Real Life Christianity

The link came sometime last Thursday with email instructions from Phil to let him know what I thought of the idea.

His friends would be visiting this weekend from New York and one of them had sent the email, alerting us about the newest fad in spa pedicures. Apparently, a salon in Alexandria, VA had just been featured in the New York Times for offering a “doctor fish pedicure.” By the time I got the link, beauty blogs were already raving about the experience and Diane Sawyer had hailed it as feeling like “tiny, delicate kisses” on Good Morning America.

So, on Sunday morning at 10 a.m., Phil, Josh, Ting, Danny, and I walked into Yvonne Nails and Tanning to decide for ourselves.

I’ve always been a proponent of trying anything (OK, almost anything) at least once, so into side by side tanks Ting’s and my feet went. Tiny silver fish swarmed our toes in a display more analogous to crabs scavenging detritus than a therapeutic beauty regimen. While I slowly lost feeling in what felt like gentle tickling turned prickly numbing, the men stood by dutifully photographing the experience.

(Special thanks to Philip Bacchus and Joshua Li for the photographs provided in this blog.)

“I can’t believe people pay money for this!,” Phil commented.

He’s an avid scuba diver and snorkeler and spends a considerable amount of his vacation time in the warm, tropical waters of St. Vincent (where our families are from). Swimming with gentle, beautiful fish who playfully take a nibble is an occurrence Phil is used to. I grew up in South Florida, but by the time I was in high school, I understood the fearful realities of undercurrents, seaweed, and invisible sea creatures. I was definitely not fond of anything besides water touching me while swimming. The only finned creatures likely to take a little nibble in Florida are sharks.

Isaiah 11:6 says that one day, the “wolf will lie down with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and yearling together.” I’m looking forward to a world where experiencing the feeling of friendly fish won’t be a novelty priced by quarter hour increments. Peace and harmony among all of God’s living creatures will be gloriously commonplace. It will be only natural that we want to cuddle with cobras (Isaiah 11:8) and lie with leopards (Isaiah 11:6). And, as Phil pointed out, we can save our $50 too.

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In general, I’ve gotten a bad rap for being a “bad liberal” in the Adventist church. I have been known to guide wayward youth to their demise by telling them blatant untruths…such as, kissing before marriage is not a sin. I believe that homosexuality is no worse than other infractions on the eternal gauge of naughty and nice. And, worst of all, I actually talk about topics like sex, dating, and abstinence openly. The nerve, really.

If you’re wondering if my wholesome West Indian family is shocked or embarrassed, I assure you that they are both. They brought me up right—with fear and trembling and an implicit understanding that certain things are not talked to be talked about. Then, I went and started hosting relationship advice seminars using the “s-e-x” word in the sanctuary and causing the holy angels in heaven to turn away from my sad, disrespectful ways.

So, imagine my shock and concern that I am somehow being labeled as a staunch, conservative Adventist over on the Adventist Today blog. Someone even called me a Pharisee. Me! The twenty something sex and dating blogger who is supposed to be the liberal voice of young people everywhere!

If you’re wondering what happened, I’ll just admit to being brazen and misguided enough to use the Bible as my basis for the guidance I am providing. I know, you almost had to close your web browser in shame.

If you’d like to weigh in on what is becoming an incendiary discussion about pre-martial virginity in modern culture, head over to Adventist Today! You can also add your comments to Pastor Russell’s thought-provoking “Peculiar Institution” article and sign the petition to abolish race-based conferences. If you comment on either, don’t be afraid to defend our bad liberal personas. Mine was sort of growing on me. (My newest blog, In Defense of Single Parenthood, will be posted on Thursday.)

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As the flight attendant passed my aisle, I made eye contact for the first time since boarding an hour earlier.

“Can I have some more napkins, please?,” I asked, between small gasps unsuccessfully controlling the hot tears dripping onto the open Bible in front of me.

A small pile of soaked tissues had already accumulated on the fifth book of Matthew and now, tiny salty stains were forming from the unbridled stream of tears. Without comment, the flight attendant returned a few minutes later with four napkins in hand.

I had forced myself to wait until I was at least on the plane to have a breakdown. I mean, nobody likes to be that random stranger weeping in the airport. In the darkened cabin of the night flight back to Washington, DC, though, I felt secure in relieving the hurt welling up inside of me.

The hour preceding my flight had been spent at the gate in (phone) conversation with a romantic interest who had just returned from the Caribbean. In an ill-intentioned attempt to misalign my character (for reasons not worth discussing here), his uncle had stood before four generations of his family to offer advice to the nieces and nephews (of whom my friend is one of) at a large, family function. His pithy and profound directive was not to date anyone from a broken home…like me. If it sounds random and confusing, I assure you that it probably was. Except when placed in context.

Like most children of divorced parents, thirteen years after the fact, the character of who I am, who I will be, and the kind of wife I may potentially make is often concentrated down to a single event between the two people who gave me life, and of which, I had absolutely no part of. My education, personal accomplishments, and spirituality are masked by presumptions about my obviously innate emotional instabilities…based only on the fact that my parents are divorced. It is discouraging, disheartening, and blatantly unfair.

Matthew 5 reminds us that there will come a time when all of us will be insulted, persecuted, and accused of all sorts of false evils because of who we are–Christians (verse 11). Matthew 5:11 says to rejoice in spite of our hurting, though, and Psalm 37 encourages us over and over again not to “fret” about “wicked plots against the righteous” because it leads only to evil. Psalm 37:28 says, “They [God’s faithful ones] will be protected forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.”

I wish that discrimination based on idle gossip and factors outside of our control was an occurrence exclusive only to me, but it is an event that plagues all of us. Sometimes it’s nearly effortless to dismiss ignorant and misinformed people. Other times, we realize that we have never truly healed from our pain and find ourselves fighting battles we already thought we won.

In light of this week’s events, I would be remiss to not encourage all the single parents (and of course, other singles!) to treat themselves to the A.S.A.M. (Adventist Single Adult Ministries) weekend that will be presented next week right here at Miracle Temple! The cost is only $15 for lunch. We are inexpressibly proud of who you are and who you have made us.

This week, you can also hop on over to Adventist Today, where my relationship advice blog on Wednesday will be titled, In Defense of Single Parenthood (sorry, I got a little riled up this week!). More importantly, our own Pastor Fredrick Russell is gracing the cover of the July issue with his (thought-provoking and on point!) commentary, “Peculiar Institution” about segregation in the church.

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It was just after 11:30 p.m. and Phil, his cousin Lee, and I had just gorged ourselves on an amazing Mexican feast prepared by our hosts, Vishaan and Sophia.  We had finished nibbling on cake, sipped chai, and were preparing to leave when it happened.

“Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!”

Five successive shots shattered the quiet of the private neighborhood, leaving our hosts as dumbfounded as we were.  

“Were those gun shots?,” someone asked.

Vishaan quickly flipped the lights off and we scrambled into the safety of the kitchen—away from the exposed windows where the shots had been fired only a few feet away.  Vishaan called 911.  

Within five minutes, police cars were in the neighborhood—cruising past the upscale facades shrouded in darkness.  They stopped in front of Vishaan and Sophia’s house, where Lee’s tricked out Mitsubishi was parked. 

“Why are they looking at my car!  Did it get shot?  No, they are NOT running my plates!  Why am I getting stereotyped!,” Lee protested loudly. 

Lee peered through a small window in the foyer, giving us a running commentary as the police took their time hovering over his car.  The longer they took, the more agitated he got.  They obviously presumed that his car was related to whatever had just happened.  His out of state tags were conspicuous, though, as were his rims and model of his car.

“Tomorrow we’ll go and get you some new rims,” Vishaan instructed.  “You can’t have those black ones anymore,” he told Lee. 

It was definitely unfair that Lee’s car had been singled out, but as the only suspicious looking car on the block, he couldn’t help but be marked by the police.  Lee is smart, wholesome, and not even remotely involved in gang activities, but the appearance of his car suggested otherwise—especially in the context of the evening.

We all have characteristics about ourselves that communicate who we are and what we believe.  Hopefully, our dress, language, and behavior speak positively about us, but like with Lee’s car, sometimes we inadvertently misrepresent ourselves. 

As Christians, John 13:35 reminds us, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  Our commission to show Christ through our love to others is only intensified by the knowledge that another mark, spoken of in Revelation 13:16-17, is coming soon. The mark of the beast will usher in the second coming of Christ, but not before many are deceived by it.  Unlike the action of love, the mark of the beast will not denote followers of Christ, but sycophants of the beast (Revelation 13).  

Every day, we are unconsciously witnessing to those searching for God by what we say and do.  What are your marks saying about you and the God you represent?

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The stifling heat of the day was just starting to dissipate when we passed him. I was walking to Kramerbooks in Dupont Circle after dinner with my friend and his cousin.

Shaking his extended paper cup so that the coins inside rattled loudly, a panhandler in front of the bookstore’s façade entreated us,

“Got any spare change?”

I rarely give money to panhandlers, preferring to offer food. Luckily for the man on the corner, I just happened to be carrying the leftover half of my vegetarian kway teow from Raku.

“Are you hungry?,” I asked, in response.

“Yes!,” he answered eagerly.

It was the precise moment at which he answered in the affirmative, however, that he gauged my intentions. Eyeing the plastic bag in my hand, he quickly followed with,

“But I don’t eat just anything! What is it?”

My friend, Phil, started laughing. I was speechless.

Admittedly, there are panhandlers who are visibly disappointed to receive dinner in lieu of a worn dollar bill. More than once, though, I have witnessed gratitude sometimes so ravenous that the contents of a styrofoam container are devoured before my eyes.

The Kramerbooks beggar ignored us as we passed, however. He was content to continue panhandling rather than consuming the leftovers of a random diner in a flowered sundress.

The question, “are you hungry?,” is a powerful one—especially in our Christian experience. We are encouraged us in Matthew 5:6 to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness and then, promised we will be filled. Using the word, “hunger,” in this verse implies that we should be longing often and powerfully. After all, when we stop eating food, the desire for it only intensifies before becoming painful and eventually, life-threatening.

Hungering for righteousness is no different.

I was surprised by the beggar in Dupont Circle yesterday, but his response to “are you hungry?” was what ours should be too. The story of the woman at the well in John 4 reminds us that not just anything can fill the need we have for Christ. We too have to be beggars who are choosy about what we eat.

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