the heart as it is | courage • grief • beauty

Things that I have been learning/reflecting about Yahweh:

• There is something super fascinating I found in Proverbs 26 of the Orthodox Study Bible. Firstly, something to note is that the Orthodox Study Bible is based on the Septuagint texts while many western Bibles are based on the Masoretic texts (not going to go into which one may be more “accurate” – that might be another post for another day). That being said, there are differences between these translations, and in Proverbs 26, the Masoretic text, which I grew up reading, has 28 verses in it while the Septuagint text has 29. And what is the missing verse? :
  
  “There is shame that brings on sin, and there is shame that is glory and grace”.
  
  This is so mind-blowing to find and it makes me really curious as to why this verse is not found in western Bibles (by the way, when I say ‘western’, I mean translations that are dominant in American culture, such as ESV, NIV, KJV, NKJV, NASB, and the like). I feel like this verse is saying what I have been trying to say for a very long time: that shame – not evil – is at the root of a lot of sin. Shame itself is not evil, shame is an emotion that sends the message/lie of “something is deeply wrong with me and I am not worthy of belonging”, and can actually a survival mechanism in terms of social relationships. However, when that shame goes unchecked, it can turn into destructive and self-destructive behaviors, which can lead to being in hurtful standing with people and then consequently, ‘sin’. When that shame is brought to light to the right people, it is incredibly healing, renewing, and redeeming. So that is crazy that I found this verse in the Orthodox Study Bible ! It alludes so much to the truth and reality that original sin is not real for humanity (it is though, to Adam, but that is also another post for another day). And as original sin is a lie, we really need to think about what the other implications are with regards to Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
  
• More nuggets from the book of Proverbs ! Something that stood out during my reading of Proverbs 27 was the second part of verse 8: “…a man [is] enslaved whenever he becomes a fugitive from his own place”. I can think of this from a political standpoint, such as how refugee immigrants escape elsewhere to take up hard labor, low-paying jobs. I also see it in terms of emotional health. I believe that trauma results in us running away from ourselves emotionally. It becomes scary to be alone with our thoughts, to feel our emotions, and to exist within our body in general. At that point, we become a slave to whatever we try to do to escape ourselves. So I think this Bible verse is pretty spot on in the way that it can be applied to trauma (but not all hope is lost ! there are beautiful ways to coming back to yourself).
  
• Another verse in Proverbs 27 that stands out to me is Proverbs 27:19: “As faces are not like other faces, so neither are the hearts of men”. I think after this election season, for some of us, it is easy to demonize the other, those who voted differently than us. I know there are some of us that are trying to remind everyone that we are all human, yet we feel that one side is not really humanizing the other. But I do think the solution lies in continuing to humanize everyone, as difficult as that is. At the heart of how God created us, are hearts that are afraid and hearts that want love & belonging. A lot of people are definitely afraid of the wrong things and try to achieve false love & belonging, but we are all doing what we can anyways to relief/satiate those core parts of us.
  
• I’m not sure how much of a relfection this is, but I just noticed another part in Scriptures (Proverbs 27:20) that talks about ideas like ‘Hades’ and ‘destruction’ without any mention of eternal conscious torment. So just wanted to point that out ! : “Hades and destruction are not satiated; In like manner the eys of men are also insatiable.”

Things that I have been learning/reflecting about people:

• I recently learned that the word “Halloween” actually has Christian roots ! There was this silly meme going around (probably not silly to the people who made it though…) about wanting to change “Halloween” to “Jesusween”, which I personally think sounds really ridiculous. Although I no longer go to this church, a church I spent most of my 20’s in, and a church with more conservative values, would say that the fear of Halloween for Christians is almost unfounded; and I agree to a large extent. Jesus came to defeat death and succeeded, and with Jesus we talk about overcoming death and the fear of death all the time. In any case, what I really wanted to share here is that the original phrase for “Halloween” was actually “All Hallow’s E’en”, which means the evening of All Saint’s Day. Just some linguistic history that I thought was neat !
  
• “What cannot be spoken to the [m]other cannot be told to the self” – John Bowlby. I can’t remember where I came across this quote, but it really stood out to me. On one level, it reminds me of the idea that we can only love each other as much as we love ourselves. I can only speak as kindly to you as I can speak kindly to myself. But this quote brings it even further and says that what cannot be expressed to the [m]other cannot be expressed to the self, which I think is very true too, even down to a child developmental level. We need our parents/caretakers/guardians to model and reflect emotions and thoughts for us in healthy ways. If we express distraught and these people are unable to hold that space for us, it will be difficult for us to even know how to hold space for it for ourselves. This is not to shame caretakers who are unable to do so, but to challenge us all to reflect on our own emotional health and well-being.
  
• “The moon is a reminder that no matter what phase we are in, we are whole” – Melaney Lyall. I think I heard this quote from a post on Instagram during the moon festival. It’s such a good reminder that nature teaches us so many lessons, and this being one of them. The moon is always whole, it’s just that humans cannot see it as such always. And to apply that to our own lives, we were created whole and we were meant to be whole. Any phase of our life that feels like a shadow may potentially hide our true nature and may even manifest itself as “brokenness”, but the reality and the truth of it is that we are whole beings.
  
• In one of my counseling classes this week, our professor gave us a good chunk of class time to get in groups of 3 to process the election results together. In the middle of our discussing, probably to almost also get our mind off of things, one of my classmates posed the question, “Where would be your ideal country/area to live in?” They shared their answers, as did I, and we all noticed a similarity running between all of our ‘dream areas’: they were all very close to nature and would allow us to live at a slower pace. I can’t help but think about God a little bit here, back to Genesis 1 even, of how we were meant to be close to nature, living slowly. We were not meant to be disconnected to the earth and living so frantically. Hurry slowly rots our souls to grab onto things that are fleeting or even illusions, and humans were created after earth and with the earth. We need mother nature and she calls us to slow down along with her.
  
  Things I have been learning about the world:
  
  – I learned that I need to be paying more attention to the base of my basil plants. I had successfully propagated and transferred a basil stem, and it was growing wonderfully ! The one day, all of a sudden out of nowhere, it started wilting. Usually when this happens, it means the leaves don’t have enough water. So I continued to water it 2-3 times throughout a week, and noticed its condition did not improve, because usually after watering a wilting basil plant, it perks up after just a few hours. I decided to finally take a closer look at it to see that there were these leaves at the bottom collecting loads of soil and water. Not only were they pulling the entire plant down, but they were also ‘hogging’ all the water, and the whole plant eventually died. I’m a little sad about it, but I feel like I learnt something really valuable. So now I am propagating another basil stem and will take much better care of this one.
  
• I learned recently that Target no longer sells DVD’s… you could probably still order them online, but otherwise, we would have to order via Amazon. It just was kind of an eye-opener to the power and presence of all the streaming companies now, which aren’t even reliable !! There were two films that I purchased through AppleTV that they deleted because they lost the licensing to, so that really sucks. I plan to slowly buy physical copies of DVD’s once again.
  
• I also learned that since this year, I can become a Taiwanese citizen without having to stay in the country for a certain amount of time ! Before January of this year, even if I had parents that had Taiwanese citizenship, I still would have had to stay there for a certain amount of time. Now at most, I would just need to stay a few weeks, but the process still seems like quite the headache. I hope one day to go through the process and then share about it here to help some other people out as well !

Things I have been learning about myself:

• I’ve noticed that for some reason, I have slowly grown to like cooking-related media, like cooking shorts on social media as well as cooking shows. I’ve still yet to fully figure out why, but I do notice that it is very fascinating to watch people that are knowledgeable about food make incredible things. It’s almost like watching artists make their art, except that not only do you engage in the sense of seeing it, but with food, you can also engage in all the other senses as well – scent, taste, hearing, touch (texture) ! Except when I’m watching the shows, I can only really see the food, but it is nice to imagine nonetheless !