My Dearest

What a whirlwind of a year. Not too long ago, I had just taken my first steps into married life. It has simply been one of the best and most eventful years – building the house, struggling with the world, loving our visitors. My dearest wife is just the loveliest woman I know. She is slow to anger, kind and patient, and who loves Jesus deeply. 

Though her physical constitution is far from strong, it has not held her back from loving and giving the best of her time and energies. The question of mortality is always before us, the subject of suffering and sacrifice is never too far away. Yet she lives so boldly, never pitying herself, and always unabashed about her weaknesses. 

My wife has left such a huge impact on my life, a point I am not always conscious of. After we spend a weekend together as husbands and wives do, and when we go our separate paths for work, I sometimes feel a deep pang of longing for her. As if I lost the ability to question, to think, to ask, and to be curious about the world, because she is always doing these with me. Sometimes I weep uncontrollably because I wish I had given her more affection and attention when I could. Sometimes I fear she’d never make it home to me. 

Some of our most intimate moments happen right before bedtime. Once I put my ear to her chest, and told her I heard her heart beat loudly. She looked at me, a small face wrapped up in the sheets, and said one day that heart would stop beating. That sentence struck me hard. I had never truly grasped that there would be a day when she would not be by my side anymore. 

Every so often when we are cosy and wrapped up under the duvet, her hand searches around, looking for mine. Somehow, my wife delights being with me. She gives me her attention and time, and drops everything when I am in need. Even in anger, she does not treat me coldly, or freeze me out. Instead, she tells me what I did that saddened her. When I feel wronged, she asks for my forgiveness, teaching me that ‘sorry’ is not enough, and that we must put aside our pride and ask for grace. 

My wife has never nagged at me, but she has never been afraid to confront me for wrong and sin. Somehow, some way, she trusts that God can work in me to be more Christ-like, even though this is far less certain than nagging. It could be a book that I happen to read and reflect on, it could be a talk I hear. It could be a couple of days away, or it could take months, perhaps years? She waits for me to grow, and celebrates when I have grown. 

Hungry and seduced through my eyes, I am caught up in the world of appearances, and I see how that leads to idolatry and sadness for her. Yet it hits me especially hard when I see how others view her with the same lens. My mother complains to me that my wife dresses frumpily, which greatly agitates me. For my wife’s beauty and joy is far louder and pleasing than the clothes she wears. She’s an artist who used to care about her external beauty, but who has come to realise how much it harms her soul and the planet. Yes, my wife is an artist, one who refuses to live in the world of appearances. 

I always tell my wife that she’s the brains in this relationship. Not only that, she has always been razor sharp in her understanding of the bible, though being only half a decade old as a Christian. I always had to share and preach to her to get feedback on pedagogy, delivery, and the sharpness of my own talks. Yet she had always encouraged me to lead the family spiritually. 

I had never thought that one could be so changed by a person. I had thought that we are only changed by meditating upon the word of God. That is not wrong, but I had never considered how my wife’s life and behaviour embodies and exhibits the word of God. Not perfectly, but concretely, practically, and emotionally. In my wife I see a glimpse of Jesus, and I see how Jesus informs her behaviour, her emotional reactions and most of all, her worldview. Deliberate and considered, she can account for the biblically-rooted views she has, the positions she takes. She’s not simply a person who was born into a good family and has a sweet temper, for her past history and current life bears marks of God’s grace and intervention. 

I was often told that the most important thing in our twenties was to marry well, and the person you marry can either double or halve your ministry. Through my marriage, though early, I have come to realise the importance of this. I imagine that even if I married someone just slightly different, my greed and love for the world would have led me on a pursuit that would have seen us grow independent and eventually, apart. By God’s incredible grace, I have married someone who has not only more than doubled my ministry, but who has made me think hard about what Christian life and ministry is. 

She is a flower in this beautiful garden that God has likewise planted me in. I too shall grow and shade her, and tend to her. I pray that I can fully appreciate and watch her grow and blossom, before the Gardener plucks her away. 

Signing off,

Fatpine.

Could it be?

The second time I ever held a girl’s hand, everything felt right. There were no alarm bells going off within me, there were no fears that sprang, hidden in my subconscious for years. My world had not closed, there was no dome that separated us from the world. It wasn’t the final fulfilment of a long-held desire. It was unplanned but intentional. It felt quiet and peaceful.

Moments, relations, occurrences like these are wonderful because they are unlooked for, yet are surprising. Serendipitous encounters that spring from little sparks in our hearts, those tiny bulbs that we don’t realise have turned on until we turn to look. It is at times like these that we opine: God works in mysterious ways.

Like two bears twisting and turning heads in a honey pot, nobody realised how the tunings in our hearts gradually shifted; and in first desiring that ethereal honey, we secondarily turn to notice this shared space now only two of us occupy. I was aimless, grieving, last in every respect of the world’s measurement. I was not desperate for human affection, but only thirsting for the security and solace of Jesus.

Yet you came, with the love of Jesus, empathising, caring, inquiring, making sure I was well-kept, well-read, showing me I wasn’t all that alone. I began to see how the dreams I ever wanted I could now have help to accomplish them. To tell the world Jesus loves them, to give to those who are in need, to bless people like myself, people so difficult to love.

I always refrained from the expression: everything feels different this time. And it still holds true. Nothing feels different. Everything feels the same – exactly what it is, exactly what it should be, only more. A heart’s desire for His words, only more. Love for my neighbours, only more. Compassion for the lost, only more. Anticipation for His coming, only more.

Signing off,

Fatpine. 

Vessels of blessing

“You guys look so cute together!” A sister remarked to me last week. It seemed an almost random remark; but somehow she wanted to comment on a friendship I was growing. In her eyes, through the camp, it seemed as if Don and I were inseparable buddies. She then asked if we knew each other before the camp. I said I met Don in the preaching course, but we only had a few conversations together.

I saw that as a great encouragement, I was always looking for an opportunity to know him better, but Don was a very quiet and polite young man, and being somewhat quiet and polite as well, it was difficult. When I knew he was going to camp, I was excited, and tried to tell him about some of the things he could expect. Somehow during the camp, this relationship grew, especially after how I often sought him out to tell him my reflections from the sermons or bible studies. We never made it point to sit together, but somehow we always did.

When we neared the end of the camp, Marc, the in-charge of the preaching course, had a casual chat with us. We spoke about our experiences in the course as well as the camp. He told us this camp would be a great place to continue preaching in the long-term, to hone our skills. I looked at Don and smiled. When I encouraged him a few days earlier with his preaching I had been hearing prior to the camp, I was surprised to hear that he was doubtful of his aptitude and gift. Perhaps he didn’t have that sort of personality, he suggested. But Kevin Deyoung said four types of people come into church every week – the weak, wandering, lost, and lazy. And we cannot always be admonishing people to live radical lives, it really depends on the tone of the text, its intent, and the personality of the speaker as well. I thought to myself that it would be a wonderful thing if both of us could preach together at these camps for years to come.

On the final day we had dinner together and we started talking about relationships and family life. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sensitive enough and pressed for an answer to a question I later realised he wasn’t comfortable with answering. When I finally got home,  I opened the birthday card the campers wrote for me. Don wrote the most. I apologised and told him that we could go rock-climbing some time, since he was really passionate about it. I’m glad he actually asked me out to rock-climb.

When I met Don to climb, he was reading a book on friendship by Vaughn Roberts. Now I always think I know a thing or two about friendship, so we had a conversation about what it meant. I offered that the best friendships were Christ-centered, intentional, non-exclusive, and prayerful upon the word of God. He agreed as well, though lamenting that friendship gets harder to make the older we get. I was surprised to hear that, for he seemed the kind of guy who would have a few very deep and fulfilling friendships. Don and I went rock-climbing twice that week. And both times he stood by giving me instructions, telling me how to move my body, and offered encouragement. He effectively paid to watch me climb. We did four hours or more each time. It sure beat the first time I rock-climbed, when I lasted maybe an hour and a half.

On our last dinner together before he would fly off for a holiday, he mentioned that his friendships often failed to hit the depths he yearned for. I didn’t really know what to say, other than to say that things needn’t be like that, and that I was excited about our friendship. Before he left he handed over his copy of the book on friendship. I look forward to his return, and to serving God together through word ministry.

I still marvel over how friendships are made at times. At a young age, things could often be unspoken, you simply don’t talk about what you are, you do not refer to the thing you are having as ‘a friendship’; but I guess I have this uncanny habit of sounding awkward. I once asked a friend at a relatively early stage, “do you think we could be good friends?” He went on to become one of my closest friends; but I sometimes wonder if there’s a more ‘hollywood-approved’ way of making friends. However, I think more and more, it seems like making good friends is analogous to the process of courtship. We need to be clear about our intentions, pace ourselves, be aware of the others’ sensitivities, be understanding of possible histories and so on. Sure makes things complicated.

In the recent months, I have heard some observe me as being in a perpetual depressive mood, as if there’s a darkness that would not lift. In many ways, that is true; but in many other ways, I was warring against a superficial understanding of God, which begets superficial faith, and thus superficial relationships and friendships. In response to the setbacks, I’ve always been waiting to borrow a phrase. One of my closest friends used it when he failed under similar circumstances, and it stuck with me since, although I rarely borrow from the secular world:

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Samuel Beckett

Amidst the struggles, I’m ever more cognisant and thus ever more thankful of the finished work of Christ on the cross. By his death, do we share in sonship, and the Father also declares of us – this is my son, with whom I am pleased. For this reason as well, Christ-centered friendships are a great blessing that’s beyond the description of words, and it is from among them that strong marriages sprout. But we might still have to see the day when we are by their deathbed, counting ourselves blessed but needing more grace to walk our remaining days. These deaths are not inevitabilities, they are reminders. Reminders that even the best vessels of the Lord are only a shadow and a copy of heavenly things. A reminder of the words of Christ – I will never leave you nor forsake you. Only He can say it and mean it.

Signing off,

Fatpine. 

Journeying with Fletcher

The following post will detail my experiences with a venerated old man Fletcher, and my personal journey through the past five days of camp.

Monday marked the start of a five-day camp, the best one I’ve had so far. I never made it a priority, but it was always lurking at the back of my mind since the first one I attended a year and a half ago. Modelled after the successful camp ministry of E.J.H. Nash, which raised the likes of John Scott, William Taylor, and Dick Lucas, it truly gave me a foretaste of heaven. After further cajoling by my classmate in the preaching class, I finally signed up at a very late hour.

It’s still something that causes a degree of apprehension, after all, I wouldn’t know most of the people. And after the first day, I felt a great degree of weight in my heart. I felt I had tried to hard to answer the question of: who do I want to be? I really didn’t know who I wanted to be in front of a group of people, most of whom were completely new to me. I remember that morning I prayed hard to forget myself, and it was from then on that I could finally enjoy the process of knowing people, and knowing God deeper through them.

Old man Fletcher is a 75-year-old retired minister who had been very active in continuing the ministry of Nash. It was wonderful to see this towering English gentleman come over to join us despite recently having had a knee replaced. Such was the air of gravitas that Jonathan had about him that whenever he spoke, people strained their ears to listen. Yet he always availed himself of the opportunities to be close to the ground, always insisting to help out in whatever way he could.

The first time he began to share to us, it pleased me that he would share his list of must-read books. Jonathan then went on to encourage us from the opening verses in the book of Jude. We are called, beloved, and kept. Echoing the hymn of Cowper – oh how my chief complain is my feebleness in my love for God! Yet we are loved by the Father and kept from stumbling. “We pray that these blessings will follow us all the days of our lives.” – he ended his closing supplication.

At that point of time, tears welled up in my eyes. To hear this from a man of seventy-five was something different. It was not a man encouraging another to hope that our future decades will be a joyful walking in the Lord. No, it was a man who had done much, suffered much, served much and endured much, and one who was gleefully awaiting a return to the Father. He’s saying – just as I have been blessed all the days of my long, good life, may the gracious father bless these men and women as well. I went to bed effusive in my appreciation of Jonathan’s wisdom to anyone who would listen.

There’s a strange thing to these camps. People seemed to have no defences at all. One never needed to work hard or be patient in getting to know another. People just poured their hearts out. As ‘scampers’, we supported the work of the camp leaders as they ministered to young student campers. We washed plates, cooked, served food and cleaned up, we even undertook a massive artistic project for the finale. Through the day, we were preached to thrice, had a bible study, and a final session called the ‘den’, in which old man Fletcher would share something interesting. Yet, there was always time for intimacy.

Once in a while, time would stop for you. And many a time, one question would lead to a serious conversation, causing two people to stop in their tracks and go on talking for a long time. Yet one never felt obliged to get going with tasks. Your coworkers will cover you, and so it was, sharing, speaking, weeping, and praying for one another. People literally propped themselves in a chair next to me and started pouring their hearts out, even though they would be strangers just days ago. Curiously, bashful introductions would gradually lead to hearty laughter and a genuine delight in the company of the other. We would eventually leave one another longing for more glimpses of the other’s smile.

“This camp is very different,” observed one youth I invited, on the penultimate day. He said the people were genuine, the activities were fun, and the word of God struck Him like never before. I watched him grow up; and I had never before seen him take up such an interest in God. A testimony to the living and breathing word of God – and we can never exhaust ourselves from hearing of the redeeming work of Christ on the cross.

We can and all ought to take heart, for Jesus’ glorious transfiguration before the eyes of Peter brings us encouragement. With Peter insisting on his experiences as an eyewitness in 2 Peter, we must take him at his word, or forever consign these stories to myths. He will come again in glory, will he be ashamed of us?

In the following days, I tried my best to know the man who had known Nash, Lucas, and prayed with Stott on his deathbed. I wanted to know his spiritual secrets, and his advice for young men like me. We chatted excitedly about our favourite books, traded prayer requests, and I seemed excited for him in an almost morbid way. It felt as if he was so advanced and so far ahead of me, almost ready to meet the Lord; and I really wanted to know what the air was like up there, of the life of a man close to the finishing line. I guess I really want to die as well.

Whenever Jonathan went on speaking engagements, he would introduce himself as having no wife or children, having never written a book, and having no sense of humour. Yet God will not judge the size or earthly significance of his humble ministry. Jonathan’s aim was always to help people love Jesus more, even if for a day or a week. And he has indeed helped me to yearn so much more for Jesus, and to keep doing so as faithfully as I can for as long as I live.

I will always remember this final day, when, contrary to my best efforts, my new friends discovered that it was my birthday. And as they sprang me a surprise and broke into song, it greatly pleased me to see Jonathan singing to me with a warm, sincere smile.

Ordinary life beckons, but within me there’s renewed vigour. I will likely never see Jonathan again, but it pleases me to know that we both love the same Jesus, and we both are kept by the same Father. Come, O’ Lord Jesus.

Signing off,

Fatpine.

My final lesson on friendships

When relationships rupture, as sometimes they must, it never fails to send me into a darker mood. I think of what I have done wrong, and what I could have done better. I’m rarely content to leave relationships unmended. Yet I realise that despite one’s best interests, human relations are not as straightforward as one would like to think. In other words, it’s not always a matter of mending, because not everyone really wants to mend. That’s the reason why naggers nag, because they can’t see any other reason why their advice falls on deaf ears. Saying “sorry” or “I forgive you” doesn’t always make relationships better, because there’s also a matter of trust, a matter of taste; sometimes some people just leave a bad taste in our mouths, and we may have said “I forgive you”, but we never want to have anything more to do with him or her.

I guess it’s been a week of relational drama, and I’ve heard of broken marriages, irreconciliable relationships, the loss of what once was. Not one of these matters could be resolved with ‘talking it out’, or ‘being honest with one another’. Some people just don’t wish to try anymore, and have no motivation to do so. And it might be much more common than the church might make it out to be. Certainly we can do better than enduring each other’s evil; or constantly having to rein our fists whenever someone comes by. Yes, we shouldn’t be surprised, after all, Paul and Barnabas did have a serious disagreement and parted ways.

If you have been a reader of this blog, you may have seen a subtle but wondrous growth in my mindset on friendships. Right from the outset, I spoke in detached terms of what true friendship meant; yet it was still a rather disingenuous attempt to articulate a portrait of friendship that’s worth holding on to. It was disingenuous because it still retained lofty views of the place of friendship in our life. Along the way, when I began to experience life in Chicago and was liberated from the chains of religion, I was perplexed – I couldn’t yet find words to articulate this friendship that I had experienced. I was pursued and loved intentionally, yet I wasn’t treated as some kind of treasure to be owned and flaunted. Similar themes began to repeat itself throughout the year, as I walked with a cherished friend of mine, who taught me the value of building Christ-centred friendships.

And that’s rare to find, even in the healthiest churches. How often do we find within our own communities, that relations run like a well-oiled machine and people get along with many smiles only for those they know, masking the fact that there is still so much unfamiliarity between people. Individuals within actually are still longing to be truly known, even if others see each other week after week. As the howls of laughter seem to ascend into the skies like the smell of sweet incense, people still feel hollow and almost purposeless, stagnating in a tepid pool if only due to familiarity and a vague sense of home.

And then I realised the value of Christ-centered friendships. It means singling people out to know them, not because I want to be more inclusive and to care for the overlooked – as I was used to – but because I want to encourage them to grow in Christ. It means setting aside tasks that divide us to spend time to care for and to pray for another. It means to invite another to read the bible together so that we can keep each other accountable, and to grow together, and to speak the truth in love. It means asking “how are you?” not in relation to myself, but asking “how are you?” with Christ as our mediator. What a wonderful portrait of love!

Therefore, how you fight, resolve differences, enjoy the best of times together, or end a relationship with another friend speaks volumes about how much you understand the gospel and the power of the cross. It tells you a lot about the basis of the relationship, which often defaults to how much we like an individual as a person. And, when the answer is, “no, I don’t like him very much”, then we close our hearts to ever loving him in Christ. In fact, we make the most insulting concession: we’re not friends, but we are still siblings in Christ. Perhaps in doing so, we are allowing sin to do what it does best – to wreck relationships, to alienate ourselves from God, and others as well.

If things are too complicated, I truly have no wisdom for solving it. Sometimes, it may take a miraculous turn of events, or an unanticipated change of heart. But if there’s anything I can say from what I have learnt, it’s this: try our best with relationships we have made hitherto, but moving forward, start all relationships with Christ at the centre. The difference between this and our usual friendships is that too often we begin with or are motivated by our own fancies. And when you put two people together, then there’s a lot of room for things to go wrong. When our relations with our brothers and sisters in Christ are primarily based on how much we like them as people, then we may enjoy their company and personhood too much that it becomes weird to say: I’ll pray for you, or, how are you doing in your walk with God? Or, do you think that’s loving? Sadly, God often seems to be the last resort, when we have no more cards to deal, and when we are at our wits end.

Christ-centered friendships almost have a detached nature to it. Yet it is wholly life giving. Why? Because we are certain that how we help each other and be with each other is by turning each other to Him. How we love each other is not merely by buying gifts or by surprising others – often so that they would like us better; it’s by placing a portrait of the cross between us, so that we are reminded to love each other sacrificially. Therefore, such friendships recognize the other as a blessing from the Lord, and not the Lord himself. After so many years of friend making, there indeed isn’t anything more comforting than hearing someone say, “I’ll pray for you,” and knowing that the person will. Such friendships do not have possession of the other as an end goal, it is a giving relationship that empowers us; it requires us to continually testify to what God has done in our lives, to tell others what He means to us.

And it extends to romantic relationships as well. The first time I read Francis and Lisa Chan’s book on marriage, I was so blown away by how little it seemed to revolve around the wonderful union between two people. In fact, it was constantly encouraging individuals to point their partners towards Christ – helping the other be good with God. That is why I think the most loving thing we can do is not to merely be a pillar for our spouse to cling to us at their time of greatest need; but rather to help them meet their greatest need for God. As Segal says, “we have to ask if we want to marry this person mainly because we want God, or if God is more of a distant relative in this dating relationship.”

Over the past year, having been saturated with such biblical views and examples of relationships and friendships, and with good preaching of the bible in general, I noticed something different in myself. For the first time in my life, I believed that I didn’t necessarily need to be completely known by another person; and that meant that I was finally content with singlehood, truly seeing it as a gift. I finally understood what Paul meant, and how all my deepest needs could only be met in Christ, and in this I could enjoy undivided devotion to the Lord. I no longer hungrily panted for friends or a person to walk with me for life, but for living streams of water. Although, it remains an active struggle, and will be so till I return home for good.

My dearest Andrew and Tom, how much I miss our times together playing, eating, praying, reading. This fellowship made up some of my fondest memories of Chicago. I’m eternally grateful that you guys were willing to bare yours souls to me, and to have me in your prayers and thoughts. Ever and anon we walked that path to and from the pool, our hearty laughters echoing through the serious hallways, softening darkness with gaiety. Once a week, in the evening, I would walk past the great amber windows and the cold shadowy towers, to find my heart warmed with the sight of both of you among others, feasting on brownies and the opened word of God. Thank you for pursuing me with intention, yet freeing me to love and serve others, all I needed every week was just an acknowledging nod from afar, or a wide smile of familiarity – it seemed that we always knew what we were doing, and what we needed to do. Truly, Christ was the foundation of this friendship, so shall we strive to abide in Him, and to keep telling of what He has done for us. I love you two so dearly! 

Signing off,

Fatpine. 

 

The bind of trust

I was recently troubled by how I let down a ghost friend. I had done something I thought to be innocent, but had been interpreted as a betrayal of trust. Even though our issues were resolved, I couldn’t help but stare at the screen of our conversation for a better part of an hour, not necessarily because of the severity of the infraction, but that it wasn’t the first time it occured, and that I hadn’t learnt my lesson from previous experiences. It made me think hard about my highfalutin writings about friendship and how they all didn’t even make sense when it came to being a true friend.

Like I said, it wasn’t the first time. The typical transgression would look like this: ghost friend says something that implies a conflict with a good friend. When I speak to good friend, this issue surfaces, and I see it as an opportunity to reconcile both ghost friend and good friend to some version of the truth. At the end of the day, no one really knows the truth, it really is distorted and all parties are unhappy. But why? Wasn’t I just trying to help? Wasn’t I doing my best to reconcile people and to make all parties happy?

And so, I guess I never learnt my lesson. I thought the breach was just about keeping secrets, that I had failed to keep my mouth shut and my lips tight about something I was told not to speak of. The old me then tried to figure things out – some things are also secrets even though my ghost friend doesn’t say: hey, keep this a secret. And so I later sometimes asked – is this a secret? Or, on some occasions, my ghost friend(s) would be sure to add, “don’t let anyone know about this.”

Now I’m not here to debate the morality of the things they tell me – whether it’s gossip or secrets that I shouldn’t know about. There are indeed some things that I shouldn’t know about, but that’s for another day. I’m here to impress upon myself what it means to be a close friend to another, and to sketch out some of the metaphysical things that happen in even the simplest of deep friendships that I never realised.

The most important thing to grasp about a friendship is that, apart from our commitment to God, it will require of us our greatest efforts and commitment. If friendship requires almost all of us (I also include the most intense and exclusive friendship between the husband and the wife), then it must entail a greater commitment than that to our own selves. If that is true, then it follows that friendship is even greater than our personal mores and ideals (again, assuming these ideals are not displeasing to God).

Now, I have always prided myself in being a truthful and authentic person. I personally find much value in the truth and saying truthful things, to bring things out into the light, even if it sometimes meant confronting another. After some conflicts, I later made revisions to this belief to balance truth with timing; that is, to say the right thing at the right time. But now, I’ve come to a different position: trust over truth.

Again, I don’t mean gospel truth. I mean truth of the matter, the truth as we know it. Metaphysically, when a close friend says something to you, it binds you to them, and only them. Sure, they may have said the same things to another, but little of what has been said to you can or should ever be relayed to another, even if one thinks that this is in the “best interests” of whosoever. Friendship of this ilk, then, is like an oath. And such an oath binds us to a performance that must be higher than our love for our ideals itself.

As a result, one must learn to feel honour to learn anything at all of our friend, for even in revealing their worst thoughts of something or someone is a willingness to open their hearts to you. This is different from the empty and baseless talk of gossip. There is a trust that is vested in you that must be more valuable than our personal ideals. If then, we think our ideals too high to give up, we must necessarily lose such a friend. The focus is thus not on the content of their speech, but on the act of speaking or confiding itself – from the smallest to the biggest news, they all are acts of entrusting. And this trust that is vested must be protected to the best of our human abilities.

To circle around in defence and say, “I did it for your own good,” is to be disingenuous, and this elevates the self above the friend. In this elevation, one is placed above another, dissolving the very notion of friendship itself: we can never befriend someone who will not consider us their equal. That is why we rarely befriend teachers or our superiors; and that’s why we can call Jesus our friend. If we truly mean it for their good, any confrontation must come right at the moment of utterance: “I’m sorry but I cannot let this go by.” Once the moment has passed, the speech is sealed and ought not be broken. At least, this is the expectation.

Does that mean that we must always foolishly listen and not act? Well no. Not without consciously knowing and accepting the risks anyway. If there must be something that is done against the wishes of our friend, something that we know that can only help, then we must be prepared to lose that friendship. After all, if we know our friend is sinning against another but will not allow us to intervene, our fear of God must necessitate action, or we too sin. This in itself must be a personal choice too, one that is no different from, “I did it for your own good.” We cannot blame God. Yet, at the same time, we must commit it knowing that we might well lose that friend.

Therefore, when close friends tell you something, they are simply doing that – telling you something. They are not asking for your help, they are not empowering you with options. It does not become information or “truth” or “fact” that you can use at your disposal. Rather, they are depositing something valuable into you. They are entrusting a bit of their heart to you, even if it makes no sense with your world, even if it doesn’t cohere with your ideals. They are disjointed jigsaw puzzles that they put into you – never meant to be pieced together as a whole by you. Our knowledge of what we have heard or known cannot be seen as an inventory of everything mentioned to us – things Andrew says to me appear only when I see Andrew, and they must disappear when I see Robert. Likewise, things Robert says to me only exist when Robert is around. There is no neutral shared information that we piece together in our minds as a whole. In fact, we must resist piecing anything together at all.

It is thus not a matter of hierarchy, of which friend we value over another. It’s a matter of my personal relationship with Andrew and my unrelated personal relationship with Robert. The three of us might well be good friends, but the things that Andrew says to me in the absence of Robert are still only the things he says to me. That is to say that our triadic friendship is unrelated to our dyadic relationship. I cannot be expected to believe that what Andrew told me, Robert will also know; or that what I’m doing is merely “updating” Robert of something Andrew would’ve told Robert anyway. When we are told something, we must then be individually binded to them no matter how difficult it feels or how insincere we will appear when the same issue arises with someone else. Again, it’s not about the content that we are protecting, but the act of confiding itself. I might be speaking the obvious; I’m sure you already knew. But I’m just still learning about human interactions..

Singing off,

Fatpine. 

Friendship of the highest order

When I was much younger, I often had a little question in my mind after watching the Return of the King. Frodo had just endured this arduous half year journey with Sam. They faced considerable conflict, a falling out, and then, reconciliation. Hobbits surely aren’t the most elegant and cool of Middle-Earth species’, and it must almost be like Frodo and Sam are fellow country bumpkins in a world far too huge and far too sophisticated for them. Yet, at the end of all things, when all was done and the ring was destroyed, why did Frodo reserve his fondest gaze for the last character that appeared at his bedside – Sam?

We all appreciate very different things in the Lord of the Rings story. As a young boy who looked for some sense and purpose in the world – Gandalf’s loyalty, perseverance, wisdom, and leadership appealed to me. After all, those were dark times, and evil was always somewhere around the corner. Some others appreciated the  steel of Aragorn that was veiled behind his reticent exterior. Always ready to summon courage in the most dire moments, Aragorn always rose to command with moral authority, not as a king in authority.

Once in a while, someone would somehow tell me that a hobbit would be their favourite character. “Sam’s my favourite,” they say, because he really carried Frodo through the darkest moments as a true friend. Fair enough. But really, Frodo? After venturing out of the Shire for the first time in your life, getting the opportunity to see wizards in action, the descendant of an esteemed royal line, elves that could make killing look so elegant, and you wake up wanting nothing more than to hang out with the guy you endured six months of hell with?

Maybe I didn’t really understand how deep their friendship was at that time. Maybe at that time, I, like many others out there, always felt the need to make friends with cool people. Maybe in my teenage years trying to find an identity, it was more important to demonstrate our friendships than to be part of friendships. Therefore, demonstrate that you count the king of Gondor as your friend, or a wizard who fell a Balrog, and even an elven prince and a wealthy dwarf. Let it be known that you fellowship with these characters, which surely must make you special.

It’s no different from a kid wanting to be seen with older friends, or to demonstrate cross-cultural friendship – they all say something about our value, a value that transcends age, culture, species even. But in doing so, I missed out on an important part of the story; and only by revisiting it in this way, could I finally understand why Frodo really only wanted to be with Sam.

You see, Sam had given his all for Frodo not because he was tasked to do so by Gandalf. We already saw that by the end of the breaking of the fellowship, where Sam stubbornly walked out to attempt to get onto Frodo’s boat when Frodo attempted to complete the mission alone – in spite of the fact that Sam did not know how to swim. Sam saw his friendship with Frodo as duty he had to fulfill. Most tellingly, Sam had demonstrated his love and friendship for Frodo in spite of the power of the ring. And this was something I think only Frodo understood.

Sam: “I made a promise, Mister Frodo. A promise! ‘Don’t you leave him Samwise Gamgee.’ And I don’t mean to! I don’t mean to.”

Having been the sole bearer of the ring since Bilbo left it to him, Frodo had become well-accustomed to its evil power licking at the edges of his heart. Even though he was walking towards Mount Doom with the purpose of destroying it, deep in his heart, he probably had no idea at all how he could ever envision a day without the ring – for it had been surreptitiously seducing him. In other words, it was the most paradoxical and emotionally complex relationship – much like a guy who continues to enjoy intimacy with a girl but knows that he never intends to marry her: every further step into her heart draws him deeper, but he cannot resist the passions of the moment, the feeling of being adored. He walks towards both marriage and heartbreak. I wonder if Frodo knew in his heart that he would never survive the destruction of the ring: they either perish together, or not perish at all.

And it’s precisely because he understood the draw of the ring, that Frodo saw the true character of Sam, and true value of their friendship. Sam sacrificed for Frodo not as a mere friend, or a comrade looking to finish an onerous mission. Sam sacrificed for Frodo in spite of the ring. In spite of the way that the ring had changed him, causing Frodo to reject and banish Sam, and in spite of the seductive draw of the ring to Sam himself, Sam always came back be his side, because he really loved Frodo.

“unselfishness is only possible by means of discipline, of warfare with selfish desires. The highest bond of friendship is forged in the fire of discipline, and it is true to experience to say that the greater the cost of the forging, the greater will be the friendship.”

R. Somerset Ward

A friendship of the highest order will not be forged just be being a mere listener, a mere sycophant, one who celebrates happy moments and pats your back when you are down. A friendship of the highest order requires effort and discipline – a disciplining of our bodies, our thoughts, our desires. Sam indeed warred with every possible selfish desire in his heart; but he was so determined in his love for Frodo that he could finally say: it’s not a friend I need, it’s a friend I want to be. A friendship of the highest order must be able to look at the turned back and still say: I’m going to be here for you, even if you aren’t. Such a friendship sees duty to others as being more important than one’s own demands.

It is possible, maybe, that those that love you the most are not the ones always featured in your photos, inboxes, gifts, or cards. It may be that they are the ones that never get long “tributes” as “unsung heroes” in our personal lives, probably because they don’t need it. It may not be someone you see often, someone you hang out with often, or share laughters with the most. Your friend may not even be someone you like. Maybe in your head, you think that you’re a great friend people should cherish. If so, then you’re mistaken. If we are to learn anything from Sam, friendship must always start with being, rather than having, loving, rather than desiring, giving over wanting, duty over rights. And don’t be mistaken, it’s not some lofty ideal of some friendship that few have; to be a friend must require so much struggling, rejection, tears, and disciplining. How difficult it is, indeed, to be a friend.

Signing off,

Fatpine.