THE GREAT WALL

Ma RenBo R.I.P (November 14, 2009)

Ma Renbo top right

Keep the repose of the soul of Ma Renbo and the welfare of his friends in your prayers. There are a lot of heart-broken students here.

Ma Renbo's Condition Remains Unchanged...More Snow in Jilin

From the office this morning

Campus scene

More snow predicted for the weekend

A Winter Wonderland in Jilin City

"Everything that emancipates the spirit without giving us control over ourselves is harmful." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

 

Another school week has come to an end here at Jilin Medical College and it  is going out with a snowy escort. It started snowing around lunchtime and it is still coming down as I post this blog. 

 

The freshmen who come from the south of China are loving this snowfall and there must have been at least 400 of them outside taking pictures and having snowball fights when I walked home a little while ago. 

 

We got some sad news last night. Ma Renbo, one of the street boys was hit by a car last night and is on life-support at our affiliated hospital now. The situation doesn’t look good, so please join me and others here in praying for Ma Renbo. 

 

I have a busy weekend lined up. I’ll be in and out of the office tomorrow and out of town on Sunday. That might change depending on Ma Renbo’s condition. 

 

Classes are going well. I once again have been blessed with a great group of freshmen and we are hitting it off really well. They are starting to plan for the big Freshmen Christmas Party already and I have a feeling that this will be one to remember for sure! 

 

Because of the swine flu the students are for the most part still confined to campus. They are allowed to leave the campus for short periods of time at different times during the week to purchase some needed things. Needless to say the kids are going crazy with the restrictions, which are apparently working as we have so far not had any big problem on campus. A NY Times article that I read the other day pointed out that China’s strict response at the earliest stages may be paying dividends now in terms of swine flu cases. No one here really knows how many cases of swine flu there have been in the city, as they are unable to test everyone. A good friend told me the government assumes 80 percent of people who are complaining of flu symptoms do indeed have the swine flu. 

 

Jilin City high schools, middle schools and primary schools have not had the same luck and quite a few have been closed at different times over the past few weeks due to outbreaks of the flu in their student populations. 

 

I talked to Mom and Dad this morning and they said that my oldest sister, Gayle, my younger sister, Carol, and her husband, Dave all have cases of the swine flu. Apparently they were together at the cottage over the weekend and came back sick. 

 

Some photos from the week:

 

Snowy scene outside this evening 

 

In the office 

 

With the Infamous One 

 

With students outside the apartment after lunch 

 

Nurse Brian?

A winter wonderland.

 Today’s gospel and some comments:

 

Jesus said to his disciples: “As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man; they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Similarly, as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building; on the day when Lot left Sodom, fire and brimstone rained from the sky to destroy them all. So it will be on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, someone who is on the housetop and whose belongings are in the house must not go down to get them, and likewise one in the field must not return to what was left behind. Remember the wife of Lot. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it. I tell you, on that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken, the other left. And there will be two women grinding meal together; one will be taken, the other left.” They said to him in reply, “Where, Lord?” He said to them, “Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.” Lk 17:26-37

 

This passage is famous for being difficult. It is hard to know what Jesus is saying, except that we cannot tell when "the day of the Son of Man" will come. The imagery is drawn from Old Testament prophecy; all the cosmic chaos is there, as in Amos and Isaiah. That day seems to mean the day on which he will return in glory. The emphasis is on the suddenness and the newness of it. It will disrupt the normal routines of  "eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building..." It will even make your most familiar companions look like strangers. When there is a tragic event of some kind, people remember vividly what they were doing just as it struck. Those normal routines are seen now from a different perspective: from high in the air, as it were, rather than from the familiar ground. 

 

 

Though we are largely at a loss when it comes to understanding this passage, its urgency is good for us, no doubt. Perhaps we become too complacent, too detached, too 'knowing' . The impact of Kierkegaard’s writing in his own world (19th century Denmark) was explosive: he criticized his age as "an age without passion, with no values, an age that reduces everything to ideas." It was said of Karl Barth, the 20th century Protestant theologian, that his impact on his contemporaries was "like a bomb exploding in their back garden." He stressed the "wholly otherness of God." We make God a kind of private ineffectual daydream or a monthly or annual liability like rent or tax. We make God 'part of our life' even though God cannot be part of anything; God can only be whole. What we really need is to be more excited to actually have a fire burning inside ourselves.

 

What is Truth?

一天，一个盲人带着他的导盲犬过街时，一辆大卡车失去控制，直冲过来，盲人当场被撞死，他的导盲犬为了守卫主人，也一起惨死在车轮底下。
主人和狗一起到了天堂门前。
一个天使拦住他俩，为难地说：“对不起，现在天堂只剩下一个名额，你们两个中必须有一个去地狱。”
主人一听，连忙问：“我的狗又不知道什么是天堂，什么是地狱，能不能让我来决定谁去天堂呢？”
　　天使鄙视地看了这个主人一眼，皱起了眉头，她想了想，说：“很抱歉，先生，每一个灵魂都是平等的，你们要通过比赛决定由谁上天堂。”
　　主人失望地问：“哦，什么比赛呢？”
　　天使说：“这个比赛很简单，就是赛跑，从这里跑到天堂的大门，谁先到达目的地，谁就可以上天堂。不过，你也别担心，因为你已经死了，所以不再是瞎子，而且灵魂的速度跟肉体无关，越单纯善良的人速度越快。”主人想了想，同意了。
　　天使让主人和狗准备好，就宣布赛跑开始。她满心以为主人为了进天堂，会拼命往前奔，谁知道主人一点也不忙，慢吞吞地往前走着。更令天使吃惊的是，那条导盲犬也没有奔跑，它配合着主人的步调在旁边慢慢跟着，一步都不肯离开主人。天使恍然大悟：原来，多年来这条导盲犬已经养成了习惯，永远跟着主人行动，在主人的前方守护着他。可恶的主人，正是利用了这一点，才胸有成竹，稳操胜券，他只要在天堂门口叫他的狗停下，就能轻轻松松赢得比赛。
　　天使看着这条忠心耿耿的狗，心里很难过，她大声对狗说：“你已经为主人献出了生命，现在，你这个主人不再是瞎子，你也不用领着他走路了，你快跑进天堂吧！”
　　可是，无论是主人还是他的狗，都像是没有听到天使的话一样，仍然慢吞吞地往前走，好像在街上散步似的。
　　果然，离终点还有几步的时候，主人发出一声口令，狗听话地坐下了，天使用鄙视的眼神看着主人。
　　这时，主人笑了，他扭过头对天使说：“我终于把我的狗送到天堂了，我最担心的就是它根本不想上天堂，只想跟我在一起……所以我才想帮它决定，请你照顾好它。”
　　天使愣住了。
　　主人留恋地看着自己的狗，又说：“能够用比赛的方式决定真是太好了，只要我再让它往前走几步，它就可以上天堂了。不过它陪伴了我那么多年，这是我第一次可以用自己的眼睛看着它，所以我忍不住想要慢慢地走，多看它一会儿。如果可以的话，我真希望永远看着它走下去。不过天堂到了，那才是它该去的地方，请你照顾好它。”
　　说完这些话，主人向狗发出了前进的命令，就在狗到达终点的一刹那，主人像一片羽毛似的落向了地狱的方向。他的狗见了，急忙掉转头，追着主人狂奔。满心懊悔的天使张开翅膀追过去，想要抓住导盲犬，不过那是世界上最纯洁善良的灵魂，速度远比天堂所有的天使都快。
　　所以导盲犬又跟主人在一起了，即使是在地狱，导盲犬也永远守护着它的主人。
　　天使久久地站在那里，喃喃说道：“我一开始就错了，这两个灵魂是一体的，他们不能分开......"
　　这个世界上，真相只有一个，可是在不同人眼中，却会看出不同的是非曲直。这是为什么呢？其实，道理很简单，因为每个人看待事物，都不可能站在绝对客观公正的立场上，而是或多或少地戴上有色眼镜，用自己的经验、好恶和道德标准来进行评判，结果就是——我们看到了假象。