What, To Me?

I've just finished tidying up my entire semester's worth of notes and planning out my schedule for the next semester (it looks like no matter how I try to rearrange it, my Wednesdays persist in being class-free and my Tuesdays insist on being packed chock-full); the names are starting to sound much scarier than the ones I had this semester. Kind of a hint that things are only going to get more difficult, I should say; a very worrying sort of thing to one who rather dislikes stress...

I went to the Corn's church yesterday for a visit. It's a very, very huge place; at least 4 times the area of the Methodist I've been going to for the entire semester, and about that many times the congregation too. Neither of these, I'm aware, indicates the "successfulness" of a church--not that that can be in any way measured by humans--but it does overwhelm one a little. Especially when the church has a bunch of cameras panning over the place and recording everything that happens. I guess it's a very good way of deterring people from answering the phone during the service.

I'm noting this down because it's the first time I've been in anything like a charismatic service for, oh, I don't know, the last 2.5 years? Most of the songs were unfamiliar to me, and those that were familiar were... somewhat jumbled, although I have to admit they did a very nice-sounding job of it. Naturally the Corn and the vast majority of the vast crowd were waving hands as they sang... not that I was paying particular attention to the mannerisms, but I couldn't help it. Waving hands were all over the screen and acting as a background to the projected lyrics.

(I noticed a spelling mistake.)

I should warn you in advance that this is going to be a very rambling post and is likely to contain disturbing elements, especially if you don't like the way I tend to argue things out in my own head.

In any case... well, I've never been a particularly demonstrative person when it comes to my emotions. Even on MSN, I use emoticons only to spam people, or when I need a picture to properly describe what I'd like to say--and even then, my webcam attests, my facial expression doesn't seem to do anything. At least that's what Silver D says: I can type out a dozen "haha"s and throw sweatdrop emoticons by the truckload and still not let a single expression flit across my face. It was thrown back in my face yesterday during the worship, when the camera happened to pan over the bit of space I was standing in: I was singing, yes, because it was one of the songs I particularly liked, and since it was a particularly emotional song, I suppose I was being rather hearty about it.

And the camera panned across, and lo and behold I looked like I'd just been bored out of my head and was merely lip-syncing for the sake of it. (While the Corn was beside me and still waving hands. While looking totally absorbed, somehow.)

It was after the service, when we were on the MRT and a quest to locate a method of shipping the Corn back to the Land Below the Smog, that she suddenly turned on me and asked me who God is to me. And then whether I only went to church as a habit or something. And that she was terribly disappointed in the lack of mention of Him in this blog.

All three of those being questions that I was too tired at the time to answer, plus I hadn't even thought of asking myself those before. And at the time she was wearing sunglasses, and I wasn't sure whether she was joking (although her next few sentences definitely put that right), so I was resigned to watching her nose and her mouth for clues about her seriousness. I decided she was being serious when her nostrils flared. I suppose I should address those concerns here and now, since I've got an hour or so while the laundry finishes washing and I'm nice and rested...

Well, how do I put this? God is... God. It's as if she'd asked me who she was to me, because I'd have said she was the Corn and that was all. Equally, the Brats will always be the Brats until sufficient evidence surfaces to prove their decency. But to me? I mean... how do you describe the relationship of a person who's always been there to you? I couldn't possibly describe the relationship between myself and a single one of my nuclear family, because they are simply who they are to me. People farther away, yeah, I can describe their roles in my life. Teachers teach. Coursemates provide answers to tutorial questions and lunch companions. But God isn't the kind of Person you can put into a box and say He is such-and-such to me and no more.

I suppose it's not a very satisfactory answer to the Corn; she managed to give me, from memory, a synopsis of her entire life since arriving in Singapore three or four years ago, and every single thing God did in that time--while I, on the other hand, probably couldn't do anything like that for my A-Levels time. In the same way, I couldn't possibly tell you what anybody near me did for me in that time, because I can't possibly know it. Oh, I could tell you what I saw happen--and in fact I have done so. Just keep reading. But I cannot tell you all the factors that contributed to everything. Certainly God was behind the patching-up of the relationship between my father and myself. Certainly He was behind the job where I met the Brats, and He was the one Who got me out of there before I blew my top again.

But those two are what He did, you see. They're nothing about the relationship. I suppose I could say that He saved me, but yet again it's what He's done... So in the end, He is God to me. Because I cannot define the relationship by anything other. Of course, being human and being what I am, I do realise I'm a very rotten example of what a Christian should be. I've read that poem in Pilgrim's Progress where the main character sings about what a Christian should be, and ye gads, it's depressing. And what's more, impossible for me (at the moment) to live up to. Perfection is rather a high standard to live up to, see.

And as for my going to church... well, for one thing it's one of the very few places where I can almost like myself. For some reason it's only in church that I'm really ever at peace with what I know myself to be. I would say I feel God there--except that I never seem to feel it in the way other people seem to. Because I never want to raise my hands and gibber unknown languages (if they are such--I have an innate distrust of the speaking-in-unknown-tongues habit)--if ever I have an urge to react, it's to kneel. Because that's how I believe in reacting to the presence of a God. I know the waving-hands thing is a demonstration of joy or wanting to lift Him up, but I think it's instinctive in me. You know: to raise Him by lowering myself, so to speak. It's something like Free Tea once told me: that the church is a peaceful place. In fact, quite literally, sanctuary.

And, of course, there's the fact it's commanded. Not that that's the main motivation for me to go, but it helps. I guess the habit's been ingrained by my parents, but I'm not complaining...

And now for why He doesn't appear much in my blog: it's very simple really. It's quite simply that this blog doesn't record much more than half of what I think or feel or go through. Granted, it does contain a lot more than most people would ever need to know about me. But I've never put the worst of myself up here, and I've never put every single thing I think in here too. Some things still remain just... too private. I could encrypt a post up here, but then you see it'd imply that I might give the decryption key out... and for now, I think, for now I shall simply contain that myself. Think of this blog as a midway point, perhaps. You see my surface. This blog is something of the area in between my surface and my inner parts; it can dip into either, but don't think that this is all there is to me, or you'll come away with rather a distorted view of me.

I know this sounds very bleak. The fact is I don't have a particularly rich emotional life, and I haven't got very much energy; I can't squeeze tears out at the drop of a hat or wave my hands at the first note of a song or anything of the sort, although I can jump with joy when my exams are over. Read too much of this blog and you're likely to get the impression that as far as life is concerned, I fear and worry and generally don't like it very much.

As the Corn said yesterday, though, we're supposed to aspire to greater heights and we're supposed to ask God for great and glorious things and deep closeness and all that. Intellectually, yes, I know all that too. I've read plenty about such things--my father has a quite extensive library. But I fear too, you see. The Corn is Choleric/Sanguine: give her a challenge and she'll produce a victory out of it. I'm partly Choleric myself: I can survive quite a bit, at least that's what I flatter myself I can do. But here's the rub: we're supposed to ask God for X characteristic. God's response tends to be to stick us in a very difficult situation to force us to develop it. Of course, He's always right there to be depended upon: I should know, I prayed a good deal during the ordeal of the Brats. But I don't think I got out of that any better (and I'm not about to ask the Brats' mother if I did, because I don't trust her judgment), and I won't know for sure until after death.

And it's made me a little leery of asking for great and glorious, etc. because I don't like the pain that's about to follow the request... It's something like a house, wanting to be made nice, but not wanting it enough to ask because it knows the renovation will involve breaking something and that's going to hurt. And so the house is going to just sit there and gaze longingly as all the other little cottages get rebuilt into palaces, and keep wishing it was strong enough to take the pain of having wall after wall get thrown down and to be able to wait until the new parapets and columns are up...

I hope whoever reads this actually understands what I'm saying here. Because, you know, it's going to be very, very embarrassing to have to explain it all over again. At least now I'm only facing my computer screen...