Message from the Curate
In the Lunar calendar, we celebrated New Year on 22nd of January. It is one of the biggest holidays in many Asian countries influenced by Chinese culture. And Chinese community will celebrate lantern festival on 5th of February.
I am not quite sure about the exact connection between the way we follow time and the way we think, but it is intriguing that Eastern philosophy can be symbolically visualized by the Moon. In the eastern way of thinking and living, there includes always changes, balance, connection in relation to the whole, and harmony. I imagine the wise men and women in ancient times, watching the moon waning and waxing while making an endless circle of life and death, entering into the world of yin and yang, variations and repetition, combinations of different elements and oneness as a whole.
One of the famous parables in the Asian literature is a story about an old man and a horse. In this story, a man loses his horse, the horse comes back bringing other wild horses, his son breaks his leg while riding one of wild horses, but escape being called into war since he was crippled. Every time something happens, his neighbours pity him on the accident or congratulate for the good event. However, each time, the old man shrugs saying “who knows whether it would be a blessing for misfortune?”
It is so true in our life. We tend to judge quick what is good or what is bad, and get obsessed with the good, and get trapped in misery. However, we really do not know how each dot of our lives is connected to make the full picture whole. What goes up must come down, and what comes down must goes up just like the changing phases of the moon.
When we see something end, it surely is a beginning of something else. When we see something begin, it certainly will have an end. We try to understand every single incident as and of itself, but maybe we would not get it until we see the forest beyond the tree. I am not introducing nihilism here. It is about embracing what we have, and move on along the flow of life. For us Christians, as the author of Ecclesiastes says, all is vanity without God, but all is a blessing as we walk with God, because every single step makes the story of yours, mine, and ours on our journey to God at the end.
Father James