The Creator of the Universe Became a Small Little Baby

Oh Lord, the biggest planets in the universe that overload and fry out our imaginations are like microscopic atoms to you.

As Dallas Willard has said, the universe is hardly the beginning of God. Lord, the whole universe is hardly a trailer clip to the actual feature presentation of your breathtaking immensity.

In the beginning you created the universe. In your creation party of Genesis 1:1 you sprinkled the galaxies in space like cosmic confetti. You decorated the intergalactic wallpaper with a whole constellation of ornaments. Clusters of planets, stars, asteroids, and galaxies.

All the planets you've created keep rotating like children twirling out of non-stop joy to the glory of your limitless genius and creative power. Shooting stars can't contain themselves when they encounter you and sprint with worshipful adrenaline across the sky you gave them.

Yet you, the Creator of the entire universe, decided to become a small little baby. Oh my Lord, you became human. Oh my Word, you became flesh. You chose to become like one of us. You chose to humble yourself and become like the size of a subatomic particle yourself so that your subatomic creation, which became lonely and sinfully separated from you, would not remain alone and without you forever.

Our God, although you always hold the human race in your hands, you allowed yourself to be held by the hands of the human race in that Bethlehem manger.

Ever since we sinfully separated ourselves from you in the Garden of Eden, your heart has always cried tears over us for our salvation, redemption, and restoration with you. By giftwrapping yourself in human form, we could finally see your divine tears physically stream down the literal face of God as you wept. The face of God was no longer just a metaphor for your Jewish people when they saw it take physical form. Your divine heart finally had a set of facial muscles to express itself with. Those divine facial muscles thrillingly smiled at us pitiful, broken sinners with furious selfless affection during your 30 years on Earth.

The truth is that the only physical gift that can ever satisfy the supernatural void in the human heart is the physical body of Christ, given and broken for us 2000 years ago. Your Christmas presence never expired, costed no money, and can satisfy the human heart everyday from now until eternity.

A knee-jerk reaction to a miracle: what to do if your Ontario Health Insurance Plan ever fails you

Fun Fun Fun =)=)=)

I Will Not Bow Down

Lord. I know I'll be tested. Just like the others beside me. I've seen the others beside me bow down left, right, and center. Peer pressure causes their mental knees to nervously shake and descend with pity. Their stance is compromised due to cowardice of conviction. With people-pleasing postures, they curtsy towards the shifting trends and whimsical opinions of the world.

Not me Lord.

Lord, I will not cave in from pressure. I choose to be one of the remaining few who refuse to bow my knee down to falsehood, even if threatened. I cannot, and will not bow down. Something in me refuses to give in. Something beyond my mind that I do not fully understand causes me to stand firm for reasons that I do not fully know. And so I refuse to bow to the world's idolatrous ideologies and instead choose to be an intellectually daring rebel. My freethinking is too preciously free to pay the price of worldly imprisonment. In every age, freethinking needs to adapt its attitude to test and possibly challenge the background assumptions that are taken in by the masses without testing and scrutiny.  So, in our modern day intellectual world in 2017, I will be a Neo-freethinker who will not get his thinking enslaved by the Matrix. I dare to keep Michael Scholfielding myself out of the world's imprisoning ideas.

Lord, be with me.

Painting my soulful feelings is like figure skating when I figure there's a desire to skate away the deep impressions in my fibers that are yearning for expression. Dictionary definitions fail, but when I aesthetically skate and carve out new metaphors, you'll figure out what I'm deeply feeling.  There's nothing like artfully skating figuratively speaking.

Adaptable Master

Professor Jesus. You are the most distinguishably adaptive person in the universe. I used to imagine you living in 21st century North America with a white robe and sandals. Now I know better. I see the way you and your Father have worked with people throughout the entirety of the Scriptures. A cross cultural sensei. Diplomatic genius. You are more adaptable than the most gifted Hollywood actors who can take polar opposite roles on different stages. You're better at this art than Russell Crowe. You are exceptionally malleable in genre yet unswervingly firm in content. You are remarkably flexible in cuisine style yet uncompromising in the meat of what you represent.  You bend but don't break. Your capacity to blend in while sticking out simultaneously is of an unheard of calibre.

Professor Jesus. What would you be like if you were in North America walking, living, and breathing the air of the 21st century? You wouldn't behave and dress like a Middle Eastern man, that's for sure. You would not be inflexible, unchangeable, and rigidly dull in form. I'm not sure if you'd stay in a 5 star luxury hotel and use the Jaccuzi, but you'd drop the robe quickly either way. You'd dress differently, to the point where you wouldn't get out-of-style attention on the streets. You'd take on our slang, in a very organic and spontaneous way. The colloquial phrases we say here would be embedded into your soul so deeply that they would come out on knee-jerk reaction to things. You wouldn't say colloquial slang mechanically with an ESL delivery. Your socially conditioned body language would not make you awkward in the crowd, because it would be adjusted and calibrated to this environment. You'd do all this without being uncompromising in your embodied kingdom message. Your spirit and soul would powerfully capture the reality of the kingdom in a way that gets supernatural attention while not being unnecessarily weird in the natural realm. You'd capture the atmosphere's spotlight in terms of people's souls being violently pulled in towards a supernatural reality in you while your natural body language, speech, and fashion would remain blended in to the social context and hence remain invisible.

Professor Jesus. You are my master and my sensei. And one of the characteristics of you is that you are exceptionally adaptable. More than the planet's most gifted social chameleons. As I imagine you being so capably adaptable to all sorts of audiences, it's so magnetically attractive. You are so cool. Smooth yet pure. That's just purely smooth man.

Professor Jesus. How would you conduct yourself as a graduate student studying in a functionally secular university in the 21st century? In a classroom, how would you think? How would you feel? How would your body language be like in an atmosphere of academia? What flavour of consciousness would you season your mind with in order to fit in and blend in this environment? How would you adjust and cultivate your wavelength of thinking to perfectly adapt to the scholarly culture of western universities? How would you conduct yourself socially? How would you challenge your professors? How would you disagree with other students in a discussion in a way that makes everyone still feel unconditionally loved and valued? How would you not be dull? How would you mentally launch intellectual fireworks in a discussion to make it more engaging? How would you pour colour into colourless content that is being learned? How would you continually shift the framing of your questions and statements to accommodate to the texture of the ever evolving discussion? How would you intellectually bounce ideas off of others if a spontaneously engaging discussion emerged which surprisingly gained momentum? How would you do that while trying to simultaneously enhance and intertwine relational intimacy with intellectual intimacy with classmates through the discussion so that they can encounter God's love through the relational dimension of the intellectual discussion? How would you weave threads of kingdom thinking seamlessly into the fabric of a secular texture so that the thread would get attention without the needle getting any? How would you open yourself up to and count on the kingdom gently invading your thoughts suddenly with a wisdom that is beyond this world? When you detect such foreignly beautiful thoughts that are not yours and try to insert this kingdom thinking into the classroom, how would you give the supernaturally foreign thoughts a conversational visa to enter into the native homeland of the secular discussion? How would you stay mentally open to hop on and stay on spontaneously supernatural trains of thought that suddenly appear and take off from the train station of normal/natural human cognition? All without losing the direction that the class is moving? How would you allow yourself to be used by God to bring attention to the supernatural kingdom within you while not letting your natural human elements unnecessarily steal any attention due to them being invisibly blended in?

Professor Jesus. Teach me. I am your student.

Unstoppable

Legacy Training

"And the child grew up and became strong in spirit; and he lived in the wilderness until he appeared publicly to Israel."
-Luke 1:80

There is a season for distinguished underground training that is hidden from the world. A season that consists of extended strenuous conditioning that is worth every purpose-saturated bead of sweat that is meaningfully secreted. Days and weeks of engaging in such intentional stretching of one's supernaturally elastic potential goes unnoticed and undetected from the public eye. In this season, persevering in being barely able to shoulder a weight that is on the brink of unendurability for one's limits allows for the hidden but enormous cultivation and maturation of one's divinely bestowed heavenly capabilities.

The result of finishing such underground training is the God-given capacity to deeply tattoo one's impact on the body of human history with reverberations that will echo down through the bottomless well of eternity.

"Wearing a linen ephod, David was dancing before the Lord with all his might." - 2 Samuel 6:14

Whatever I do, eat or drink, may I do it all for you Lord. May heaven's thundering lightning bolts of worship stab my heart with holy energy coursing through my veins. May worship enter into my bloodstream and electrify the vessels in me that carry life. May the platelets in my veins splash with joy as they flow to worship You, oh Lord. May the holy blood pressure of worship zestfully squeeze the hemoglobin in my system with a kind of pressure that makes me more carefree in Your presence. As for me, my heart was made to worship You. That is who I am. That is who I was created to be. When I feel this pressure in my blood to be who I really am, I end up being lighthearted with joy.

Soul Painting

Capturing the soul's vapour-like ponderings through the gift of introspective eloquence results in painting the soul's graffiti on the platform of self-awareness.

Existentially Interpretive Kung Fu

*spiritually downloading via the Holy Spirit on how to interpretively overcome the initially undetectable yet powerfully imprisoning assumptions of the Matrix of secular Mass Media. The Matrix propagates worldly values that secure and sustain a hidden oppressive system of interpretation that secretly enslaves human minds collectively with an illusory framework of reality*

NEO: “I know existentially interpretive Kung Fu.”

MORPHEUS (a seasoned and learned Jesus mentor who is existentially unplugged from the Matrix): “Show me.”

*Imaginative spiritual exercise of training via simulation through imaginative role play in the field experience of worldly everyday reality*

MORPHEUS: “This is an existentially interpretive sparring program. Similar to the programmed reality of the Matrix of the Mass Media (1 John 2:15-17). It has the same basic functional assumptions. Assumptions like secular humanism. What you must learn is that these assumptions are no different than the assumptions of any interpretive worldview system. Some of them can be bent (e.g. “the 5 physical senses are a reliable guide to objective truth”). Others can be broken (e.g. “if you get what you carnally desire, you’ll be deeply content, and you’ll have a finality of satisfaction because carnal desires can be fully satisfied if you satisfy them right now”). Understand?”

NEO: *Nods*

MORPHEUS: “Then interpretively uppercut the assumption I represent (“if your carnal desires sincerely feel that what they genuinely hunger for is a credible guide to what is good for you, then they are”). If you can.”

1:18

MORPHEUS: “Good spiritual mind renewal (Romans 12:2). Adaptation. Improvisation. But your weakness, is not your cognitive technique.”

2:05

*temporary blunder/setback that inevitably comes in the course of training (Luke 22:32)*

2:09-2:13

*Gets back up after embarrassingly falling flat on one’s face in the training. One can see the hunger, determination, and teachability in those eyes of an eager Jesus student to master existentially interpretive Kung Fu that can interpretively overpower seemingly indomitable secular interpretive assumptions that are functionally overhwelming*

2:40

Another temporary blunder/setback.

2:46

MORPHEUS: “How did the secular assumption I represent beat you?”

NEO: “Your functional affect on the cognition of my human brain is too fast.”

MORPHEUS: “Do you believe that a human’s cognitive IQ being stronger or faster has anything to do with exercising the existentially interpretive muscles of deep soul-awakened conviction-level realizations, in this secular environment?”

NEO: *shakes head*

MORPHEUS: “You think that this secular atmosphere’s psychological oxygen is completely neutral and free of any hidden but distorted spiritual values?”

3:36

(Galatians 2:20)

3:46

MORPHEUS: “What are you waiting for? Your spiritual mind’s operations have a supernatural elasticity in your consciousness to produce superhuman effects that make it faster and stronger than if you merely used normal human cognition (1 Corinthians 2:14-16). Don’t cognitively think you are. Soulfully know you are.”

4:17

*The soul existentially conquers the interpretive warfare by realizing “Are these carnal desires, felt live with an intention of 100% sincerity on their part, a good guide for what is good for me? No. I deeply realize that although they’re sincere, they’re unknowingly under a deceptive spell and I realize this on the level of soul-conviction and soul-awakening. I existentially realize that the Wisdom of God is a good guide for what is good for me.”*

Gratitude For My Spiritual Roots

It's easy to despise the subculture one was raised in. Like one's biological family, the warts, ugliness, and "unlovable" parts of it are so blatantly positioned in your sight that no decently reflective person can miss it.

After graduating university, I went through a phase where I was sick and tired of the Toronto Chinese Christian Community (TCCC). Growing in it for around a couple decades made its seemingly despicable protrusions bulge to grotesque proportions in front of my eyes. A lack of depth in terms of touching upon matters of the soul. A lack of modeling of being appropriately assertiveness when necessary (especially for males). A lack of healthy conflict resolution and loving relational confrontation to heal the social fabric when conflict inevitably occurs. A lack of serious engagement with the arts. A lack of taking the Christian mind super seriously with sharp intellectual training to engage the secular narrative in dialogue at the worldview level. And much more. All these things, I had to learn by exploring outside the very small perimeters of the TCCC bubble.

I'm an adventurer at heart. By my very nature, I like discovering new spiritual continents that have new eye opening awakenings in the things of God. Through almost a decade of a journey post-university, I've learned how to practically listen to and discern the Holy Spirit's voice and leading. I've learned how the landscape of the soul works, how it heals, and to take it very seriously. I've learned how to discern deep hidden spiritual strongholds in the wounds of one's heart, uproot them, surgically remove the lies embedded in those wounds, and bring them to God to be healed. I've learned how to be appropriately assertive when the situation calls for it. I've learned how to engage in loving relational confrontation when necessary. I've learned how to bridge Christian theology with a serious engagement with the arts. I've trained my mind with some rigour in serious Christian thinking. After spending a decade travelling and immersing myself in different Christian subcultures on different countries and continents as well as spiritually journeying through exploring different spiritualities from differing denominations across the Christian spectrum, I've been exposed to quite a bit in terms of the extended worldwide family of God's kingdom outside the narrow parameters of the Toronto bubble I was confined to before I reached my 20s.

It's easy to bash one's family. It's a lot harder to appreciate the things taken for granted, things that have been moved to the background noise of one's environment that one should be continually thankful for.

Something's been happening recently in my life though. Without me consciously making an effort to discipline myself to do so, I've naturally developed more of a deep appreciation for my original spiritual roots in the TCCC. I helped out at a TCCC conference for teens lately where I was reminded of how I was when I was a teen in this upbringing. It's priceless. You can't put a price tag on it, like your family roots. During the conference there were moments where I was just taken back in awe with my soul's pin-drop-silence of attention in gratitude. This was the spiritual subculture that raised me. The unspoken habits of the subculture. The lingo of the subculture. The bodily conditional responses embedded in the social context of this subculture. The unspoken assumptions of the subculture. The emphases of the subculture. The theological slants of the subculture. The mental framework people have towards understanding God in this subculture. The lifestyle of spirituality promoted in this subculture. It grounded me and helped me stand on my 2 feet and gave me the base to explore from. Without it, I may have not had a spiritual journey to start off with at all. I may have had no springboard to launch me on my journey. This is my heritage. It's in my faith's blood. It has precious yearbook moments in my soul. And though I don't always agree with it, I don't always like it, and there are major flaws in it, at the end of the day, I truly, genuinely love it, just like my biological family.

Wow.

These are my roots. I can't despise them. I can't have bitterness towards them. I'm realizing that it would be unthinkable to be thankless towards them. I can't secretly look down on them, even if no one ever found out.

Thank you TCCC.

air-ee-oh-it-uh-ee

I enjoy unknowns, don't let the scary-prohibit-me
I'm a mystic, I view scenarios-mystically
With a odd mind, I don't think stereotypically
My mind's on different planes doing aerials-physically

A Bass On Which Purpose Is Built On

Lord, I need you to perform CPR on my spiritual imagination.

Lord, I need a heart that throbs to your purposes like a bass drum.

Lord, I need you to pump some purpose-saturated soul rhythm in me.

Lord, I need you to hit that bass drum of my heart. And pound it. One pound at a time. To make each divinely inspired pound have repercussions that reverberate all the way up to my mind and fire it up with life-rejuvenating purpose.

The Art of Truth

"Art doesn't beat you on the head with truth. It invites you to taste the truth before you know exactly what it is."
-Jan Johnson

I would add that, because art opens us up to new experiences we've never had before, it can enable our minds to detect new conceptual categories that have been philosophically camouflaged beforehand by inexperience.

Oh, how we need good art.

Love and Laughter

"God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him."
-1 John 4:16b

If someone is really immersed in the love of God on a deep and life-changing level, it will cause that person to sincerely want others to experience and enjoy the love of God even more than oneself does. But one must first be deeply immersed in the love of God, or this will not take place.

Now, since this can be somewhat abstract, perhaps an everyday illustration can humour our finite understanding of such a phenomenon.

If someone enjoys a hilariously funny story on a deep level of laughter, after the initial enjoyment, one sincerely wants others to enjoy the really funny story, and to even enjoy it and laugh harder in reaction to it than oneself originally did when first hearing it. But one must first deeply enjoy the really funny story oneself, or this will not take place.