The Reunion--2009

"So, what did you guys do in Seremban?" my dad asked.

I don't really know. Too many things, it would seem. Surprising that so much life could be squeezed into (or out of) just two days together. We visited the istana lama Seri Menanti. It's not very grand or elaborate, except for its mortise and tenon woodwork and wood-tiled roof. A very concise palace, with chambers that are just large enough to hold court. The balai berundang, where the king and his advisors would hold council, is scarcely the size of an average master bedroom. I was impressed. The irrational nationalist in me took this as evidence that the feudal system in the Minangkabau region was fairer than that in Europe, in that the royalty did not seem to draw massive profits at the expense of its people...but on second thought, it'd take far more rigorous digging to prove a hypothesis like that.



We also spent the evening talking about our lives, and what we've been through since the last time we saw each other (I mean saw each other and really talked, which was about two years ago). And gathering the threads of each person's story, I realise just how much growing up we've had to do in these past two years. Growing up in the sense that we've had to learn to deal with loss, with failure, doubt, and with current decisions and their future consequences. In a different sense, it's been a struggle to not become grown up, like the grown ups I never admired for being bitter and self-righteous and who seemed to always think they were right simply because it was unthinkable to be grown up and wrong at the same time. The toughest lesson I've had to learn this year is that God does walk with us through all the horrible things we go through. It's often easier to blame ourselves, blame others, or blame God and then decide that we have nothing to do with Him. It's much harder to blame God and deal with what comes out of that. Because it's a relationship that just won't go away. That's a very tough lesson, the kind that took Job and his buddies took about 40-odd chapters to learn.

At the end of my 42 chapters, will I be a hardened self-righteous cynic like Bildad, or a stupefied and awed Job? I do not want to live in the kind of grown up world where relationships mean nothing besides work done and salaries paid, something sold and something paid for at the supermarket with nothing more than a blink of the eye to mark the exchange. Society has developed, society has progressed, but to what end? This wasn't the world I ordered over ebay. I just woke up to it one morning. Alas, the world is not made to order. There're always grown ups to deal with. And the grown up inside us, who're the most insidious of all.
















I'm glad to be a child of God.
I don't think there's any other
way to stay a child in this world.