"self-esteem is for everybody..."

kindergarten teacher: herman, i would never date you because you're so skinny.

other volunteer: yeah, me neither.

should i have:

a) considered it a compliment - two very personable, confident and attractive women finding me threatening to their self image? maybe i could become professionally good-looking.

b) cried myself to sleep - no one wants me =(

c) taken offense - hey, i try fairly hard to eat to bulk up a bit, and also to exercise on a regular basis (play tag with the kids, climb ladders to put up decorations) to make sure it bulks up in useful places. i'm pretty sure i'd be sitting pretty with a 1-pack if it weren't for this awesome long-lasting cough that is molding my abdominals into a washboard.

d) found it a sad and frightening indictment of the overwhelming pressure to be attractive our society burdens women with - two very personable, confident and attractive women finding me threatening to their self-image? they're not rail-thin supermodels, but they are not superhuge triple-cheese-and-mayonnaise-pizza-with-fries-for-breakfast type people either. this pressure doesn't just come from men. most of it comes from the media big-wigs who try to determine what is 'beautiful' and what sells. the worst kind, in my opinion, comes from the mothers who tell their daughters to stop being so fat and ugly or tomboyish or outspoken or any number of 'unladylike' things.

shanshu

at the beginning of the month, two of my aunts (and one aunt's husband) flew over from Sydney and Hong Kong to visit for a good number of weeks. my grandparents deliberately delayed their 60th anniversary dinner to include them. that sunday night, a few excommunicated family members also attended, so it was nice to see them again even though it was a bit tense.

a day after the party, my grandmother began to feel increasingly fatigued and listless. on thursday (June 7) morning, it had gotten to the point that we had to cart her over to the hospital where she would need to stay overnight for observation. i had a day off from volunteering, so i stayed home with my grandfather to field phone calls and so on. i visited her later that evening; she was sleeping. at around 2 am, my mom woke me up briefly to let me know that they were heading back out to the hospital because they had received word that my grandmother's breathing had dipped to less than 50%.

the next morning, i came down for breakfast with the visiting aunts and uncle before driving myself to St. Florence. after school, i checked in with my dad to see if i needed to pick up sherm; i had to wait around STC for an hour or so because he finished later. so i killed some time at Best Buy after taking a round of the mall. when sherm called to let me know he was at Kennedy Station, i tried to go back outside to cross the street to the mall parking lots. my way was barred by what seemed to be a tropical storm, with rain blowing all the way into the store past two sets of doors. i waited until the storm let up a bit before loping off to Wal-Mart to pick up my brother.

in the car, sherman talks a lot. in the course of his one-sided conversation, he mentioned something about our grandmother passing away. it appears i had gone the entire day without anyone telling me that she had died in her sleep that morning. i had surmised as much at breakfast, but nobody actually confirmed it until then.

the weekend was a bit of a blur on account of all the hustle and bustle of relatives going in and out, making arrangements, having vegetarian meals (as per Buddhist instruction) and playing two double-headers of softball.

on monday, i was back at school.

tuesday was the Buddhist death ceremony. it was boring and seemed to have nothing to do with my grandmother. but she was Buddhist, so there we were.

wednesday was the funeral. thank you to the friends who showed up at such an inconvenient hour, and to those that wanted to be there for us and for those that prayed for us. i think you all made a favourable impression on my grandfather (he thought jacqueline was 15).

with her gone now, my grandfather has made some changes around the house. first thing was the removal of all Lunar New Year's decorations (because they were still up and they're all festive red). another surprising change was the dismantling and disposal of the altar to the ancestors that used to reside over the big freezer.

anyways, that explains the hiatus in posting.

Porcelain Philosophy 5: Fiat Lux

just because there hasn't been a recent installment of procelain philosophy does not mean i've been constipated; this post, for instance, has been brewing since january.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth [...] God said, Let there be light, and there was light [...] And God saw that it was good. - Genesis 1

this isn't about the Big Bang; this isn't about apologetics. this is about that little switch in your head that gets flipped sometimes when you encounter a revelation, or an epiphany. this is about inspiration. and once upon a time in the deep black nothing, God was inspired to create. it's not reading the manual and putting the pieces together; this is true creation -- starting from absolutely nothing and generating something. out of the chaos, God called forth order, energy, matter, meaning. by his word, he gave form to the fundamental building blocks of our universe.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. - John 1

the act of creation, and how it was made, reveals the nature of the triune God. God the Father formulates the idea, the thought, or the pattern and Jesus, the Son, corporealizes it as Word. the Word is sent forth by the Holy Spirit, the breath of God. this is the Trinity, three distinct, yet equal parts in one.

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness [...] So, God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. - Genesis 1

and so God created a triune man (and woman), with a Mind like the Father (to think), with a Body like the Son (to have agency in this world), and he breathed into him the Breath of Life -- a Spirit (by which we live and love). he also gave us the power to create, not quite as magnificently as God himself, but equal in essence.

we create through language. ideas and thoughts are inspired in our minds and given form through the structure of language. those ideas and thoughts are contained in words, and sent forth into the world by the breath (the Latin for to breathe is spirare). just as creation tells us who God is, our words speak to who we are. they reveal what lies in our minds, what resonates in our hearts, and what moves our souls. just as we, the created, interact with the rest of creation, our words have consequence and agency once they are released into the world.

Maybe Tomorrow

it's been awhile since something i've watched made me tear up (i think it was a rerun of the Littlest Hobo back in the early 90s). today, i wasn't the only one.

today's sermon was about asking (Matthew 7:7-11). this video was shown to illustrate the point.

the story of Rick and Dick Hoyt is about 8 different pieces of amazing.

the quadriplegic son asked his dad one day to enter into a 5 mile marathon to raise funds for other disabled people. the dad ran it, pushing his son along the entire way. Rick said that when his dad pushed his wheelchair, he didn't feel handicapped anymore. Dick resolved to chase that feeling for his son, and together they've run 942 events (including 25 Boston Marathons).

43 more years until retirement

yesterday marked the third and fourth times i've been surprised with cake.

the staff at St. Florence sprung a giant triple chocolate fudge monster cake on me and the other volunteer to bribe us into staying for june. i had already agreed to do a handful more days because i love everyone there. i didn't tell them it was my birthday (i told 4 kids i turned 53 and they said happy birthday) so the surprise cake tasted better for the mild irony.

i moved to the dine and pray program that mel runs on fridays when aletheia's dinner night finished most of the dinner portion. chatting with mel and lyris was hilarious as usual -- like the staff room conversations; we have good rapport (i've been itching to use that word). highlights (without the details) include Firefly, creepy crawlies, attending group outings when no one knows it's your birthday, Transformers and lesbians. the road trip conversations to Longlac with lyris will be equally hilarious. new chair came up looking for the new uncle (me) because there was some manner of activity planned and mel wondered if it had anything to do with the cake she spied while filching samosas downstairs. awkward silence ensued in which we missed about 3 comedic oppurtunities to say something witty while mel took the time to realize that she accidentally popped the pot. new chair ran out of art's office like napoleon dynamite. this was much more ironic than that morning at school so i was thoroughly entertained.

[edit]someone in[/edit] aletheia capped off the dinner night program with a surprise cake for my birthday, which was very sweet of her. also lovely was the much more surprising ice cream cake in the face. it was a hot and muggy night, so the cold was welcome.

thank you all for the gifts, the cards, the well-wishes and the laughs.