R.I.P. Grandpa

I still can’t really believe I’m writing this now…things always happen so suddenly.

My grandpa passed away today after battling colon cancer for over two years. Although I only knew him from a handful of visits during my youth and during visits to Malaysia these past few summers, he holds a special place in my heart.

Some snippets remembering who he was:

• He was a sailor that traveled around the world
• He was a hardworking shopkeeper that ran a coffee shop called 三美 and supported his family through years of toil
• He loved to drink Johnnie Walker whiskey and Guiness Extra Stout
• He liked to keep up on current events by reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass

To be continued…

Weddings

Last week was wedding-filled, with Lars+Bethany last Sunday and Jess+Antony this past Saturday.

Congrats to you all!

(Click for full set)

(Click for full set)

On loving others

At home group we’ve been going through the parts of Coast Vineyard’s vision — loving God, loving others, and loving the world.  This week we looked at loving others.  I think ‘loving others’ can sometimes be just a very feel-good, cognitive concept. But what does it look like practically?

I came across this verse the other day:

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.  But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do. (James 2:14)

These verses talk about actions in relation to faith.  I feel that love and actions go hand-in-hand as well.  It’s easy to think or say stuff about love but without doing they just remain as thoughts and ideas that don’t have much power on their own.

Onto a related subject: giving.  I feel like I can give when I have the means…and conversely I withhold giving when I feel like I can’t possibly meet that need.  For example, I get a ton of stuff from WorldVision.  I really like what they do (and that 86% of their revenue goes to actual programs), but sometimes I feel like I have nothing to give.  Because I feel like I can’t give financially, any capacity to emote or express compassion is also stifled.
Another example.  I recently heard a friend of mine is going through some crazy health stuff.  During times like these it’s hard to feel I have enough faith to pray and ask for healing, and I’m at a loss because I can’t really do much else than offer well-wishes.

This applies to the way I love too.  I think I often think of it as a financial metaphor, as a kind of commodity.  Don Miller has some interesting thoughts on this from Blue Like Jazz:

Mr. Spencer then asked us about another area in which he felt metaphors cause trouble. He asked us to consider relationships. What metaphors do we use when we think of relationships? We value people, I shouted out. Yes, he said, and wrote it on his little white board. We invest in people, another person added. And soon enough we had an entire white board of economic metaphor. Relationships could be bankrupt, we said. People are priceless, we said. All economic metaphor. I was taken aback.

…the problem with Christian culture is we think of love as a commodity.  We use it like money.

So I suppose the challenge is…to break away from the mindset that we only have so much love to give, that it will run out.  I know that if I try to love people out of my own self and willpower I’ll burn out.  But there’s a freedom and empowerment to love freely as we’ve been loved first.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
…
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

We love because he first loved us.  If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

(1 John 4:7-19)