Why do you live in a condo?

I learn so much from the unvarnished wisdom of my kids.  I was doing a school project with my 10-year old earlier this evening, which involves him interviewing me about what life was like back when I was a kid.  So I told him about how we used to live, 10 people and 3 generations, in a four-room flat - my grandmother on the floor in the hall, and one family in each of the three bedrooms.  I blogged about this several months ago on the theme of gratefulness - http://www.pilgrimonearth.blogspot.sg/2013/10/had-good-day.html.

And here's how our conversation went from there:
Daniel: Wait - isn't where we live now a flat too?  I tell all my friends I live in a flat.
Daddy: Yes, we live in a flat, but it's privately built and more expensive than a HDB flat which is Government built.
Daniel: So why would anyone do that [live in a private flat]?
Daddy: ... ... good question.  I don't know.  Maybe because there's a pool and gym?
Daniel: But no one uses the pool and gym.
Daddy: ... ... well, er, you know some people buy property as an investment too.
Daniel: You know, I really think it's so you can boast.
Daddy: Hmm.  I hate to admit it, but I think you've got me there.  Thanks little buddy!

You know, we get really upset with Anton Casey because he's rich and snobby about it, wrapped in his surreal expat world.  Clearly, he's wrong.  Utterly, disgracefully wrong.  But I'm really not so sure that all the people who are sneering at him would not have behaved the same way if they were put in his privileged position.  In our own little ways, we're full of pride and arrogance too. Maybe earlier this week you didn't greet the security guard or the cleaning lady at your office.  If it was your CEO or Chairman, you'd have greeted him for sure right?  Look at all your friends - are they mostly people of similar social status?  Do you hang out at the same restaurants and clubs and gyms?  Chat about the same cars, bags, clothes, phones, cameras and tablets?  If you do, that's natural to some extent, but maybe, just maybe, if you're honest, it shows a little something else not quite so nice?

A little self-awareness and brutal honesty to regularly puncture our la-la land illusion of self-centeredness and misplaced pride is always helpful.  In short...

Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?  How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.'  Matthew 7:3-5

If I have time tomorrow, I'll write a bit about what I recently learned about a related issue - the dreams and desires of men.  And what do we desire?  We really really love our pride and how we look in front of other people when it comes to our career and our general accumulation of stuff.  I'll just write down this verse here and hope to get back soon... time to zzzz...

Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.  Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves me must follow me; and where I am, my servant also will be.  My Father will honor the one who serves me.  Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?   'Father, save me from this hour?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  John 12:24-26

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Life as a pie chart

Image
Someone told me recently about a "life exercise" in which one compiles all the stuff that makes up your life, and puts it in a pie chart.  So let's say for me, something like this. The idea is to visually demonstrate to myself that, in the event I lose one of these things, then I can see that, hey life is not so bad, that wasn't such a big deal.  Say for example, if I suffered a blown ACL, and couldn't run or play basketball any more, like this: At first blush - I'd say, hey, I still have my wife, children, parents, career, church life - so, chin up, things are not so bad.  Pretty good life visualisation tool to bring some optimism back into play! ... But what if, a month later, something happens at work, and boom, career gets sidetracked, I lose my job, or get put in cold storage somewhere, like this: Oops, now only half my life is left!  With only half of life's meaning left to me, what do I do? And what if something happens to
Read more

Bullying? Stand up!

Image
When I was a kid, I remember being bullied a fair bit.  I was small for my age, bespectacled, shy.    The teachers didn't help by putting a target on my back by making me Vice Head Prefect.  I would get my stuff just taken away from me by bigger kids, dragged out into the field to be tickled until I collapsed (much less fun than it sounds), and pushed into the storm drains.  Not all the kids were full-blown bullies of course.  But I remember some of them standing by, and politely holding my spectacles (so they wouldn't be broken) while the bullies did their work on me. Most of this stopped when I got to secondary school, where a much larger proportion of my fellow students were now just as nerdy!  And of course I grew up too.  I don't really look back on those days with any kind of animosity, because I think it never occurred to me that it was unusual.  But I do think my experience made me a bit more sympathetic about people around me who are being bullied. When you
Read more

Family AND Team

Image
I heard an interesting viewpoint this weekend. A family is not inherently a team. Hmm.  Sometimes at work, often in church, and most of the time at home, you hear people say to each other that we are family. And often, we really are. We care for each other above and beyond transactional matters.  It matters to me when my colleagues and cell group members (and of course my actual family members) go through illnesses or family issues or work challenges. I root for their success at presentations and projects and relationships. I care about what they care about, even if it has little direct impact on my own life. In a way, a family is sort of an amalgam of people who support each other in pursuit of each member's personal goals. For example, as a father, I support my children in their academic, career and ministry goals. But where they go to school, the grades they get, and the careers and ministries they build - they're really their goals, not mine.  Ditto for my role as a church
Read more