Good News - We're Failures!

         One week of introductory lectures have passed and beginning to dig deeper into the content and texts that I will be studying, I sense a kind of pressure in lecture theatres where everyone is furiously taking down notes and trying to capture each word that issues from the mouth of the lecturer – be it a quote from a scholar, a passage from the text or the lecturer’s own analysis of ideas and synthesis of arguments.

         There is a weight that burdens our shoulders and bogs down our minds – the mad desire to succeed. Just like Arthurian knights who refuse to cower in the face of adversity, regardless of the odds stacked against them, simply because they seek to win glory, honour and a beautiful maiden’s hand, I see about 200 little knights embarking on our own adventures to win acclaim and recognition. Failing is not an option, to lose a joust is to earn shame, and usually it is the bad guy that loses and the noble knight emerges victorious. Well, most of the time.

          Vicariously we are living in the Age of Chivalry. Failing a test or exam is akin to submitting to a better knight, not being able to contribute ideas in a tutorial could be similar to a knight not being able to defend the honour and chastity of the maiden he is escorting. There is immense pressure to prove oneself to be the best knight that unconsciously, one compares oneself to others and a silent ‘tournament’ ensues on the battlefield within our hearts.

           Defeated knights are often chucked into a corner and later unheard – as though cast away by society. Isn’t this the same with the modern world? Someone isn’t worth our time if he or she doesn’t ‘succeed’ in his or her ‘quest’.

          But news of our failure isn’t bad – it is good! In fact, we have failed to live up to an even higher standard – a standard beyond the modern reinvention of the chivalric code of honour. This bar is set and dictated by God Himself who is the reality of perfection. Chretien de Troyes writes that ‘largesse alone makes one a worthy man, not high birth, courtesy, wisdom, gentility, riches, strength, chivalry, boldness, power, beauty, or any other gift.’ God who in His generosity, his largesse ‘blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ (Eph 1:3b). Us, who were men and women living as enemies of God – we who wished God dead and lived as though He were dead!

          We have failed to conduct ourselves to the code of conduct God instructed us to abide as his subjects, but the good news is that it is in our inability to earn the prize, our helplessness in dealing with our quest to earn God’s approval that God, through Jesus’ blood gave us redemption and the forgiveness of our trespasses.

          This means we don’t have to undergo the impossible journey of finding favour with God through our own strengths and merits, neither do we need to prove ourselves to this world that we are worthy men or women. Jesus has completed that quest when he hung in utter shame on the cross, derided and mocked by those he came to rescue; so that now in him, we are adopted into God’s family and will one day be assured of sharing his glory if we are continually trusting him. What manner of honour and glory can this world offer that could surpass or merely equal that weight of glory? I dare say none.

          There is so much more worth in being called God’s child then to graduate with a first.

          So what happens the next time I have angst about success and failures? I have to remember that it is good news! Because Jesus succeeded for me. 

On The Road To The Airport

On the road to the airport

Heading towards my moment of glory

Leaving third world deficiencies

For greener pastures on yonder hills.

We who leave, are like Argives and Trojans

Battling for glory and armour

Blind towards the carnage and death

Wrecked around them.

What I see when the stamps before my eyes are removed

Are men sweating to make ends meet,

Migrant slaves struggling to eke out a living in a foreign land

Young men resigned to lives of hard labour for want of education

Women young and old working to put bread on their kitchen tables.

Yet here I am, insolent fool

The world seemingly at my beck and call,

Nothing to stop my march, or so I think. 

May this thrilled heart be sobered up, 

Not cut off in academia

From the brutal reality 

Of the road to the airport.

On Scholarships and Expectations

I had a chat with my father on the eve of departing to the UK with a fine scholarship tucked under my belt – not having a lot of financial cares to burden my family. And as we were reflecting on God’s goodness, thoughts about others less fortunate came crowding into my mind and the sobering reality that for one who has received so much, there are many others who are not given such an opportunity.

What with personal expectations of people nowadays driven sky-high by the too idealistic and illusory dream that success – material success awaits anyone who simply need to desire it enough, disappointment at not getting what we wished or aimed for can be devastating.

Perhaps it is easy for me to write about this. Indeed, perhaps I have not gone through those heart or spirit-breaking disappointments that render one incapable of caring about anything or anyone anymore.

Yet I have realised that we as human beings have no right to expect that things will turn out good for us. Us – rebels against the rightful Ruler of the universe, puny mortals establishing autonomy from the Eternal One. It is our doom to be overthrown by Him – to suffer, die and be eternally separated from all that is good.

But the greatest good was given to the worst of creation – forgiveness and acceptance for the wretch through the suffering and death of Jesus - God's own Son. 

So now our expectations are transformed – the focal point of our lives is shifted back to God. We should not expect what the world tells us to expect. Not material success, not popularity, not the best grades, not the best university.

The humbling lesson of remembering my inadequacies and disqualifications despite all the good I have received is the pin that pricks that selfish bubble and allows me to see things from an eternal perspective.

This life is not about my expectations and dreams and whether I fulfil them, it is about surrendering all the rights of my life to Him whom they rightfully belong.

Leaving

I think leaving is a significant part of people’s lives, especially when they leave for someplace far and for something new. Different places often represent different stages of life.

For example, in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, we start at Gateshead – the beginning of Jane Eyre’s story and travel to Lowood where she grows up and then to Thornfield where she matures and then end up at Ferndean where she settles and the bildungsroman ends. She encounters challenges at each location peculiar to the circumstances she finds herself in. That is what makes her life story interesting.


I now embark on my own journey of discovering that elusive phantom called ‘the self’ and I am hoping the adventure to be an exciting one – fraught with thrills and dangers, sadness and gladness. After seeing so many pictures of friends leaving the country, I am almost numb to that sensation of departing – that mixed emotions of anxiety and anticipation.


Yet in my last few days in Johor Bahru, Malaysia; in my last few farewells, I find that leaving will be difficult. Saying goodbye – though we have facebook, skype and whatsapp to ensure that we stay connected, will not be an easy task. Perhaps all these emotions will fade as my plane brings me inexorably away from home and to a fascinating new environment.


I don’t know what awaits me at Durham University. I don’t know what awaits my family who are still in Malaysia and I don’t know what awaits my friends who are either going overseas or remaining here in Malaysia. Yet there is comfort. I know that we are united in Christ and that ultimately we will see each other and be with each other in Christ. That is the great gathering – the great banquet feast that will, I hope, help me remember that I’m not alone, I’m not separated from the people I love – not because there is social media, but because of what Christ has done for us ‘but now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.’ (Ephesians 2: 13).

The true separation is no more, and leaving will be merely a temporary parting of ways, till we return to the one who gave His life to save us.