. I was no longer sure of who I was, although it was clear that I wasn’t the competent professional teacher than I had been in my home country. Any little thing irritated me. And during my first year or so, I was obsessed with fresh, fluffy, familiar bread, with the expected results.

The good news is that most of us adjust. Eventually.

Adjustment

The following diagram shows the usual period of adjustment to a new culture.

In the ‘honeymoon phase’, everything is new and wonderful. I made new friends, wandered the night market marvelling in every little thing and even raved over durian (a sweet but stinky fruit).

Then we often become negative and struggle to manage well. The humidity drained my energy. I craved privacy and even became frustrated with the two cute little girls in the family with whom I stayed who often looked through my belongings and poked my white skin in wonder. (I hope, though, that I didn’t communicate that frustration to them.) It was during this phase that I had my meltdown over the toilet paper correction.

Eventually we adjust and move on into our ‘new normal’. We are not the same as we once were, but we’re generally doing well. After two or three years, I was back in the classroom as a teacher (though I never stopped being a language student), enjoyed practising hospitality in my home and felt like I had something to offer once again.

The curve looks nice and neat, but in my experience, it is more often a wriggly line though following this general shape of a dip and a rise.

Some tips for weathering ‘culture shock’

The friend who asked me how to overcome culture shock would rather like a quick and easy answer, I suspect. So would I.

However, the following tips are the best I can do.

1. Realistic expectations
   It’s normal to be tired and grumpy. That doesn’t give me license to sin, but it is helpful to have realistic expectations of my need for extra sleep, time out, and a little more ‘tender loving care’ than usual. Expecting this adjustment period is important, and recognising that it may last for months and even several years keeps us from giving up in frustration.
2. Suspend judgement
   Our language coach told us early on, “For the first two years at least, I don’t want to hear a word of criticism about how things are done locally. For example, don’t walk out of this room and say, “Why are they MOPPING the carpet rather than vacuuming it?”
   To my astonishment, we did walk out of that room and find staff mopping the carpet in the hallway! Many years later, I now spray my own carpet square with water before brushing it in order to get the car hair out of it.
3. Use a ‘task list’
   I thought I should enjoy social times with Chinese friends. And I did … eventually. But in my early years in China, it was exhausting. That was amplified even further in settings such as a ballroom dancing hall where many of my friends liked to go. Once I decided to make it a ‘language and culture learning task’ and added it to my task list, to be ticked off, I embraced such activities more enthusiastically. In fact, it even became fun!
4. Find a ‘cultural broker’
   There are people who have a reasonable understanding of both local culture and of my background, and these people can be exceptionally helpful in making sense of all we see and experience.
5. Educate myself as best I can about the culture which I am trying to understand
   There are some fabulous resources out there. Some are more general while others are specific to the particular cultures with which I am interacting. In my case, adapting to a predominantly North American team proved to be an unexpected stress, but finding a little book about Australian / North American differences helped a lot … as did giving it to North American colleagues to read! (I think the world of some of my North American friends, by the way.)

A blessing

The New Testament character Saul was a tremendously competent and powerful Jewish leader … until his position and power was stripped from him on the road to Damascus. He went on to become the apostle Paul, an exemplary cross-cultural missionary and early church leader.

Paul claimed to ‘boast in his weaknesses’ rather than his many strengths. He wrote about a ‘thorn in the flesh’ – something we can’t identify exactly from his writings. I doubt it was ‘culture shock’ but I think the application – to take pride in our confused, exhausted, frazzled state in the midst of culture shock – is valid. Paul wrote this:

“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses…. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12:10

The blessing I would like to speak over my friends and colleagues in the thick of culture shock, then, is one which you can speak over me when I next find myself struggling to adjust to a different environment for a season. It is this:

May Christ’s power be evident even and especially through your weaknesses. May you remain focused on the one who calls you, for he is strong.

Ouch. Now I don’t think that is the response my friend wanted to hear when she asked, “How do you overcome culture shock?”

Slowly, slowly, my friend.

I admit it. I am writing this blog post to try and sort out some facts in my own mind.

I’m wanting to work out where I sit in a l-o-n-g line of cross-cultural workers in God’s kingdom.

As a good Christian kid, I was enthralled with stories of missionaries. As a Baptist girl, I sat ‘Sunday School exams’ in the kitchen of the little church my family attended. (The practice of ’Sunday School exams’ faded out not long after my time.)

Through the Australian Baptist Sunday School curriculum, I learnt about Baptist missionary William Carey (1761-1834) and his poor deranged first wife who was desperately unhappy about moving to India, then lost a child. Now that I have grown up and lived far from my passport country for a season, I have an inkling of how that poor woman must have felt, yet also can’t imagine the depths of her despair. Nevertheless, the bull-headed Brit, William Carey, did amazing work and his legacy lives on still. Those were different times.

What, I wonder, happened with Christian missions between the days of the Apostle Paul, missionary to the Gentiles, and William Carey, the father of modern missions? I don’t recall that ever being taught in Sunday school. There was a significant gap in our curriculum.

And what about cross-cultural mission these days?

Old and New Testament times

In Old Testament times, well over 2200 years ago, God chose a nation to be his own special people. They were the descendants of Abraham. Through them, he showed himself to the world.

Only his people often stuffed up.

Major understatement.

Missiologists call the model of mission in the Old Testament primarily ‘centripetal’. Think of a whirlpool, in which everything is sucked into the centre. That is an example of ‘centripetal force’. Similarly, non-Israelites would be attracted to the God of the Jews and want to join the people of God … or that was the idea, anyhow. It sometimes worked out that way.

Nevertheless, there were also occasions, such as in Jonah’s day, when God specifically sent a reluctant prophet to call a non-Jewish nation to repent of their wicked ways and turn to him. There were also many prophecies about a day when people from all types of nations would join God’s people.

In contrast to the Old Testament, ‘centrifugal’ is the term missiologists use to describe missions in the New Testament. Think of a centrifuge in a machine used to separate blood. You may be familiar with this contraption if you are brave enough to donate plasma. Your blood flows into a machine where a centrifuge spins it at high speed, causing lighter parts of your blood to spin off, thus causing it to separate into red blood cells and a transparent liquid. The red blood cells are pumped back into your body, while the plasma is donated. (That’s a non-medical person’s explanation, obviously.) It’s an example of centrifugal force, and similarly, the missions movement of the early church was one of followers of Jesus being spun OUT into the world.

“… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Acts 1:8 NIV

Christian missions in the first century AD

We may not have many written records, but there are plenty of stories about how early Christians travelled the world preaching, performing miracles in the name of Jesus and establishing communities of Christ followers.

Think of Jesus’ 12 disciples. Apart from the one that took his own life, tradition suggests that the others all died in the work of being witnesses of Jesus in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

James, the brother of John, was killed at Herod’s order while still in Jerusalem, but the others were scattered far and wide. It would seem that various ones of them went to Persia, Iran, Iraq, India, Syria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Italy and perhaps even as far as Spain and up towards Eastern Russia. Other early church members travelled far and wide too, sharing the gospel as they went.

If you’re interested in reading more on this, here is an article abiut the 12 disciples written by a historian and educator, Dr Ken Curtis:: https://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1-300/whatever-happened-to-the-twelve-apostles-11629558.html

The map below, freely available to share for non-profit purposes, shows just how far Christianity had spread in the early years of the church. During the first two and a half centuries, remember, Christianity was still considered by many to be a sect and a threat to Judaism or to worship of the Roman emperor.

Christendom

The early church was comprised of people from many backgrounds, all of whom were effectively going against the flow of society. That all changed, in the Roman Empire, at least, when Emperor Constantine decriminalised Christian worship in AD313 and in fact became a great patron of the church. From that point, and until recent times, Christian mission would often – not always but often – be aligned with geopolitics.

Be that as it may, cross-cultural missions continued through the ages, and it was often monks who went to places far from home. Think of the Nestorians, for example, or St Patrick, who, as an adult, returned to the land of his one-time captors after becoming a monk. Nestorius (founder of the Nestorians) and St Patrick both lived in about the fifth century AD.

Then there were the medieval crusades of the Middle Ages which were, unfortunately, violent and ugly. Nevertheless, within that context, there were also Christian voices calling for peaceful means of establishing Christ’s kingdom. Spaniard missionary Ramon Llull (1232-1315) was a case in point. If you’re interested in another fascinating train of enquiry, google his name.

The age of exploration, (this term reflecting a European perspective, obviously), also gave rise to cross-cultural Christian work in areas previously not touched by Christianity. I am reminded of journalist Mr Stanley who uttered those now famous words to the missing missionary-explorer, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

The colonial era followed on from this age of exploration. Just this past week, while following a rabbit trail of enquiry for some study I’m doing, I stumbled across an educational clip compiled by an atheist anthropologist, Dr Michael Welsch, in Papua New Guinea. He asked local people how they felt about the impact of cross-cultural missions on their communities. Not surprisingly, since he was interviewing Christians, they were positive. Like me, you might enjoy the 13 minute video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/uN2oLJ-UpsE

And that brings us up to the days of ‘the modern missionary movement’ involving characters such as William Carey, Adoniram Judson, Hudson Taylor, and of course my personal hero, Gladys Aylward.

A question of perspective

As I consider some of the things that happened in years past, I find myself shocked at times. There were attitudes and actions of years past that I consider ‘improper’. The expectation that Mrs Carey should suffer dreadfully for many years and her children suffer as a direct result too, all so that her husband could ’fulfil his calling’ is one such example. The violence of the crusades is another. ‘We wouldn’t do that,’ I like to think. Yet I’m a woman of my time and again, my perspective is limited. I am challenged by this helpful quote from a portion of a book I’m required to read as part of some current study:

God used imperfect people with imperfect understanding in imperfect conditions to carry out his work in remarkable ways. We who stand in judgment must be willing to make the same sacrifices and realise that we, too, are people of our times and will be judged by those following us.

Paul G. Hiebert, The Gospel in Human Contexts: Anthropological Explorations for Contemporary Missions, Baker Academic, 2009 p61

Cross-cultural missions today

Our world today is changing … fast. And so is the face of Christianity and of missions.

The age of Christendom in the West, at least, is long gone, though it ended with a fizzle rather than a bang. Christians rarely, if ever, travel as missionaries with the might of powerful ’Christian’ nations behind them these days.

Since the movement known as ‘The Enlightenment’ of the 1700s (give or take a bit), faith and science are generally seen as two quite separate entities. Faith is seen as ‘private’ while the science is ‘public’. Furthermore, in recent decades, postmodernism has led to many people being skeptical of claims that a particular so-called ‘truth’ is valid for all people at all times. This has even further diminished the esteem in which Christian mission is held.

Yet God’s kingdom continues to expand. The diagram above shows that there are more people who identify as Christians in Africa today than anywhere else in the world. South America has plenty too.

As the world changes, so does the face of mission.

Often, followers of Jesus reach out to share the gospel cross-culturally within their own countries. Take, for example, the church in East Asia. There are pockets of rapidly growing churches, but also pockets of people who have not yet heard the gospel. Sometimes these two groups of people co-exist within the borders of the same country. Christians are intentionally moving to the mountains or the deserts to share the good news of Jesus with people whom have never before heard the gospel. And people from there are moving to the cities for employment or education. Those missionaries don’t have trouble with visas. Mind you, often there are other challenges such as long standing hard feelings between a powerful majority people group and an under-trodden ethnic minority.

People are moving around the world these days, and there are significant opportunities for people like me to be involved in cross-cultural mission in our own passport countries too. I have friends from places in which I once lived or have visited, but can’t live there anymore. Friends from there are living here now.

Even in more ‘traditional’ cross-cultural missions settings, the face of the missionary community is changing. No longer is the movement ‘from the West to the rest’, but it is ‘from everyone to everywhere’. Significant numbers of Christian workers are sent around the world from Africa, India, South America and beyond. The international leadership of the agency through which I work reflects this change well. Of course, this poses challenges to traditional ways of funding missions, but that is a topic for another blog post, perhaps.

In 1910, missions was ‘from the West to the rest’…. Today, mission is ‘from everyone to everywhere’….

Allen Yeh, ‘The Future of Mission is from Everyone to Everywhere’, Lausanne Global Analysis Jan 2018 Vol 7 Issue 1, https://lausanne.org/content/lga/2018-01/future-mission-everyone-everywhere

In conclusion

The face of Christian missions has changed in the past and it is changing again now. The message of Christian missions, however, remains unchanged. God is king and, through Jesus, he offers people the chance to live under his kingship with all the privileges … and responsibilities … that entails.

Is there still a place for people like me in cross-cultural missions? I once asked this question to eminent Chinese leaders within the Christian missions movement. “Yes,” they said. “Most definitely. But your role is different to that of the pioneer foreign missionaries of past centuries.”

It’s God’s mission. He has been it for a long time now. And still he patiently perseveres with us and through us. Through writing this post, I am now clearer about where we fit into his work. Thanks for reading along.