Huang Family Newsletter, August 2012

We had a glorious time in the Poconos for our family vacation; after six straight years of going to the Shore, it was a nice change and there was lots of fun things to do (fishing, hiking, swimming).  We celebrated Amy's birthday with her parents and her twin brother.  We still don't know where Aaron will be going to kindergarten next month. 

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in High School

There's a popular book called "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten."  As for me, it took me several more years of public school. 

Looking back on my high school days, I'm increasingly thankful.  In addition to having good friends and a good school, I did some great extra-curricular activities that gave me skills and perspectives that I continue to use to this day:

(1) Speech and Debate.  Here I got comfortable speaking in public, practiced how to craft an argument, and learned that there were defensible points on both sides of every issue.

(2) Basketball.  Here I saw how players worked together in a system to get a basket or a stop (as opposed to one-on-one "jungle ball"), learned how to put others in the best position possible for them to succeed (I was a point guard), and came to encourage good play (either teammates or opponents).

(3) South Bay Taiwanese Youth.  As VP of our Taiwanese youth group, I got practice making leadership decisions, baked in my heritage, and had opportunities to mentor younger kids.

(4) Future Business Leaders of America.  I competed nationally in accounting so mastered that subject inside and out, and also got practice attending business events and learning business etiquette.

(5) Church.  As a newbie, I of course learned the basic precepts of the faith, but also caught the vision for being a people on mission and being a people caring for one another.

(6) Classes.  Oh yeah, school itself.  Our public high school was really good - I'm convinced many of our teachers could've taught at the university level - so I got good instruction, especially in history, science, and math.  In English alone, I gained a love for words, the ability to deconstruct a story, and skill in writing. 

Being a child of immigrants, you're taught the importance of education.  And, being ambitious, I had some inkling that extra-curriculars were useful.  But it's only been the passage of time that has given me a true appreciation for the important lessons I was learning back then, that have made me who I am today.  For that I'm thankful. 

Where Has the Time Gone

I liked most of this recent post by Jon Bloom over at the Desiring God blog: "We Have Now Not to Waste."  (The part I didn't like was when the article ended with a plug for buying one of their books in bulk; seemed relatively shallow in contrast with the deeper message intended to be conveyed.) 

The end of summer and the onset of middle age can leave many of us in a panic.  Where has the time gone?  What are we doing with our lives?  Why do the days pass by so quickly, and we haven't done the things we thought we would have done by now?

My mind wanders here often, and it reveals a pretty petty inner core.  I wish that my home improvements projects were farther along, that I'd traveled more, that I'd gotten a chance to do "bucket list" kinds of things.  Interspersed in there are some other, more noble thoughts: that I'd said "I love you" to my wife more often, spent more quality time with my kids, and done more acts of service.

For the Christian, there ought to be a certain perspective about time.  All people should realize that their lives are finite, but Christians are supposed to be believe that our lives are infinite, and that we've been given specific instructions about how we are to spend our finite days while we are in our bodies, and what consequence our behavior while we are in our bodies has on where and how we spend infinity. 

And yet, if you poll the average non-Christian, I'm sure they won't tell you they see anything different about their Christian friends when it comes to this notion of not wasting our lives.  Whether or not they say anything different with their words, their behaviors are remarkably the same as others': we hoard our possessions, pursue selfish ambition, neglect the plight of those around us, and otherwise go about our days seemingly oblivious to the folly of living just for this world and its temporal comforts. 

How is it that Christians have a fundamentally different conception of life and eternity, and yet it is not lived out in any meaningful way for non-Christians to at least discern a difference, let alone be intrigued by or attracted to it?  I, for one, as a Christian, am ashamed that we have been such a poor testament to what we claim to believe. 

Hubris

I'm reading a great book right now, "The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris," by Peter Beinart.  Beinart tells the arc of the last 100 years of US war history in three sections of American hubris:

(1) In "the Hubris of Reason," Woodrow Wilson, who was president of Princeton University before becoming president, believed that if he could just lecture people enough, he could convince them to practice peace.  Naivete post-WWI, of course, set into motion the events that led to WWII.

(2) In "the Hubris of Toughness," a whole host of presidents, from FDR to Nixon, vowed never to let a Hitler go unchecked, and threw their weight around unnecessarily to convince the world and the American voters that they weren't soft.

(3) In "the Hubris of Dominance," Bush I and then Clinton and then Bush II reveled in the ease of war in a single-superpower world, and went to the well too many times in the name of winning electoral popularity and seeking humanitarian and liberating aims.

The American presidency is a unique vantage point from which to give into or not give into hubris.  But it is by no means the only place we can overextend ourselves in a prideful manner.  I confess I see my own weaknesses in each of the three sections of Beinart's book.  I can think that I can scheme my way to anything with enough time to plan and craft, instead of knowing the limits of my powers and of my ability to make change.  And I can act tough or revel in dominance instead of being careful about overreaching and caring too much about whether people will think highly of me. 

The Icarus in the book title references a Greek myth in which a boy ignores his father's instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and falls into the sea and drowns.  It can feel good to soar, and we can be made to feel invincible, all the way up to the point where it is too late and we are falling irreversibly.  Let us individually, in the small and large ways we can exercise power, and let our leaders who have access to apocalyptic levels of power, be careful not to fly too high, even and especially when we are soaring and it seems we can only go higher and higher from where we are.

Fundamentally About the Text

Earlier this year, I was kicking off a consulting engagement (I'm blurring the details, which aren't important to my story anyway, for purposes of confidentiality), and my client meeting was going nowhere.  Well into our time together, I suggested that we were talking ourselves in circles and should go back to the legislative language that was supposed to circumscribe our task at hand.  My remark was met with a range of reactions, mostly bemused and patronizing, like "isn't that sweet, he thinks we should follow the letter of the law; OK, whatever, kid." 

Perhaps it was naive of me to think that our work would be guided by, I don't know, the law of the land, instead of by the agendas of the stakeholders gathered together for the engagement.  I'm willing to concede that that is how this world works, and that that isn't the worst thing in the world.

But it made me think of what seems to be going on within our denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  And I'm not really talking about the recent amendment about gay marriage, although that appears to be held up as the litmus test by both sides of that argument.  

I'm talking more fundamentally about the role of the Bible in governing how we are to be as a denomination in the year 2012.  Far too often, I see contemporary Christians trying to figure out a palatable position within our modern culture, and barely attempting to back into a Biblical backing for that position, let alone letting the Bible dictate the position first without regard for how it might "play" to today's ears.  

Christianity is, at its core, a religion of the text.  Our understanding of that text may evolve over time - it is a living, breathing document - but it remains our guiding post, not an afterthought to be inserted, if convenient, after we've figured out our own way to be relevant/considerate/influential.  

Sadly, we Christians are either afraid to represent our text to the world or have squeezed out all of its power and drama before it gets to those around us.  It doesn't have to be this way, and it doesn't require compromising the texts or sexing up the stories.  When Jesus walked among us, He was the fulfillment, and not a contradiction, of the Scriptures that came before Him - and trust me when I say He was fresh, provocative, and interesting.  Let it be said of 2012 Christians that we were true to our text, and that the text was found to be fresh, provocative, and interesting as well.  

The Refiner Things in Life

The kids and I were on our way home from driving a friend to the airport when Jada remarked at the vastness of the Sunoco oil refinery off the Platt Bridge on the way back to our part of town.  I told her it was a refinery and asked her if she knew what a refinery way.  She said no so I proceeded to tell her, and also used the opportunity for a lesson about God.

Refining oil, I explained, meant heating it at a very high temperature, at which any impurities in it got burned off, leaving only pure oil.  I also told her that the Bible speaks of this process as an analogy of how God sometimes works on us.  There might be times, I told my kids, when God was refining them, and it might hurt, just like a very hot fire, but it was so that any impurities in us got burned away, leaving only our purity behind. 

It was a little too abstract for them, probably, but hopefully the image nestled in their heads before we moved on to the next topic of conversation.  May we all be open to our Great Refiner's work in our lives, not shunning the heat but understanding its role in perfecting us.

Passing the Torch - Thursday, October 4

Dear friend,

Please consider making a contribution to and/or attending The Enterprise Center's annual fundraiser, Passing the Torch, which this year will take place on Thursday, October 4th, from 5:30 pm to 8:00 pm at The Enterprise Center at 4548 Market Street in West Philadelphia. This is a really good event (celebrating wealth creation and "passing the torch" on to the next generation of entrepreneurs) for a really good organization (accelerating minority entrepreneurship through access to capital and to contract opportunities, capacity building, and business education). For more information or to buy a ticket or make a donation, you can go to the event's website: http://7thpassingthetorch.eventbrite.com/.  I may be contacting you directly between now and then to tell you more about this great event.  I hope to see you there!

Lee Huang
The Enterprise Center
Staff, 1995-2005
Board, 2006-present

NFL Predictions: Just as Wrong, But At Least Earlier

Why wait in publishing my 2012-2013 NFL predictions when I won't get a chance to read all the professional prognosticators' words once they come out?  In other words, if my predictions are going to be ill-informed and wrong, they might as well be early.  Enjoy.

NFC W 4-49ers N 1-Packers S 2-Falcons E 3-Cowboys WC 5-Panthers 6-Eagles

AFC W 3-Chargers N 2-Ravens S 4-Titans E 1-Patriots WC 5-Steelers 6-Bills

WC Eagles, Panthers, Chargers, Steelers

Div Packers, Falcons, Patriots, Ravens

SB Packers over Ravens

Crying Over Baseball

Thank you, Doug Glanville, for your insider's perspective on the game of baseball and the sadness that comes from repeated assaults to its integrity.  His recent New York Times article sums up where I am with the game, and while I didn't play it as a career like he did, I share the same boyhood ties and the same disillusionment as its purity has been marred by various forms of cheating. 

(By the way, I completely agree with his line of thinking regarding Pete Rose.  The Hall of Fame is not the Hall of Saints, but neither can the game's highest honor be bestowed on people who did things to fundamentally compromise its authenticity.  Some may wonder how you can be comfortable honoring racists, violent men, and egoists, but not gamblers and PED users, but in my mind it's as Glanville says: the Hall is about the game of baseball, and if you cheat it, you don't deserve to be honored.)

Though my time is scarce so I have less invested in following the game, it still burns in me as the love of my youth.  And it feels colder and colder that the game I once knew with such innocence and grandeur is now marked by scandal after scandal.  In a sense, even worse than each cheater is wondering who the next cheater will be, worrying that it will be someone you idolize, resigning yourself that there is no more sacredness regardless of who is cheating and who isn't, and then trying to figure out if and how you can resolve all of this with your long-cultivated love for the game.

I'm not sure if I prefer this sad reality to looking the other way and naively assuming all is good in Mudville.  But I can tell you for sure that I can no longer look the other way.

New Commuting Patterns

With my new phone comes newfound options for passing the time from when I drop off my kids to when I arrive at my office.  (Which is helpful, since I'm in between a bunch of magazine subscriptions so have less reading material for my commute.)  If you follow me on Twitter, you know I've taken the opportunity some mornings to read (and, in some cases, riff on) tweets in my feed, which is fun and informative. 

Mostly though, I've been grooving to tunes.  It's kind of fun to walk through busy urban sidewalks in the middle of morning and evening rush hour while blaring something in your ear to partially drown out the hum of footsteps, chatter, and construction work. (In case you're wondering, my musical tastes run towards the hip-hop of my youth, like Rakim and NWA.) 

After rolling my eyes at people bopping obliviously from the earbuds dangling from their heads, I've become one of them.  Gasp!

Things That Make Me Happy, the "Eat Your Heart Out, Silicon Valley" Version

This article, about Josh Kopelman moving his First Round Capital offices to University City, makes me so happy on so many levels.  Josh is a 1993 graduate of my alma mater, the Wharton School of Business, and the founder of such notable startups as Infonautics, Half.com, and TurnTide.  Now he's a full-time venture capitalist through First Round, which is located in West Conshohocken but is moving its offices and its space for entrepreneurs to 40th and Locust (just five blocks from my house!). 

While still at Half.com, Josh was kind enough to bring me and my youth entrepreneurship program participants into his office to pitch a business idea he thought my students could run, which was to sell excess inventories of books, CDs, and DVDs through his site.  It was a great experience for the students, in inventory management (having to keep tabs on thousands of items) and online commerce (I joked in the late 1990's that we were one of the few profitable dotcoms).  For lessons, of course, it's hard to beat making money, and my students soon learned that when they were sloppy or slow, it ate into their end-of-month share of the proceeds (I'll never forget the self-policing between the students, such as "hey man, quit slacking; you're eating into my profits!" or "You mislabeled that DVD, so now we have to return it - out of our pocket!").

Josh was very charitable with his time, his team's time, and with various physical resources (an initial pile of items, a bunch of supply management resources like bins and shelving), and continues to do many charitable activities to this day.  But his move to U City, I'm sure, comes from a shrewd awareness that success in his world is about talent.  And where better to locate than in a city (where young talent gravitates nowadays), in Philadelphia (which, in addition to being a big city in its own right, is proximate to NYC and DC as well), and University City no less (Penn, Drexel, Science Center, USP, and the list goes on). 

No disrespect meant to the people and institutions in Silicon Valley, where I'm from, but talent demand may outstrip talent supply, since there are so many tech behemoths and relatively few universities.  Stanford and Berkeley are top-notch, of course, but on the East Coast, there are 10 times more institutions of similar heft within the same proximity.  Might First Round's move to U City eventually lead to Google considering a Philadelphia office?  Might First Round help birth the next Google? 

All I know is that in the world of innovation, clusters of smart people matter, and it's hard to beat U City as a location from that vantage point.  Josh Kopelman has made another smart move.  Big win for Philly and for U City as well.  Big smile for me, too.

Shuffle to Your Local Theater

Passing along another message from my high school friend Kurt Kuenne, whose movie, "Shuffle," is being featured in more and more locations across the US (as well as more and more formats - queue it up on Netflix!).  Check it out! 

PS Yes, that's TJ Thyne in the pic, of "Bones" fame among other credits.  He stars in the movie and is one of Kurt's childhood buddies.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 2:22 PM
Subject: "Shuffle" hits home video in one week!  Screens again in L.A. tomorrow!

Hey Everyone,

Kurt here;  hope you're having a fabulous week!

"Shuffle" is finally being released on home video in North America by Screen Media next week on Tuesday, August 21st! 

The DVD features both the critically-acclaimed black & white version of the movie (my preference) and the color version of the movie (so you can watch either), and also features 50 minutes of new bonus content, including a new 30 minute documentary on the making of the film (shot by documentarian Dan Austin and edited personally by me :) and 20 minutes of video diaries from the award-winning festival run, which I also shot and edited personally.  I'm very pleased with how the whole package has turned out. :)

In the U.S, you can find it almost everywhere DVDs are sold, including:

Amazon.com:    http://amzn.com/B0083K4NIO
Barnes and Noble:  http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dvd-shuffle-tj-thyne/23037223
Best Buy:  http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Shuffle+-+DVD/20276675.p;jsessionid=C9075173C78F4B242729E8365200ABFD.bbolsp-app02-27?id=2474709&skuId=20276675&st=shuffle%20thyne&lp=4&cp=1
Blockbuster:  http://www.blockbuster.com/browse/catalog/movieDetails/537692  (For rent-by-mail or purchase)

It will also be available on iTunes, Xbox, Playstation, Amazon VOD and Cable VOD on inDemand (though I believe all of these streaming versions will be the color version of the film...just so the purists know :).
The remaining Blockbuster video stores will carry it in store for rental, as will most independent rental stores.

Regarding Netflix:

Netflix will only be carrying the DVD if a LOT more people add it to their queue (they base their orders on the number of people who have it in their queue), so please, pretty please add "Shuffle" to your DVD queue right now at the link below, and pass it to everyone you know!  It will really help us out. :)
http://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Shuffle/70242974?trkid=1660

In Canada:

Amazon.ca:  http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0083K4NIO

In Theatres:

"Shuffle" continues to screen in theatres as Gathr, our Theatrical On Demand℠ distributor, continues to line up requested screenings around the country.  Here are the ones presently coming up:

Los Angeles
Tuesday, August 14th, 7:30 PM - TOMORROW NIGHT!
Laemmle's Monica 4-Plex, Santa Monica, CA
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/224
I will be in attendance, as will several members of the cast and crew.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone!

Philadelphia, PA Area
Wednesday, August 22nd, 7 PM
Cinema 16:9 (Fox), Lansdowne, PA
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/299
This screening will only happen if 22 more people purchase tickets by midnight on Wednesday!

West Palm Beach, FL
Wednesday, August 29th, 7:30 PM
Muvico Parisian 20 - West Palm Beach, FL
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/297
This screening will only happen if 45 more tickets are sold by midnight on August 22nd!

Cleveland, OH
Wednesday, September 12th, 7 PM
Cedar Lee Theatre - Cleveland, OH
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/296
This screening will only happen if 49 more tickets are sold by September 10th. 
We are honored that this screening is co-presented by the Cleveland International Film Festival, where I won the Director's Spotlight Award in March.

North Hollywood, CA
Wednesday, September 12th, 7:30 PM
Laemmle's NoHo 7 - North Hollywood, CA
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/301
This screening will only happen if 84 more tickets are sold by midnight on September 2nd.
If this screening tips, I'll be there for Q&A! :)

St. Louis, MO
Thursday, September 13th, 7 PM
Wehrenberg Theatres Des Peres 14 - St. Louis, MO
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/230
This screening will only happen if 57 more tickets are sold by midnight on September 6th.
We are honored that this screening is co-presented by the St. Louis International Film Festival, where "Shuffle" played on Closing Night in November.

Honolulu, HI
Tuesday, September 18th, 7 PM
Ward 16 Theatres - Honolulu, HI
For tickets and details, click here:  http://gathr.us/screening/302
This screening will only happen if 54 more tickets are sold by midnight on September 4th.

Thanks again so much for your support.  Happy August!

All the best,
Kurt

www.shufflethemovie.com
www.facebook.com/shufflethemovie

Sermon Transcript

Here's the transcript from the sermon I gave yesterday at Woodland Presbyterian Church.

***

Reclaiming Love, Obedience, and Worship:

God’s Goodness in the Midst of the Sacrifice of Our Most Cherished Things

Genesis 22:1-19

Hebrews 11:8-19, 39-40

This is my third time preaching in the past year, and of course I’ve been up here a number of other times, to offer a prayer or assist with worship or make an announcement.  And I hope you’ve noticed that when I’m up here, I try very hard not to use too much Christianese. 

I didn’t grow up in the church, and I remember when I was first exploring the faith in my teen years, I was part of a loving and welcoming and encouraging group.  But quite often people would use words or phrases that were incoherent to me.  And those seemingly harmless words and phrases, meant of course in the best possible way, were a reminder that I was still on the outside, looking in, not quite part of this group because I hadn’t yet gotten all the lingo down. 

Of course, becoming a Christian has very little to do with mastering Christian vocabulary.  And so, to this day, I feel strongly that we in the church need to be extra careful not to unknowingly create an unnecessary barrier for those seeking to come into the faith, who may not be as up on how church works, but whose hearts are close to being fully claimed by God. 

All of that said, I want to start my sermon this morning by introducing some heavy Christian terms.  You ready?  OK, today I want to talk about “love,” “obedience,” and “worship.” 

I realize these terms aren’t as intimidating as, say, “propitiation,” “hermeneutics,” or “Christology.”  In fact, “love,” “obedience,” and “worship” are common, everyday words outside of the church. 

But I think that’s precisely why I want to talk about these concepts.  Because while I think we Christians understand that our sense of love, obedience, and worship is different than that of the rest of the world, I don’t think we truly get just how different, just how difficult, and just how transformative these concepts are.

We Christians can tend to look down on the world for watering down these profound concepts.  “Love” has become little more than lust or emotions – just listen to how the word is used in songs on the radio.  “Obedience” is something for dogs or toddlers or servants.  And “worship” is doubly diluted – the objects of worship and the acts of worship are so much more insignificant than what is understood in the Christian worldview. 

We Christians get that love, obedience, and worship are far more profound to us than to the rest of the world.  There’s really no need to say anything more about these concepts, is there?

I would like to argue this morning that we Christians have done far worse than the rest of the world in watering down love, obedience, and worship.  Their gap between understanding what love, obedience, and worship are and how they practice it in their lives is dwarfed by the gaping chasm between what we claim to believe about love, obedience, and worship and how it actually gets lived out in our individual and corporate lives.

So I’d like to challenge us this morning to reclaim love, obedience, and worship, to understand what those terms really, really mean for the Christian, and to live them out accordingly.  And I’d like to do that by looking at the 22^nd chapter of the Book of Genesis, verses 1 to 19. 

[read Genesis 22:1-19]

Some context to this chapter.  Abraham has been called by God, out of his hometown, to take his family to a new place.  He is promised by God that God will bless him immensely, particularly in the best possible way that a man in his time could be blessed, which is with a multitude of descendents.  We don’t know how or how long Abraham weighed this choice – leave everything I know for everything I could ever want – but the Bible does record that he does set out with his family, and that God reaffirms His promise many times during his journey.

But as the years and decades pass by, that promise must have increasingly seemed a cruel joke, as he and his wife Sarah advance in age with nary a child to be borne.  Barrenness, in those days, was an even bitterer pill to swallow than now, since family was everything back then.  I’ve heard it said that greetings back then were never individual greetings but familial ones; you never said, “how are you doing,” for example, but rather “how goes it with you and your family.”  If that’s the case, you can imagine someone starting to greet Abraham and Sarah with a customary greeting, only to stop mid-sentence, realize that what he was going to say didn’t apply to them, and so mumble something awkwardly and pass on by.

Imagine that every encounter on the street is a reminder of your childlessness, and even worse, of a promise God made to you that caused you to leave everything, a promise that does not appear to be able to be fulfilled.  And yet, God does eventually keep His word.  Despite many twists and turns, God continues to assure Abraham and Sarah, and sure enough, Sarah bears a son, Isaac, at the ripe old age of 90.

And then there’s one more twist.  Just one chapter later, God tells Abraham to sacrifice his son on the altar.  Abraham is to sacrifice his own son, the one and only conduit to the fulfillment of God’s promise for a multitude of descendents.  Incredibly, Abraham follows through, takes his son to the altar,

lays him on the altar and readies his knife for the kill. 

Just seconds before Abraham plunges his knife into his son's heart, God provides a ram instead.  “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”

The margins of my Bible at home tell me that the words "love," "obey," and "worship" appear for the first time in the Bible in this passage:

·       Verse 2: “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac.” 

·       Verse 18: In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.” 

·       Verse 5: “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” 

Genesis 22 is, admittedly, pretty early on in the good book.  And yet, if you know your Bibles, you know a lot has happened in those first 21 chapters.  So for these three common words, these three fundamental principles of the Christian faith, to appear for the first time here, all in the same story, it has to mean something, right?

I think what it means is that love, obedience, and worship are inextricably connected to the notion of being able to lay on the altar for sacrifice the most cherished things in our lives, the very things through which God intends to fulfill our wildest dreams. 

Of course, this is not how the world thinks of love, obedience, and worship.  Sadly, it is also not often how we act like they mean.  We may look down on the world for watering down love, obedience, and worship, but look what we have done to those words. 

I can say for myself that my love, my obedience, and my worship are quite removed from this kind of intimacy and commitment and sacrifice and faith.  And I can tell you why.  It’s because I’m selfish, I’m scared, I don’t really believe, and I don’t want to get hurt. 

The tragedy of such an attitude is that, in this very act of selfishly preserving myself, I am actually missing out.   Far from protecting myself from harm, all I’m doing is keeping myself away from good.  Far from protecting myself from losing what is currently valuable to me, all I’m doing is keeping myself from gaining what is eternally valuable to me. 

Think for a moment what is most dear to you.  Would it be hard if God told you to lay it on the altar and kill it?  Could you entrust something you love so much into God’s hands?  Could you trust God enough to obey Him in this way?  Could you see this as an act of worship? 

 If I had to name the things that are most dear to me, it would have to be my health, my career, my relationship with my wife, and my kids’ wellbeing.  I’m fortunate to have had good health so far, but there may come a point in time that my health will fail, and I will have to put that on the altar and trust that God is still good and will take care of me even though my heart or flesh fail. 

All three other things I have had to put on the altar at some point in time.  Right out of business school, I shut the door on other, more lucrative job opportunities and waited for the dim possibility of low-paid employment at a small non-profit here in West Philadelphia.  I wondered if my career was going to die right at its very beginning.  I learned to trust that God had promised and God would provide.  And He did.

I love my wife more than anyone else in the world.  I love her enough to be devastated if I lost her.  And she has had her health issues through the years, including getting cancer.  I wondered in those times if I was going to lose my wife, my only wife, whom I love.  I learned to trust that God had promised and God would provide.  And He did.

For all of the things that consume my thoughts nowadays, worrying over my kids’ future is up at the top of the list.  Both of our kids have struggled with development delays, and both have responded positively to good school environments.  As of today, we do not yet know if Aaron will be able to go to the school down the street, which if you haven’t heard is a very good school, so good that even though we’re supposed to be able to send our kids to it because we live in the neighborhood, we can’t because we didn’t get in line soon enough, and so instead of landing a coveted spot in the kindergarten class that starts next month, we are on the wait-list, beholden to the School District of Philadelphia to tell us which school Aaron will be going to instead.  I wonder if Aaron will be alright at another, not as good school.  I am learning to trust that God has promised and God will provide.  I do not yet know what that means but I believe He will. 

In defining love, obedience, and worship in this way, I must note that at first, it may not seem that God has provided.  The 11^th chapter of the Book of Hebrews famously ends by saying that (verse 39) “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised.”  Abraham lived long enough to see his son of promise, but not long enough to see those promised multitudes of descendents.  In fact, none of the great heroes of the faith mentioned in the 11^th chapter of the Book of Hebrews actually lived long enough to see God provide.

And, of course, sometimes God does not stop the knife; sometimes, God does not provide another ram.  Abraham believed enough to lift his knife above his only son before God provided a ram instead.  But God sacrificed His only Son; there was no last-second alternative, no substitute ram, for the Son was the substitute ram. 

Sometimes, we put our cherished thing on the altar, and the happy outcome isn’t that God sees our faith, preserves our cherished thing, provides a substitute, and rewards our faith.  Sometimes, we put our cherished thing on the altar, and the outcome is that God extinguishes that cherished thing.  And we are left to wonder why.  And we may not live long enough to see God answer.

If you have put something cherished on the altar in obedience to God, and have seen God take that cherished thing away, I have no simple, trite answers for you.  But I do know that this church is good at coming alongside those who bear that kind of pain, and while it is small comfort in exchange for your loss, it is very real comfort, and it is available, and you should avail yourself of it.

In your pain, I want you to understand just what is driving that provision of comfort.  That comfort comes from a group of believersac that believes that the laying on the altar of the only Son of God, and His unjust and grisly death on a cross, was not a repudiation of God’s goodness and provision but the ultimate fulfillment of God’s goodness and provision.  And know how the 11^th chapter of the Book of Hebrew ends: “And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, (verse 40) because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.

In pain and loss, we come together as a church because we know the true meaning of love, obedience, and worship.  While we may not receive what was promised on this side of glory, we can endure because we believe that God has provided something better for us, which is to be made perfect together, where we can experience together perfect love, perfect obedience, and perfect worship. 

This summer, we have been focusing on prayer in our Sunday morning sermons, and I can think of no better thing to pray for, individually and as a church, that we will believe in and live out this kind of love, this kind of obedience, and this kind of worship.  May God be glorified as we move in that direction, and may we believe in His faithful provision enough to lay our cherished things on His altar for Him to do as He will for His glory and our perfection. 

Double Bad News re: Aaron's Kindergarten Situation

I called Penn Alexander yesterday to check in on Aaron's situation.  Two pieces of bad news:

(1) Aaron, who got #6 on the wait-list after all that waiting in January, is still #6 on the wait-list.  In other words, no one who registered for kindergarten and got in has subsequently left.  There is the possibility that people are waiting until the last minute to inform Penn Alexander that they will not be sending their child to kindergarten there, but as of now no one has done so.

(2) The School District may not tell us what school Aaron will be going to until later this month or even early September.  In other words, right before the school year starts. 

On the positive side, they hang on to that wait-list, so if there are students who leave during the school year, they'll start working down the list.  And, importantly, if the whole school year goes by and we're still not in, at least we don't have to get back in line for 1st grade registration.

I also found out that kindergarten doesn't start until September 19 (although parent-teacher conferences are the week before).  So we have a little bit more breathing room than I thought (I had September 13 in my head as first day for kindergarten).

Trying desperately to find peace in God through all this . . .  

One from the Motherland

Two years ago, I still had a dumb phone, and the "3" and "5" button didn't work, it only lasted two calls before the battery died, and when it rang it sounded like a dead duck.  Other than that, it was a great phone.

Two days ago, I still had my first-ever smart phone, a Motorola Backflip that was dinged up and greasy, couldn't access the app store anymore, sometimes wouldn't respond to my repeated attempts to answer it when it rang, and was so slow that I basically gave up using everything except calendar (and backgammon).  Other than that, it was a great phone.

I am now the proud owner of an HTC One X, and now that I've fully synchronized everything, I am rejuvenated.  I had been torn between this phone and the Samsung Galaxy III but decided that the HTC's Taiwanese roots were too hard to pass up.  (That and the fact that AT&T, my phone carrier, discounted the phone to $99 this past weekend.)

Let's hope I get some good mileage out of my new phone.  In the meantime, I also upgraded Amy to the iPhone 4S, so she is having fun having conversations with Siri.  (Am I the last person on earth to find out that Siri is a woman?)

Classroom Experience

Two weekends ago was when I taught my last class of "Quantitative Tools for Consulting" at Fels, and one weekend ago was when I graded final papers and submitted final grades.  I really enjoyed this experience - preparing lessons, dialoguing with students, seeing them "get" things.  I particularly appreciate my students for being eager learners, willing sharers, and insightful articulators of what I could improve.

It was tricky to put all the work in amidst my busy schedule but I managed - although my wife is happy to get me back on Saturday mornings, as well as the Friday evenings I took up grading homeworks and tweaking lectures.  Hopefully, I'll get a chance to teach this class, and other classes, in the future.

Beyond Litmus Tests

I really despise how shallow public discourse has become.  In a society soaked by fast food, instant gratification, and social media, we no longer have meaningful dialogue in which we listen to one another, explore nuances with open minds, and hold our positions humbly and thoughtfully.

Instead, everything has become a litmus test.  We are sorted into categories on the basis of our snap positions on things like abortion or gay marriage, on what we think of Chick-fil-A or what cable news show we watch.  Never mind that the important things in life are too complex for such simplifications.

Sorting people into categories is not new, of course.  There were litmus tests in Jesus' day, and no shortage of arrogant riddlers trying to trip up the popular Nazarene.  Whether He was asked whether taxes should be paid to Caesar or if resurrection was true, all waited for an answer so that half could gloat and half could condemn. 

I take two lessons from Jesus' approach.  First, He had a ready answer that blew through the shallowness of the question and the underlying issue to get at more meaningful things.  Taxes, for example, were a touchstone issue back in the day, paying them symbolizing adherence to an oppressive government and yet shirking them representing a dangerous act of dissent.  Jesus said we should render to Caesar what is Caesar's, and yet to God what is God's.  Taxes, in other words, were less important an offering than the whole of our lives.

Second, His real ministry was in the form of almost constant contact with His followers, even to the point of forsaking opportunities to touch more people.  He blew through towns full of needy people.  He told cryptic stories that left those only cursorily interested in Him confused.  At the peak of His popularity, He set impossibly high ground rules for following Him for the express purpose of reducing the number of people who were following Him.

Sure, He had his sound bite moments, of healing and compassion and storytelling.  But these were always with His closest followers watching Him, and eventually participating with Him.  In other words, Jesus' influence came largely through a "come and be with Me" approach, rather than wooing adherents through catchy sayings and intense one-off experiences. 

We needn't shrink back from litmus tests, nor should we pout when we're not given sufficient time to explain ourselves or when we're put in a box because of where we stand on a particular issue.  Instead, we should follow the example of our Savior, who had a ready answer and who invested in deep, meaningful relationships through which Truth and Love could be lived out.  At a time when it seems it is more important to be seen supporting something meaningful rather than actually supporting something meaningful,

Easy Driving

I recently spent a week with my family at the Poconos.  It was a delightful vacation.  We stayed at a house that is part of a development surrounding Lake Naomi.  We had temporary badges that got us into the beaches, clubhouses, pool club, and community center, and we used the heck out of those badges.

Unlike at our Jersey Shore vacations, where we could walk to the beach and ice cream or at least take a stroll down the street, our Poconos set-up pretty much necessitated that we drive everywhere.  The first morning I did take the kids for a 20-minute walk to the nearest marina, but we decided not to ever repeat that - not because of the distance but because there was no place on the streets to walk, and even though cars were obliging, I didn't want to chance getting clipped by a careless driver.

You might think that for someone like me, who normally shuns the car, this would be uncomfortable.  But it was the opposite.  Driving is easy.  In one week, I tallied 18 different car trips involving 50 total legs (yes, I counted).  This is about two months' worth of driving for me.  And I didn't at all mind hopping in the car each of these times, since it was so easy to plop myself down, throw some stuff in the trunk, and speed off.  No walking, no waiting, no intermediate stops.  And when I gassed up at the end of the trip, I calculated that we had used only about $15 in gas.  (And probably another $12 to $15 each way to get to and from the place.)

In other words, driving is pretty painless and brainless, even to me, the car-hater.  Which means that it is really painless and brainless to most others.  Which means we have way underpriced driving in our minds, relative to the actual costs it imposes on ourselves, others, society, and the environment.  (Don't get me started on all those smug hybrid commercials, in which owners boast about how seldom they have to gas up.  As if the only negative consequence of driving is using up gas and having to fill up.)  Which means we ought to figure out a better way to remind ourselves each time we get in the car as to how pricey that next trip is. 

Lazy Linking, 75th in an Occasional Series

What I liked lately on the Internets:

75.1. Thirty years after Vincent Chin, we have another very light sentence for someone responsible for an Asian American's death.

75.2. Do we really need to teach our kids math?  Um, yeah, if they want to succeed in fashion, music, cars, or, I don't know, life. 

75.3. A young girl gets a nose job to stop the bullying.  So sad on so many levels.

75.4. Hooray! Rather than turning them away in fear of having to share smaller slices of a dwindling pie, cities are looking to woo immigrants as a way to grow the pie.

75.5. What's crazier about the human body: that we go crazy without sleep, or that once we sleep it off we're back to normal?

Poconos Vacation

Just got back from a week in the Poconos with my family and my in-laws.  It was a really good time.  We were blessed with good weather, had lots of water time, and enjoyed each others' company.  We must do this again soon!  Check out highlights and photos from past days at huangkids.blogspot.com.

Will I Do the Right Thing

I had some stimulating back-and-forth with a Facebook friend of mine who read my post last month about the Penn State scandal and was confused as to why I would be so equivocating about what my response would be if I were in the same situation.  My post was poorly worded in that it didn't clearly convey what I was thinking, which was:

(1) While it's obvious what I should do, I wonder what, in the heat of the moment, I would do;

(2) The things these leaders put above these children's welfare (self-preservation, allegiance to a friend, loyalty to a hallowed institution) are not inherently bad things and in fact are inherently good things (they are just bad when they are put ahead of stopping evil from happening), which makes it all the more difficult to reject them in order to do the right thing; and

(3) Because of (1) and (2), and because the stakes can be high, it is therefore useful for me to give my own heart a good hard look to make sure I am ready to do the right thing should the situation arise.

As a follow-up, a few words about (1) above.  We often focus on moral gray areas, in which it is uncertain what is the right thing to do.  I wonder, though, if more often than not there is no doubt at all as to what one should do.  What is in doubt is whether we will actually do that right thing, or if we will hide or delay or forget instead.

We live in a society in which relativism reigns.  Its proponents suggest that it is the better way to peace and love and harmony.  But this is not so if it leads to a culture in which we are unwilling to accept that there are certain moral absolutes, that most ethical dilemmas are in fact not dilemmas at all, and knowing what the right thing to do is obvious.  I am convinced that we will be healthier if, instead of acting as if "I'm OK, you're OK, we're all OK," we are unequivocal about what is absolutely wrong, gird ourselves to actually do what we know we should do, and in doing so keep watch over each other and especially over the most vulnerable among us. 

Approachability

Earlier this week, I was recounting to a friend of mine about a past pastor of mine, who holds a dear place in my heart.  I told my friend that this pastor was supremely gifted in providing personal care in a lot of different kinds of situations, and my friend, remembering that our congregation is very ethnically and socio-economically diverse, brought up that aspect of this pastor's job, that he had to deal with lots of different kinds of people. 

It actually wasn't at all what I had in mind, although that is true: it takes a unique person to be able to be a pastor to people of all colors and classes.  What I had in mind, actually, was that this pastor presents himself in such a humble, genuine, and compassionate way that he opened himself up to being called on by so many people in need, many of whom might not have otherwise opened up but for his approachability.

Including me.  I told my friend that everybody hurts, but unfortunately not many churches and not many pastors are seen as safe places to express those hurts and get real help.  So it was a blessing to our congregation, to our community, and to me personally - I was counseled by this pastor through a very difficult season in my life, and have called on him countless other times when I was troubled - to have a pastor who was in fact a safe place to be broken and to ask for healing.

But even as I give out a little "praise God" yelp in remembrance of my pastor friend, I am discouraged by my previous point.  Everybody hurts, and we in the church know it's our job, even and especially through our own hurts, to administer comfort and healing and hope to others.  And yet, does the average person think to go to church because they are desperate for help? 

You might argue that the average person is dead to his sense of need for help, and you might be right, but let's put that point to the side for a moment.  What I'd like to state is that we as a church - not the building or the corporation but the body of believers - have failed to be that safe place that people think of when they are unraveling and need a place to be messy and get help in getting things worked out.  Not only are we not considered, but I have to think that for many people, church is the last place they'd want to go to.

We have to change this.  Kudos to my pastor friend for advancing the cause of approachability.  Whether it comes natural for us or not, let's all join in as well.