Why I don't want a wedding and other untraditional things...

The Non-Wedding

Just like most girls, I once had this dream of my wedding.

What dress I will wear.

What colors I will have.

What flowers will I used to decorate.

What kind of cake I want to eat.

But attending many weddings in the past many years, I suddenly realize something: No matter how big or small, how much money was poured in, how much drinking and dancing were to be had, I only had fond memories of only probably three weddings.  And I have attended a lot of weddings.  Sure, most of them were fun.  Some of them were terrifyingly boring or too emotional for me.  One was just downright awkward.

I have thought it through over the past year or so.  I realize, why spend $10K to $30K on a wedding

I'm eloping...

But I am throwing a small wedding party after the elopement.  ;-)

Bottom line: It's about the marriage.  I realize I shouldn't care about the dress.  It will disappear one day.  Nor the cake.  That will get eaten.  The flowers will wilt.  The table clothes will get soiled and used for another event.

But one thing I do want to last is the marriage.  It's a strange relationship between man and woman, husband and wife.  It's an interesting relationship.  As Paul wrote, "This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband." ~Ephesians 5:32-33~ Paul knew the struggles between husband and wife.  Women easily love.  Men easily respect.  Why would Paul write that a husband should love his wife and that a wife should respect?  It's hard.  Men don't easily love.  Women don't easily respect (except for Aretha Franklin - R.E.S.P.E.C.T.!).

Engagement Ring

I never liked diamonds.  Yes, they are nice and shiny,but clear and white (and kind of boring to me).  But once a upon a time, they were not valued as they are now.  I also have this fear that I will receive a blood diamond.

You know what kind of rock I want?

An amethyst!  It's purple.  I always like it.  If it's lined with Swarovski crystals, I'll be happy.  :)

Hint to men: It doesn't cost as much as a diamond ring, I swear!

The After Party

Forget the schmancy stuff.  Since there is no wedding, there is no real reception.  But there will be a party, none-the-less.  With wings and beer and bar food.  Beers all around.  And wine.  And maybe a cake, I don't know.  :)

Okay, maybe one traditional thing: The Honeymoon

Yes, I want to go to Hawaii.  And this is not a SNL skit.

Let's spend that $10K on the honeymoon.  Get a nice expensive hotel.  Drink all the wine we want.  You know, honeymoon stuff.

Okay, now that I got this out of my chest... :)

My Thoughts on Diseases

Before the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve literally lived in paradise.  God gave them everything: food, shelter, the whole world.  But one tree they could not and should not have eaten from, they ate the fruit from that tree.  Planet earth started to spiral from that point to what we have today.

Ebola and Other Diseases

Ebola has devastated West Africa for much of 2014.  So far, about 3000 people have died since the beginning of this year.  And many more will die from this.  But this is not the only disease that has threatened and killed people.  There has been polio, small pox, the bubonic plague, and even the flu virus.  Why are there so many diseases?

Let's start from the beginning.  Adam and Eve were just two people.  I bet the plants were not grown in crops and animals were running freely in fields.  No diseases exist yet.  Then they ate from the tree and all things fell apart.  They are to eventually die and return to the earth.  

Women are to give birth in pain, men are to toil the soil to grow their crops.

Then civilization happened.  People started to live in close quarters, in towns and cities, forming counties, states, countries, kingdoms.

People ate the crops they grew, and the animals they raised in farms.

Then diseases began to pop up.  You see this throughout the Old Testament.

It is a far cry from the paradise that God had initially given us.  People were spread out.  I am sure they were vegetarians too.  Here is an excerpt from Genesis 1:

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:28-31 NASB)

Notice God didn't say, "I have given you animals as food."  Just plants.  And the animals are to eat the plants too.

I have this thought for sometime that while diseases originated from the fall of man, it is people living closely together that has accelerated the spread of disease.  People have to farm the land and raise animals as food, depending on each other.  As it is evident in West Africa, diseases can spread very quickly if people live close together.  Raising livestock can also pose an issue as animals can carry diseases that can leap to people.

If people live in the forest again and just live off the natural land, I wonder if this will slow down diseases?  You can see also in history that Native American had little diseases as they often live more spread apart before the Europeans came.  Europe was termed more advanced in civilization but also carry a lot of diseases.  

Conclusion: I am going to find an island far far away...

The American Church: Part 2

[Paraphrased]: To become leaders, we must become followers (of Jesus).

I have heard this many times in many different churches over the past many years.  I think I first heard it when I was a newly graduate from NC State, at the church I was attending in Raleigh, NC.  It sunk in and meant a lot, in many perspectives and many ways, and in the many different steps I have taken as a Christian.

Tonight was a wonderful night.  Pastor Erwin McManus came to speak to a group of leaders and volunteers tonight at my church Mosaic Church Charlotte.  It was great to learn about his past and how Mosaic Church L.A. became what it is today.

One thing that caught my attention tonight was "culture".  Although, it wasn't quite audible from Pastor Erwin's conversation with us, it was a word the Holy Spirit laid in my heard as I was listening to his story about Mosaic L.A.

In my own understanding, Pastor Erwin was tired of the church norm.  Society has put us in a box, a standard that we have to adhere by.  Even the church has gotten its own traditions and rituals.  But as creative beings that God has made us to be, we are to create the future, fighting the social norm, be unique and create our own culture for the world to follow.  In the first blog, I wrote that the church is not here just to survive, the church is here to serve humanity.

Let's talk about culture for a minute.  Each country has their own culture: language, food, traditions, rituals.   There are many times I have heard well-meaningful Christians go to other countries to establish and plant a church the "American" way.  Or they have their own theology of how it should be done.  And many times, these churches fail.  Why?  These church planters go expecting for the local culture to conform.  They have their ideology that the church should have a steeple, a pastor, board members, committees.  Failure happens then there is a misunderstanding and disconnect between the two cultures.  This ideal "church culture" clashes with the local culture.

The church should be a universal force.

One thing that Pastor Erwin spoke about tonight is seeing people the way God sees people.  God sees people as human beings.  People who are fragmented and broken.  This is the premises of Mosaic Church: to bring broken people (pieces) together to create a beautiful mosaic.  When followers of Christ start to realize this, Christians will treat people as people and not as a church project to bring them into a legalistic church.

Then we realize that our cultural battle is not between Americans vs. other countries.  It is against God and Satan.  In each country, there are broken people, torn by their own country's ideal of what a country should be.  Christians in America are no different.  American culture is fueled with the idea to be successful (monetarily), to look sexy, to be cool.  But the real church of Christ, those who see people as broken beauty and who serves humanity, creates the culture and the future that we are an unstoppable force of loving, serving people.  This carries over and reaches far more than the typically American church ideology.

I recently read an NPR article about morality in China.  In summary: it's bad.  Throughout the culture of China, there is an air of mistrust amongst them.  They just simple don't trust each other or even their own government.  If someone is in need (if they had fallen down the stairs, or get hit by a car), it could take 20 people passing by before anybody helps.  There have been cases where people pretend to be hurt, to only rob innocent people who try to help.  The other problem is that people expect the others to help.  And with the 1.3B people in China, sometimes I feel they do not have the same thoughts and feelings about human life as some people have in Western society.

But what brings me hope in this situation are missionaries in these type of countries.  A friend's mother was a missionary kid in Taiwan in the 60's and 70's.  Taiwan's culture is somewhat similar to China.  In one instance, a child on a bike was hit by a car.  The father of this missionary family immediately ran to the middle of the road to help the child, carried the child to the sidewalk and yelled someone to call for help.  One person asked him, "Why do you do this?  You don't even know this child."  "Because I am a follower of Christ."  People surrounding this event saw the compassion of this man.  They may not understand his thoughts but they saw his actions.  In countries like these, Christian missionaries work best by working on compassion and setting an example.

"Because I am a follower of Christ..." leads us to all understand the heart of God, and the compassion that God has for His people.

The American Church : Part 1

I started re-reading a book called An Unstoppable Force by Erwin McManus.  (Honestly, I would start a book and read like 1/3 of a book, and never finish.  So, I am re-reading the first 3rd and reading the last part... Hopefully.)  Reading and re-reading the book made me realize a few things about the state of the church.  Are we propelling or are we failing?

The book, in summary, is about the current state of American churches.  McManus talks about how most traditional churches are just surviving.  Wrapped in politics and legalism, the current church cares mostly about maintaining what's within and not focused on serving humanity.

I really like this sentence from the first chapter of McManus's book:

"The purpose of the church cannot be to survive or even thrive but to serve... the church is not called to survive history but to serve humanity."

I'll be frank: the word "unchurched" gets on my nerves.  They want to distinguish those who never been to church with those who are constantly and religiously going.  But the heart of the matter is, there are those who were very well "churched": growing up they go to Sunday School, they participate in all things Youth Ministry, wear their WWJD bracelet faithfully, are in the in-crowd of their youth.  Come to college, they realize, "The church my parents went to is their church."  Many people fall away for whatever reason, blaming the very politics and legalism of their home church, vowing never to go back to that church again.  We are faced with a generation who are just sick of traditional church.

Likewise, those who go to church religiously is just that: religious.  Some of these could care less about the hearts of the sheep... All they care about is their popularity status at church.  Are they in the committee with the church pastors, are they tithing the most, are they wearing the most modest clothing, are they friends with all the "right" people?

Most of the traditional churches have lost their focus... Actually they lost their focus when doctrines were created.  And what worked 50-75 years ago is not working anymore.  Some of these had lead to more books on how to worship and how to perform a service and created check-list on how to be a Christian.  These books then lead to rituals, which lead to legalism and judgment.  A lot of seminaries that are connected to a denomination teaches mainly on how to run a church like a business.

Church is not a business.  It is a body of believers, creating a community of hope for humanity.

Okay, but just to be clear, I do respect some of these traditional church.  I think a few of them have realized that change is needed in order to reach and serve the community.  There are many wonderful traditional churches I will or may go to from time to time.  I do love hymns.  And for all churches, a statement of faith is important or a creed.

But the traditional churches I'm talking about, you know who you are.  You're the very church that many people do not like, and to say it quite plainly, they hate. A church structure that was relevant 50-75 years ago is falling apart.  Culture is changing most rapidly and some of the churches are not keeping up.

Thoughts on Paleo and Other Health(y) Things

On June 23, I took on the 30 Day Paleo Challenge that my crossfit gym is having.  [And I started crossfit earlier in June.]  The first week was brutal.  I had a massive headache on day 3, but after day 5, my head kind of went back to normal, but thinking is still a bit of a challenge.

But whatever brain power I have left (after using it at work), it got me thinking about food.  Well, being hungry all the time, I always think about food.  But no, seriously, it made me think about how the average Americans "gather" food today and how the foods we eat affects us.

First, to explain a Paleo challenge or a Paleo diet.  In a nutshell, it's a method of eating as if we were almost back in the "paleolithic" era, where humans were just starting to use tools to hunt for food and gather food. Most people also call it the "caveman diet".   Agriculture hasn't been invented yet, so within this diet, there are no grains or even white potatoes.  (Somehow, sweet potatoes are okay, I guess because the sweet potatoes can be found in the wild.)  There are also no legumes (aka beans), as beans can upset your stomach.  There are no dairy products either, as man haven't quite figured out what cows or goats are for.  You're practically eating just meat, vegetables, fruits, and nuts all day long.  Oh, and no sugars, no sodas of any kind (regular or diet), and no artificial sweeteners (not even xylitol or stevia).  But since we're in the modern age, we do use modern things to cook our foods, like pots and pans and ovens.  And the occasional microwave to reheat the food we have just cooked for that week.

The Paleo challenge has been going well so far, apart from the thinking problem I'm having but this final week, I feel better.  I have probably shed 5 pounds by now and an inch or so off my waist as well as other areas of my body.  I feel tired sometimes, but if I get enough sleep, I feel fine usually.  And overall, without the gluten and grains, my joints don't feel as achy or swollen, and my back feels pretty good for the most part (I have back problems - another story to tell)...

So, the little thinking I have been doing during this Paleo challenge:

1. How did we get here?  As a growing nation, I feel the food industry found ways to make food at less cost.  I mean, that is the free market.  Try to make profit.  So many of our food production practices have been grandfathered in from previous regulations.  It's not really anybody faults though... I think back then, especially the early 1900's, America faced an influx of immigrants.  Without really thinking through or maybe just out of plain ignorance, people and scientist tinker with substances to see how we can make a lot of food with the least amount of money.  That's why some of the off-the-shelf food products have chemicals and things we can't pronounced on labels.  Europe, on the other hand, is more conscience of what goes into foods.  A lot of substances in American foods are banned in Europe (maybe except for Great Britain, which shares a lot of the food struggles we have here).

A good amount of foods in America are processed.  Some marketing genius out there has made it so that food not only looks good, but also taste good, and cost less than if you were to buy healthier groceries.  I mean, we're talking McDonald's, Hardee's/Carl Jr, KFC, Pizza Hut, Subway, etc.  Something comes from a box or a can or a fast food place.  Where a few things from boxes and cans are okay, most of it is processed in a factory somewhere and trucked thousands of miles away, or even across the ocean.

Sounds digusting?  I think most of us know about the pink slime nuggets and plastic soy burgers from fast food places.  A lot of us may know about the yoga mat flame retardant substance in most sub/deli breads and even in dough of some pizza chains.

Since even before paleo and even this year, I have slowly steered away from processed foods.  I still crave things like fried chicken, or even Spam (yes, I like Spam, but it's no where near good for you).  Knowing what goes into foods and things in cans and boxes, I try to stay away from these things, and cook most of my foods or eat fruits and nuts for snacks.

2. GMO.  Some vegetables are genetically modified to resist germs and molds, which yields more crops.  That may sound like a good thing.  A lot of plants are spoiled by these bacteria and molds.  But if they can resist germs and molds, can it resist us?  Or a better question, do we resist it as a foreign object?  Do we get enough nutrients from it?  A few articles I have seen so far is that these GMO foods are no different from non-GMO foods when it comes to nutrients.  But from the micro-level, does it change our body chemistry?  There hasn't really been a conclusive study; some of these studies can take 25 years or more, because it takes time, a whole generation, to study people once a food product has entered the food chain.  But many people have linked GMO foods and chemicals to causing cancer.

GMO definitely has taken off since the 90's, thanks to patenting the DNA sequences into the seeds and making these GMO vegetables grow and essentially mass produced crops.  Most notably, wheat, corn, soy, and most vegetables we eat in America are GMO.  That's partly why paleo doesn't allow grains: it's all GMO-ed but also agriculture hasn't been invented yet in the paleolithic period.

From an early age, I stayed away from wheat.  I think because I knew if I ate too much cake and breads, it turns into stored sugar = fat.  Also, cancer feeds off sugar.  Wheat/gluten is also known to make auto-immune disease worst, such as arthritis.

3. Non-organic vs organic foods.  Non-organic foods are foods grown with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.  Organic foods uses fertilizers from actual animals.  Organic foods may not necessarily be non-GMO.

Being in the treatment of wastewater, I actually know where the fertilizers come from.  Can you guess?  Yep, the wastewater treatment plant.  Well, one of a few places, at least.  The fertilizers actually have to go through a regulated process to ensure that the fertilizer is okay for use of growing crops.  In summary, the wastewater going into the treatment plant is all mixed up, it goes through mechanical straining, before a finer product goes through even more clarification, settling, etc.  After that, some of the "filtrates" than go through a chemical process (yes, a chemical process using polymers) to coagulate into sludge, and then the sludge goes through a strained press to "squish the poo".  Then the sludge goes through a drying process, where the final material is the fertilizer.  The polymer chemical has to be food grade and "organic friendly", and the drying process has to be to a science (temp and exposure time in the oven or solar dryer). If it were regular sludge, anything coming out of the strain press is fine.  But the treatment to reuse the fertilizer is regulated.

Although organic foods is not bad, knowing how the plants are fertilized makes me rethink about my decisions on buying organic foods.  Vegetables with pesticides or vegetables fertilized with human poo that has gone through a chemical process?  Yummy...

Conclusion

In these last 3 points, do you ever wonder if America (whether it's a doctor, a nutritionist, a science, the average American), really looked at the regulations and the science behind the food?  What if we didn't use chemicals, GMO and conventional foods?  Would our food cost be the same or would it be as high as organic food prices?

Some marketing genius out there also figured out that organic/natural foods is a premium item.  Why not make money off of it?  Look at Whole Foods.  It's no joke it's nicknamed "Whole Paycheck"; it's quite expensive.  But some organic foods and natural personal care products actually last longer.  The "natural" deodorant (no aluminum, parabens, bad chemicals, etc.) I bought in February, I haven't used it up yet!  It's July folks!  Almost 6 months of using the same stick of deo.

The real conclusion is that Paleo really does work for me but it also made me think about food and health a lot more and how processed foods affect me.  It's the ultimate goal to change your eating habits and eating lifestyle because as Americans, we are overweight and eat too much processed foods.  I felt a lot better and more energetic, after the initial headaches.  Paired up with crossfit, I have been feeling stronger everyday.