3 Expeditions to Happiness

Fight Back With Joy by Margaret Feinberg (2015)

Happier Now by Natalya Kogan (2018)

This Close to Happy by Daphne Merkin (2017)

IN JUNE 2018, TWO CELEBRITY SUICIDES shocked fans of fashion and tv food shows and reignited the discourse on why people commit suicide. As usual, the reports claimed that the deceased gave no signs of their struggles as though they were reprehensible for not having visible symptoms and signs of distress. It should be pointed out that modern technology has also given us the power to curate the impressions we want to project, as well as how much and where we are seen by others. As a result, vulnerability that creates a true connection between people has become a quality that is avoided in everyday face-to-face connections.

Despair demands answers. Hope waits for it. Despair drives people to suicide. Despair is being isolated in pain. Hope is someone stepping in uninvited with the authority of love.

Living is also not the same as having something to live for. Even the most unimaginative of us get up each morning with a vague sense of mission in life and importance to people around us. But I imagine that for certain people, the only thing that keeps them going each day are new and exciting projects they keep taking on for a sense of purpose to justify staying on for another day. These become crutches that though necessary are still crutches. Over time, these high-functioning individuals become even better at driving multiple high-profile projects that become associated with their names but soon weaken as the compelling reason to live another day for. Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade took their own lives in the midst of impressive ongoing projects.

Reactions to suicides invariably leads to people talking about the victim’s mental and emotional state. I’m certain that suicides are not a result of character failure but are psychosocial manifestations and social tragedies. Depression is term that is over-used as a simple cause of suicides. In reality, there are other D’s like death of a loved one, divorce and emotional desertion that can trigger a penetrating sense of loss and hopelessness.

While I’m not sure if Jews have a greater propensity for intense sadness, three women from Jewish families, Nataly Kogan, Margaret Feinberg and Daphne Merkin, have written books about fighting persistent sadness and their quest for a happier state of being. Their books, Happier Now, Fight Back with Joy, and This Close to Happiness, are all written in a persuasive memoir style that attempts to authenticate their writing on such a subjective topic as happiness.

FIGHT BACK WITH JOY by Margaret Feinberg

The stumper: I had physically survived (cancer). I was still breathing. My life had been spared, at least for now. So why did I feel sad? Why did I feel like I was still in mourning? Shouldn’t I be living in unspeakable, uncontrollable joy?

The experience of crisis: Ambulance chasers are a dime a dozen; rebuilders are hard to find. Our phones stopped vibrating. Knocks at the door grew further apart until they stopped altogether. Others we’d known for longer than a decade never spoke a word. Not even a “thinking of you” text message. Their absence stung.

Bonus: 5 things to say when you don’t know what to say, and 5 things those facing crisis can’t tell you.  

HAPPIER NOW by Nataly Kogan

The stumper: Launching Happier wasn’t the end of my fear, stress, and anxiety. In fact, it was the beginning of a heart-wrenching deep dive into a pile of pain that I had ignored for years and that I had been hoping to escape by achieving my way into a sense of peace and endless bliss by way of my “I’ll be happy when…” mantra.

I’m only two chapters in but Kogan establishes credibility with me by writing about the irony of happiness eluding her while she was running Happier workshops.

If you think I told anyone about the fear and doubt I felt, you’d be wrong. My husband and a few close friends knew, but not fully. I told no one else. I’d never met a leader who shared their doubts or anxieties as they were experiencing them. I thought to share it would make me weak, and I did not want anyone to think I wasn’t up to the job.

I’m in on this book.

THIS CLOSE TO HAPPY by Daphne Merkin

The stumper: (Prologue, first sentence) Lately I’ve been thinking about the allure of suicide again – the way it says basta! to life…No more rage at the circumstances that have brought you down. No more dread. Most of all, no more disguise, no more need to wear a mask: “What, you, depressed? I never would have known.”

I find this so typical: when people are too detached, obtuse or fearful of intimacy to discern distress, they call it a disguise. I call it getting on with life till you don’t. Your desire to live doesn’t follow a schedule. You live till you don’t. 

In Merkin’s words: You have lost the thread that pulled the circumstances of your life together. Nothing adds up and all you can think about is the raw nerve of pain that your mind has become…and how merciful it would be to yourself and others to extinguish this pain... the truth is that no one is interested in why you want to kill yourself, no one really believes that you will, until you've done it, and then it becomes morbidly intriguing to try and map it backwards.

Merkin has clinical depression that she attributes more to environmental causes than biological. As a longtime columnist for the New York Times, she writes with a uniquely provocative yet personal style that feels like a friend sharing her uncensored yet well-processed deep thoughts. It’s an intensity and depth that exposes vulnerability and fears and precisely the qualities I look for in real people and relationships.

Although Merkin lets you into her rich and deep mind through the many phases of her life, there seems to be no ‘exit’ signs for her until the last chapter:   

If I can’t quite declare victory over my depression, I am giving it a run for its money, navigating around it, reminding myself that the opposite of depression is not a state of unimaginable happiness but a state of approximate contentment, of relative all-right-ness. (Never lacking in material comforts her entire life with beautiful holiday homes, she found company in) friends I have invited for the weekend are reading on deck chairs…It is not an exceptional scene but it is one that I cannot imagine having arranged until relatively recently, one that reqires me to take the helm instead of hoping that someone else will manage things for me.

Whoever thought I'd be this close to happy?

Life is indeed always a little chaotic, a little mad, a little sad which makes it incomprehensible that we should want to wait till we are all sorted out into neat packages before we step out to connect with others. In the meantime, we are missing out on joyous moments that can be found only when we invite others into places where there is legitimacy to be less than happy, and where mourning turns into dancing with the music of compassion.

SCARY CLOSE & A MILLION MILES IN A THOUSAND YEARS by Donald Miller

SCARY CLOSE

I’m drawn to the title because intimacy-avoidant people have played key roles in my life since young. I’ve become fiercely independent largely because of our relationships. Being family at some point or other, they are not people I can write off and close the door on. So I want to understand their psyche better and to create a place for greater honesty and responsibility from them in our relationships.

The crux of the book’s message is to drop the act and to have the courage to reveal our true selves to the people around us. There's even a chapter titled 'Performance Anxiety in Real Life.' For this exposé of himself, Miller stayed single and avoided dating for almost a year.

“I’d spent a good bit of my life as an actor, getting people to clap - but the applause only made me want more applause. I didn’t act in a theatre or anything. I’m talking about real life.

Can we really trust people to love us just as we are? (I’d add: Not hidden but known) Nobody steps onto a stage and gets a standing ovation for being human. You have to sing or dance or something.

I think that’s the difference between being loved and making people clap, though. Love can’t be earned it can only be given. And it can only be exchanged by people who are completely true with each other.”

Miller had good friends:

·     Bob, the attorney friend who kept calling to check in on him for a year when he was emotionally broken  after a breakup.

·     David Price, who shared an office with him and loved him enough to suggest that he stopped dating for a season and encouraged him that he was not all bad in relationships. “It might be good for you to go through withdrawal…to detox from all the drama.” The result was about a year without dating.

·     His pastor, the late David Gentiles, who was like a father to him. David was a gifted writer and orator who sought little earthly validation while pursuing the stuff that really mattered. After his passing, Miller wrote, “He had been driven by what I was only beginning to experience: a deep sense of meaning. It was his love for me that created the chasm and the ache.”

Miller also has a fantastic imagination that had negatively affected his relationships. From his dating sabbatical, he emerged with the reality that fantasy changes nothing and produces only a bankrupt story. I’ve personally found that optimistic people like myself tend to have a greater imagination than the more negative types. We imagine the loving parent while living with an emotionally closed-off one, we imagine a spouse has deep loving intentions while raising a family alone almost as a single parent, we believe that people are genuinely concerned and kind even when we go through painful seasons in extreme loneliness with little contact from them.

A safe person speaks the truth in grace. I’d also add that a safe person operates in honesty and courage and does not hold back out of fear of disagreement and offense. A safe person delivers the honesty that's needed and sticks around to help you pick yourself up. Measured against the biblical standard of love in 1 Corinthians 13:7 ‘It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’ – I’d say honesty and courage binds people in love and see each other through the storms of life.

The ‘Author’s Note’ sets a tone of openness and unusual honesty throughout the book that I soon discovered also resides in Miller’s earlier book, ‘A Million Miles In A Thousand Years’ which I have also reviewed below.

A MILLION MILES IN A THOUSAND YEARS

Miller inspired me to write a better story to live out. I know my story is going to be as good as the quality of relationships involved. And sometimes, that means ending the way I relate with some people so that the relationship can get better. It hurts like hell but if things have been nowhere near heavenly and the way God intends for people to relate, any change is an improvement.

Here are my favourite Miller bites (my comments in brackets):

-     Nobody remembers easy stories. Characters have to face their greatest fears with courage. That’s what makes a story good. There is probably death at stake, inner death or actual death, …polar charges of happy and sad things in life that are like colours God uses to draw the world.

(Consider Isaiah 54 – it juxtaposes so much promises of God in the place of painful barrenness. It makes a great story and when lived out, a true testimony).

-        The fact of life and the reality of death give the human story its dramatic tension. If you aren’t telling a good story, nobody thinks you died too soon; they just think you died. But my uncle died too soon.

(I believe some people should have just do away with a funeral to save others the agony of creating fictitious eulogies).

-          The elements that made a story meaningful were the same that made a life meaningful. Most of our greatest fears are relational. It’s all that stuff about forgiveness and risking rejection and learning to love. We think stories are about getting money and security, but the truth is, it all comes down to relationships. I knew a story was calling me, I knew I was going to have to see if my father was alive. And once you know what it takes to live a better story, you don’t have a choice. Not living a better story would be like deciding to die, deciding to walk around numb until you die, and it’s not natural to want to die.

-       I believed God was the Writer who was not me and He could write a better story than I could, but I did not trust Him. I told God no again, but He came back to me and asked me if I really believed He could write a better story – and if I did, why didn’t I trust Him?

(Again, we go back to the standard of love in 1 Corinthians 13:7 ‘It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres’)

-          It’s an odd feeling to be awakened from a life of fantasy.

(I know that, but it frees your mind to be in the now.)

-          The truth about telling stories with your life…you’re not going to want to do it. It’s like that with writing books, and it’s like that with life. People love to have lived a great story, but few people like the work it takes to make it happen. But joy costs pain. People fear change, and tend to plant themselves in what’s comfortable even if they secretly want for something better. But for every good story, there is a force resisting the beautiful things in the world, and too many of us are giving in.

(John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full reminds us that God has a better story for us to live out in full but the Enemy is just as intent to short-circuit the narrative.)

-       The most often repeated commandment in the Bible is “Do not fear.” But fear isn’t only a guide to keep us safe; it’s also a manipulative emotion that can trick us into living a boring life.

About storytelling

§  Great stories are told in conflict, but we are unwilling to embrace the potential greatness of the story we are actually in. We think God is unjust, rather than a master storyteller.

§  (Just look at Isaiah 54 and other parables and stories in the four Gospels)

§  An inciting incident is a doorway through which the protagonist cannot return.

§  In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield wrote, “The must honors the working stiff.” A writer has to sit down every day and write, regardless of how he feels.

§  Robert McKee’s Story is a manifesto on all things story.

§  Save the Cat is a how-to book for screenwriters writing for movies.

From an accomplished author who also struggled with feeling unlovable and immense pain of that, Miller left readers with this encouragement: I don’t ever want to go back to believing life is meaningless. We need to move our thoughts beyond our own despondency into direct action that affirmed a greater meaning in life. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfil the tasks which it constantly sets before each individual.

When he meets God, he’ll want to ask if He remembers when he fell apart. But he has a feeling that God will remind him instead of the parts he forgot, the parts that were His favourites.

(I really like that!)

Without honesty, love is a hollow echo, relationships are devoid of courage, character development is stunted, and life is meaningless. Of course, manipulative and controlling people have always called it honesty for all manner of abuse and rudeness. But that’s not what I’m talking about. And Miller’s book offers a humbling reflection for those craving honesty that builds up and desiring to take the first step of courage to change their lives and relationships.  

COURAGEOUS FAITH by Charles F Stanley

THIS WAS AN UPLIFTING PRE-CHRISTMAS READ. It's an autobiography that traces the well-known pastor's life circumstances from childhood to his painful divorce and the death of his ex-wife. A latchkey child, he was haunted by the thought that there would always be no one there for him. While his young widowed mother tried to get him the occasional adult company and supervision, he grew up with a “sinking feeling of abandonment”. From young, he took on menial low-paying jobs like newspaper delivery, car wash and though he made the grade, he could not afford college until a pastor who heard about it offered him a scholarship in the last minute. Throughout life and ministry, he experienced periods of intense anxiety when waiting for a provision that was needed or for a direction from God. Such are moments  we tend to think that God has sovereignly changed His mind but Stanley always sticks it out to see God create something out of nothing or out of chaos.

“God will give you everything you require to accomplish what He’s planned for you.

True to form, God was right on time, as He always is.”

This book is written as much for new believers as it is for those who are discouraged and who find Him distant and silent in times of private distress. Stanley knows and has this word for those going through dark nights of the soul: Take it from me, you can overcome anything that happens in your life – regardless of how devastating or hopeless it may seem – by having faith in God. The same is true for you. The enemy knows how to discourage you. The message may be different, but the effect is the same: he makes you feel futile, unwanted, and without hope. But don’t believe him. The Lord …has given you the storms you experience for a purpose – to transform you and those around you. So obey Him, turn in to the tempest and don’t be afraid.

It is clear from the book that Stanley goes through life on his knees. I can testify to the power of crying on my knees, calling out to Jesus on my knees, praying on my knees, listening on my knees, and falling asleep on my knees. That posture of total surrender intimates to our natural senses a total surrender to God.

Struggling with loss alone

“The truth of the matter is that, eventually, a lack of encouragement and support from fellow Christians always takes a toll on our spiritual lives and invariably leads us to feelings of alienation and isolation. We become easy targets for the enemy.” As a well-known preacher who was not only mourning the loss of his marriage, but also fearing how the separation would affect his ministry, God provided him with friends who showed up for him even when dark clouds of gloom were overhead.

When it’s tiring to stand strong

“When we lose those closest to us to death, discord, or distance, it strikes at the core of our worth, identity and security and injuring us down to our innermost parts. I learnt that grief is not something that can or should be cut short. All pious works in the world will never fill a grieving heart. Rather, you and I must allow the pain to run its full course so that we can experience the healing our heavenly Father intends.”

Stanley also learned that “God hasn’t called me to understand, but to obey Him, forgive others, and seek forgiveness…Like many divorced people, I never dreamed that I would not be married for my entire life. Friday nights used to be the most difficult.”

  

MY FAVOURITE QUOTES:

“Earthly fathers may be unreliable, but the Lord is absolutely faithful.”

“Our obedience is the fruit of what Jesus has given us – not the prerequisite to having a relationship with Him.”

“If the Father doesn’t answer you immediately, that just means you don’t need to know yet.”

“It is always worthwhile to trust God and do as He says, even when it means flying straight into the storm.”

“Are you an oyster or an eagle?”

EYES WIDE OPEN by Isaac Lidsky

Lidsky writes withoutany grandiosity about the debilitating visual degeneration he went through, or the total blindness that is now a daily reality.

“With hard work comes strength; with practice, mastery,” he said without pretense about his struggles with the progression from seeing to the realities that a blind person encounters every moment.

Discouragement, disappointment, frustrations are compounded when one goes through major life changes. At the back of your mind, you wonder how long people will stick around a dejevted person,  and how much they can bear to look at what you are going through. Many don’t and that’s the only way they know how to respond. Who can stand being around someone with no more laughter, no more imagination, and when is there no more emotional and esteem benefits for sticking around. Yet he wrote about his wife Dorothy, “She never doubted that I would provide for our family. Decision by insane decision, she was there for me. It was fine by her if her fancy lawyer husband wanted to reinvent himself as a construction guy. Her reward? I turned our lives upside down. In New York we had dreamed I would build a business empire. Last week I told her I would likely file a personal bankruptcy.”

And his Jewish mother stood by him. “Please be good to yourself, tatele. (a Yiddish term of endearment or little boy) She heard the pain in my voice. She wanted to save me.” Only mothers do that: some mothers. They can hear pain, but you have to make the phone call. She gave him her entire life savings of $350K in a duffel bag and walked back to her car. That’s what some mums do because hope is priceless and they would do anything to bring that back to life.

It is not mentioned in the book but perhaps these two women are walking by faith and not by sight, and it is a faith that rests not in a man’s talents and abilities, but in God who is larger than the man they both love. 

Some people face debilitating diseases like Lidsky, some face the unexpected death of a loved one, others battle life-long depression or deal with crushing post-divorce realities. The world doesn’t need another ‘do this and you’ll be fine’ book under self-help or Christian titles. Nothing in this book claims that promise. If anything, it preaches vulnerability and urges those going through their dreaded and irreversible D’s to breath and focus on the flow of taking things one step at a time. For many of these on many days, those are big steps: to focus and to keep moving.

For a book titled “Eyes Wide Open”, he ends with chapter 8 titled “Heart Wide Open.” Lidsky says, “I’m a funny blind guy with an open heart.” I think so too.  

THROUGH THE EYES OF A LION: Facing impossible pain, finding incredible power By Levi Lusko

WHAT IF YOU’RE HAVING AN ACHING CHRISTMAS?

Levi Lusko is a pastor – if you checked out his sermons on YouTube, you’d find a pretty regular looking young pastor but one who is passionate and straightforward about obeying God. He and his wife also found themselves in the throes of deep grief when they suddenly lost their fiesty 5-year-old second born, nicknamed Lenya Lion, to a sudden asthma attack a few days before Christmas in 2012. 

This book is about facing pain instead of running away from it. You can imagine the anguish and agony of what Lusko went through. But he roared back, and through his encounter with raw pain, he analogized facing it with how one should run to the roar of a lion. Picture the way a pride of lions powerfully attack and overcome its victims - the tactic lies on the ferocious roar of male lions to intimidate and scare their victims to run away from the roar but only to be trapped by female lions who have by now silently surrounded the victim. In other words, Lusko urged us to make the counter-intuitive move towards the roar instead of running away from it. 

“If you fail to face your fears, they will always be right there behind you.” 

ABOUT PAIN, Lusko writes, “There is a disorienting endlessness to suffering that makes it easy to lose your bearings. It’s like being lost in the woods of your own soul. Initially, just surviving each moment without hyperventilating is so all-consuming that minutes tick by slower than years. But then one day you poke your head out from your hibernation of hurting, and it can be shocking to find that actual time has passed.” 

But what if the pain someone is experiencing is something they can’t quite put a finger on? What if there is no casket that people can see, or a loss that creates a vacuum in life that money and material comfort cannot fill? Lusko offers this advice: “Perhaps for you running toward the roar isn’t about something you’re supposed to do but rather something difficult you have to go through: painful chemotherapy treatments, a divorce, a move across the country that will dislocate you from friendships that mean the world to you….(or Henri Nouwen might have also added – someone not coming through for you in the way you expected). Sometimes there is no other alternative but to face it.” 

Gold standard advice: “Remember this: God isn’t scared of what you’re scared of. But you don’t have to pretend like you’re not frightened. Naming your fear is part of getting through it.” 

But I thought he added too soon the warning: “try to shine the light and turn off the dark for as many people as possible – myself in the process.” Personally, I feel that trying to use personal tragedies as an inspiration to others is warped if done prematurely before one has sufficiently allowed God to deal with all manners of escapism and avoidance of the root issue. 

What I like best from LION: It is possible to go into eternity with a saved soul and a wasted life. (Even in grief) You must make the choice to walk by faith and see what can’t be seen with the naked eye. 

My take-away: Pain is not just a feeling, but a season of dealing with disappointment for some, or personal loss for others. A season of pain includes but is not all about crying and grieving: life can go on pretty much the same with work, studies, family, meetings, catching with friends, serving in church, etc except it takes much more out of you to just keep up the normalcy. Like physical pain, emotional pain drains you physically and mentally. 

My approach for self and others going through seasons of pain – put in small celebrations to disrupt the cycle of grief even for short moments the way old friends had brought up the most trivial reasons just to meet up with me when I was going through my season of brokenness that really touched my heart. And in turn, I do the same for others. 

This is pretty much like the book ‘Shattered Dreams’ reviewed in this blog. 

Where you can get it: Kinokuniya $28.35, Book Depository from $12.86, Open Trolley $23.20

ALL TOO MUCH FOR OLIVER by Leila Boukarim

I met Leila recently at the Singapore Writers’ Festival. She was there to introduce another speaker and not really for her own book. But I found her illustrated children’s book ‘All Too Much For Oliver’ on the speaker’s book table, and asked who the writer was.

I was immediately drawn to her book that describes a highly sensitive child who prefers a quiet world without too much stimulation...most of the time.

Young Oliver likes going to the park. He likes playing in the playground. He likes swimming. He likes parties. But only if there aren't too many kids around, if it isn’t too noisy, and if there is one person he likes that could take his attention away from everything else around him.

I can identify with that right away. During almost my entire school life, I hardly joined classmates in crowded tuckshops during recess time but preferred slow walks with just one friend in quieter places further out in the school compound. We would eat only when others were finishing and clearing out of the school canteen. I was used to friends feeling abandoned and asking, ‘Where have you been?’ but it felt weird to tell them that I needed to get away to recharge after four lessons of morning class with them! I didn’t even know how to describe the need for solitude. So I never did. Though I started conversations with others easily, I usually had only one friend at a time and that was totally normal. Any more would simply wear me out. Yet, I’ve thrown more parties than most people I know. I just need enough time alone to reflect, recharge and enjoy company.

So in short, the book means a lot to me. And I felt comfortable enough to ask Leila if she was also a highly-sensitive person (HSP) and she said yes. It was the first time in my life that I could be so open with another human about this without feeling like an anomaly. It was liberating!

I snapped up two copies of the book without a second thought!

Where you can get it: Leila says her book is available at Kinokuniya.

SHY by Deborah Freedman

I believe in having a childlike attitude towards life, and enjoy popping into children’s bookstores to sniff out good books with the intensity of a dog sniffing the ground on its walk. Children’s books have a way of telling us much with great simplicity and it takes a gifted storyteller to deliver a story that has different layers of meaning for both children and adults.

SHY caught my attention one afternoon. Something about its size and hard cover belies its demure title – it is bigger than most books. As a book lover, I was immediately drawn to the first sentence: “Shy was happiest between the pages of a book.” It goes on to describe a giraffe who, in spite its build and bearing, liked to read about birds but never got to befriend any because it was too shy.

“But Shy had never actually heard a bird.

  None of his books could sing.”

To younger children, the books talks about getting to know someone of different ethnicity or ability.

To preteens, it can introduce the topic of having friends of the opposite sex.

For adults, we can reflect on meaningful friendships that we can open up to without fear.

Most children books have no page number and it took me just a short time to browse through the book at the store. So I will not give away the ending. But it is one that rewards opening the windows of our lives to let others in – whatever our age.

Where you can get it: Books Ahoy! at Forum Galleria (about $31), and Book Depository (about $21).

BRAVE ENOUGH by Nicole Unice

There are times in life that you face more than one major upheaval without anyone by your side. It’s like a slow drown while everyone on-shore go about their everyday lives. It’s hard to scream when you are drowning so nobody hears your distress. Perhaps many don’t like to get wet, or held back by their own fear of water or the inability to swim themselves, they prefer to think that all is well and you will re-appear one day. And you do know that one day you will make it back on shore to join everyone else.

Question is: will you be in a better or worse condition then?

I know of people who have gone through life-changing shipwrecks. Though the storms are long over, they have become storm avoidant, and stone cold. I was drawn to BRAVE ENOUGH to investigate storm survivors who live to tell not of how they have learnt to avoid storms or not to trust people which is tragic because it shows that although they came through the storm, something has drowned inside them. I want to know how people face the storm and still not lose courage.

In today's digital age, many of us are not very sensitized to pain, whether it's our own or another's. Courage seems to be a quality that is hard to find, even inside churches.

"Courage seems to be a quality that is hard to find ..."

WHAT'S INSIDE ‘BE BRAVE’ 

The INTRODUCTION begins with, ‘We are all a little scared. We’re often afraid of being irrelevant, worthless, or forgotten. We worry about what will happen if we speak up, or what will happen if we stay quiet and rest for even a moment…scared into stillness but vibrating with anxiety.’

But the point of having courage, she argued, is to face what is making us scared and anxious rather than the rightness or wrongness of doing or not doing something.

Interestingly, the first chapter of the book touched on courage needed to write a note to a friend. Compared to facing life changes after losing a loved one or a divorce, this is a cinch. But if we would hold back a little on snap judgment, aren’t the little hard things in relationships the ones that need the most courage to sort out?

But before we protest that it's another self-help book, we are quickly reminded that God is in the business of restoring courage and Unice highlighted poignant moments in the Bible when Jesus knew someone nearby had lost the strength of courage.

To the paralytic man brought to Him by friends, He said ‘Take heart, son’. Matthew 9:2

To the woman who came uninvited and alone, He said ‘Take heart, daughter’. Matthew 9:22

To His disciples who saw Him walking on water, He said ‘Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.’ Matthew 14:27

To us all, He said ‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.’ John 16:33

There are only four mentions of Greek tharseo in the Bible. It means courage, or be encouraged.

“Despite all the ways that you feel you are too much for anyone…you are never too much for Him. When we are n the tumultuous waters of our past, we are not free! We are just trying to survive.” – God is serious about what hinders us.

Chapter 1 - “Courage cuts across circumstances. Sometimes we need courage to write notes, to get out of bed, to say hard tings.” It is when God calls us to endure.

Chapter 9 – God’s grace can offend our sensibilities and our perception of how things should work. “It was hard for Peter to accept when Jesus stooped low to wash his feet. It’s personal and intimate, and it requires us to let Jesus invade our personal space, our rights, and our understanding of how the world should work.”

This book is for believer of all levels of maturity. To those facing the first storms of life with Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, it encourages you to come through stronger. To seasoned leaders and pastors, it takes us away from giving pat answers to life complexities that we are facing, or throwing ourselves into a state of defeat. We won’t know how to help others go through their storms if we can’t even face our own pain.

Whether for yourself or someone going through a stormy season, this book is a good companion for the ride. And as always, also be there in person for them. 

Where you can get it: I got it on OpenTrolley. It's not available on Book Depository, Kinokuniya or even SKS Bookstore which stocks books by Christian authors.

The Sandwich Swap

by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah

For a book to have blurps by a US President, a First Lady and a billionaire philanthropist, it is unusual.  For a children’s book to bear such pre-eminence, it must be authored by a royalty no less!  And so it is: ‘The Sandwich Swap’ is penned by none other than Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah. It is a simple and meaningful story about a cross-cultural friendship between Lily, who is Caucasian, and Salma, of Middle eastern descent.  They are best friends and inseparable . 

But where humanity and personality bring them together, tragically, the food that epitomize their distinct cultural backgrounds would divide them.  Lily swears by peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, while Salma holds unflinching loyalty to hummus and pita sandwich.  Each girl esteems her sandwich because of the parent who has lovingly prepared it.  And each one thinks the world of her parent and therefore, about her sandwich.  Any criticism of the sandwich is an inexcusable insult and fiercely defended.  

In reality though, a brown paste of ground roasted peanuts is really not that different from a paste of mashed chickpeas. Both are mushy: their palatability determined only by exposure and experience.  

But the showdown comes when one exerts superiority of preference over another.  (Reminiscent of the story circulating here around a Chinese family's complaint of the smell of curry coming from their Indian neighbors' house everyday.)  Bigotry in any form is impolite and distasteful.  There are no winners in this tug-of-war: whether it’s between Europeans, Americans, Chinese, Indians, Vietnamese, Latinos or Middle-easterners.

The two girls become estranged and lonely. Stories of their dispute spread and trigger an all-out food fight at the canteen! Through it they begin to see the absurdity of it all, and bravely, they start to make conciliatory moves to appreciate each others' cultural heritage...beginning with a simple exchange of sandwiches. And they are once again friends.

However, when they discover how enriched they are to have tasted each others’ sandwich and pita [called falafel in Israel], they just know that they must take the message to the masses and organize an international lunch buffet for the other students to spread the good news and the peace agenda!

BIGOTRY really is like sticking to one type of lunch and exerting its superiority over other choices. In the end, it’s isolating and lonely, and short-changes one of tremendous enjoyment that comes from being open to other cultural experiences just because you can.

Masterful Living

by Kevin Mannoia

On first impression, the title has the vernacular of martial arts or some new age ideology, but the idea is not congruent with the person who lent it to me. Masterful Living, as it turns out, is simply about living full of God as our Master. It sounds simple, but this book is best read slowly for deep and investigative self-reflection. You may want to mark some chapters as favourites for ongoing reference according to what God is doing in your life.

Here are my favourite chapters.

[Chapter 2] Responsible engagement

This is an interesting chapter that talks about social engagement as a result of a transformed character.  While an overemphasis on character transformation can cause a believer to be isolated and alienated from those outside his/her holy fortress [my expression], a sense of responsible engagement that is driven by character transformation causes us to spring into action ‘for engaging the hurt, the broken, the disenfranchised in order to make a difference here and now.’

Located at the end of this chapter:

Theological idea to meditate on: Incarnation of God in Jesus

Danger to Avoid: Social Gospel/activism alone

[Chapter 3] Healthy relationships

Masterful Living postulates that when we are truly living in the Spirit of God, we will begin to understand the true nature of unity, and healthy relationships become the natural outcome. Such relationships are rooted in unity with God, and allow for differences in personality, ability, functions, role, circumstances, etc. These are very liberating relationships that have some qualities of uniformity and unanimity.  Unfortunately, because ‘abuses of power, manipulation, dysfunctional relationships...and coercion' some 'may impose uniformity or unanimity where unity does not exist’.

Mannoia exerts that God does not dichotomize His love but offers a universal love for all mankind that is vulnerable to rejection, criticism and hurt.  He cannot be one thing to those who love Him, and another to those who reject Him. God is faithful to His nature, and He cannot deny who He is. With God as our Master, we’ll find it hard not to be the same.  While this is not to say that we should be pushovers for bullies, what it means is that increasingly, it’ll be hard to operate love with a bias.  Surely, it's easy to treat those who are amiable towards us with a Type A attitude, and guard ourselves with a Type B behaviour towards the bull-dozers.  But mastered by God's love, it'll be hard to withhold kindness and mercy even to the bulldozers. While I’m not saying that one should invite a troublesome person to lunch with open arms or to continue to be manipulated, being consistently gracious is a happier way to live.  And life is more relaxed when you have only one side to show, whether it's valued or not.

Located at the end of this chapter:

Theological idea to meditate on: The kingdom principle of mutuality

Danger to Avoid: Group relativism

[Chapter 7] Servant Leadership

Masterful Living dispels all notions that servant leadership is a leadership model, or a smart way to get people on your side by mimicking servanthood.  Rather, it postulates that ‘you may be an autocratic leader, or a collaborative leader, or a directing leader, or a theory X leader – and still be a servant leader. The real issue is not the style  but the inner condition of your life and how that condition is reflected in whatever style of leadership you apply.’

My best part is where it talks about the servant/master construct: that we reflect the nature and priorities of who our master is.  Money, self, position, power, others [ie other people] or God can be our master, and we will invariably reflect the one who masters us. Serving money, for example, will bring a different alignment of all the other priorities in our lives eg relationship with others and God. Naturally, one who is mastered by money will place position, power and self above all else to succeed.  This makes it really very telling who anyone’s master is.

Don't we often allow ourselves to be hoodwinked by what a person claims to be, and the tell-tale signs we so compassionately want to ignore.

Located at the end of this chapter:

Theological idea to meditate on: The servant mind of Christ

Danger to Avoid: Style of leadership only

Every chapter ends with a Scripture reference, a theological idea to meditate on, a danger to avoid, questions to ask yourself, and a prayer.  I have to say that the questions and prayers are not the usual run-of-the-mill ho-hums at the end of a chapter and that makes this book good for private journalling to develop your thoughts, monitor your commitments [after all, every prayer is really a commitment] and note the changes God will bring about.

SIMPLY A SUPERB PERSONAL GUIDEBOOK towards Masterful Living.

 
Where you can get it: Bookstore at Trinity @ PL, tel 6749-9639

The Carrot Seed

by Ruth Krauss

This 1945 children's classic came to mind in the other day and I was pleased to find it safely nestled on the shelf.  Some stories have the capacity to come alive in different ways and this is one of them - a simple story about waiting and the simple concept of allowing due process.

Yet even the simplest ambition or aspiration becomes really hard when it involves mental endurance and the fine art of preserving relationships with close ones who do not sign up to wait with you [and they have every right not to].  It also illustrates the importance of keeping busy while staying the course, with actions that promote the cause that is close to the heart . Often, worthy pursuits are sabotaged by counter-productive actions that bring them to premature end.

The little boy in the story believed that his carrot seed would yield a carrot, dug his heels in to guard the seed, and tactfully stood his ground against all disparaging influences. Eventually, he was rewarded for what he believed. Drawing on the theory of Erik Eriksen - the father of psychosocial development - if he had aborted his endeavour, the disappointment would surely bring upon him a sense of inferiority children his age are so susceptible to. He would not have discovered the fruit of his diligence.

The story has only 101 words [I counted] - some pages only four words - and throughout, the little boy uttered not a word.  From the time I was 10, my father made me memorize and recite books to him during the school holidays [maybe a way to keep me from pestering him to take me out].  I hated the process but liked the sense of achievement after my turn was over [and I was liberated from this imposition on my idyllic existence].  In retrospect, he imbued in  me a propensity for hard work.  The Carrot Seed would have been such an easy assignment, but no he never gave it to me that easy!  By contrast, this short review already has 334 words.

Where you can get it: Try the better children's bookstores or Kinokuniya [It's still in print]
Level of impact: Refreshing reminder and illustration of faith and attitude

Bittersweet

By Shauna Niequist

Not in the mood for instructions on Christian living, I found ‘Bittersweet’ among piles of books on the bare cement floor of the bookstore, looking more like a misplaced cookbook! Like the cover, this book is as delectable a read as sipping latte on a quiet afternoon with a good friend telling you her story. It's so precious it never left my bedside - just one of those books that make me look forward to curling up in bed at night when the girls are in their rooms. Incidently, the word ‘bittersweet’ came to my mind the night before, so it was a natural pick.

Never heard of Shauna Niequist before, but two paragraphs into the proloque tells me that she is a rare contemporary wordsmith. ‘Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bitter sweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, earthy.’

Don't you already love this?

A collection of non-pretentious, non-cynical ramblings about day-to-day happenings written at a time of the author’s life that was fraught with uncertainties and unknown outcomes. In the process, she writes about the food that mark each experience, the friends and parties that provide comfort and normalcy, and her bare emotions not couched in Christian jargon or politesse. She has a security in Jesus that’s not contingent on good outcomes. I see vibrancy in her soul that eludes many people who have it far better than her in their circumstances. Through her memoirs, you connect with her tears, her anguish, her exasperation, and still see that hurtful reality is not something you can just slam the door on. Chapter closed. Life goes on. [Such delusional thinking about life only leads people to seek escape through transcendental meditations, positive thinking, and even using pseudo-faith in God to hope for better outcomes.]

Talking about unhappiness makes people uncomfortable but it’s a lop-sided life and friendship that only dwells on the happy days and shows the happy face. The author had a miscarriage when she started writing, but she suffered an even sadder loss of a double miscarriage in the concluding chapters. In the chapter 'your story must be told', she wrote, “When we tell the truth about our lives – the broken parts, the secret parts, the beautiful parts – then the gospel comes to life, an actual story about redemption ...”

About sweet endings, this is her conclusion in the epilogue, “I wanted, of course, for this bittersweet season to be over. I felt so strongly that when I finished the book, I’d be free to move into another season, one of life and celebration. But this is what I know now: they’re the same thing, and that’s all there is. The most bittersweet season of my life so far is still life, still beautiful, still sparkling with celebration. This season wasn’t bittersweet. Life itself is bittersweet. There’s always life and death, always beauty and blood.’

I couldn’t agree more. Those who think they are doing their loved ones a favour by staying away during bad times, or avoiding any talk about hard issues are truly missing out on precious opportunities to see God in their lives that will help them immeasurably when their time comes.


Where you can get it: SKS Books S$26.50
Level of impact: Immediately comforting, putting down is like hanging up on a friend.
Timing of book: Sad is the life without a book as a guidepost; glad God sent me this for the journey.

HOW TO ACT RIGHT WHEN YOUR SPOUSE ACTS WRONG

by Leslie Vernick

MY SECOND FIRST READ OF 2012. Someone gave it to me on 14th January. I must admit I was amused by the simple bias of the title that assumes a sense of spousal superiority. But I soon discovered that it is written by a social worker who is also trained in biblical counselling, CBT and working with abusers and their victims. Now, I’m paying attention because this is an area of special interest. [I had recently done an assignment on legal protection for foreign spouses who are victims of domestic violence and the applicability of the Duluth Model for community intervention].

Admittedly, the common concept of marriage I have observed has been rather warped to the extent that though photos are taken together, many even live together, few married couples are truly happy. How can one be happy when you can’t honestly confront your own fears and unhappiness, and take responsibility for them? Until we do so, we cannot be honest with our spouse about their behaviour.

The truth seems to be that too many married folks are afraid to accept and acknowledge the faultlines and jarring differences between them and their spouse, too many are afraid of confronting unreasonable behaviour and unhealthy habits, too many are really afraid of their spouse walking out. Operating out of such fears will stop us from experiencing a meaningful relationship with an equal balance of power and a healthy respect for each other’s separate identity.

I read the book through once on 14th January and then again, more than a month later. What was merely a pleasant read became a powerful reminder the second time round, thanks to changing circumstances and perceptions in the intervening period.

This book covers spousal abuse, addictions, Viagra and pornography, and is a good guide and resource for those whose first instinct for themselves or their loved ones is to call a divorce lawyer. Too many have indeed left with bags of bitterness.

Interestingly, many in my block have sold their flats once the MRT construction was under way at Farrer Road. Perhaps living with the chaos and pollution of construction far outweighed any good that would come out of the longterm project. Leaving would give them immediate respite and relief without disturbing their equilibrium.This is not unlike walking out of a marriage at the first signs of problem.

Choosing to act right when you don’t feel like it isn’t hypocrisy; it’s obedience.

[Chp 1 – Why Bother to Act Right?’]

'They try hard, often with marathon efforts, but their spouse doesn’t respond the way they hope. Their marriage is still distant, painful, full of conflict and superficially pleasant but emotionally cold....(believing that) God would change his spouse if only he learned to act right.’

This book has no place for thinking like ‘as long as you continue to endure and be kind, he/she will be touched', or the persuasion that quiet tolerance of wrong behaviour produces peace. It is not supportive of doing anything that enables dysfunctional, destructive and downright rude and abusive behaviour in a spouse. There are too many who become ENABLERS in their marriage and wonder why their spouse does not change when simply doing more of the same wrong thing will not produce a different result.

Our spouse’s wrongs reveal the negative or inaccurate way we interpret life.

[Chp 2 – What Do My Spouse’s Wrongs Reveal in Me?’]

‘God may use the very actions of your spouse ... to reveal the contents of your heart to you so that you can grow and change. Honesty about this is necessary for those of us who want to clearly see what or who we rely on for our happiness, security, and well-being. Is it God? Or is our welfare more dependent upon getting what we want?’

THE CHAPTER EVERY MARRIED PERSON SHOULD READ –
Chp 9: Gifts of Love

Gift of ACCEPTANCE

‘Mature love involves a full knowledge of another person, including his or her weak areas.’ Yet it ‘doesn’t mean we like a fault we see...not does it imply that we resign ourselves to a hopeless situation. For it to be a true gift, we must stop resenting it...all the while still asking God to mature him or her.’

Gift of TRUTH

‘At times in our marriage we do not face reality. We wish for the best in spite of evidence to the contrary. We close our eyes to information that will help us make better decisions. We are not honest with ourselves, let alone our spouse. We also rob ourselves of the growth that comes from facing our feelings and dealing with them. Everybody loses and our marriage will suffer. Blurting out angry or destructive feelings is not a gift of truth [while we pretend and defend it to be honesty!]. The gift of truth is always motivated by love.’

Gift of KINDNESS

‘When our mate has hurt us...most of us react by treating him or her with contempt. Through acts of kindness, we are empowered not overcome. [In the book, Adam’s] drug use was so out of control that Joan finally asked him to move out until he could get help for his problem. Being kind toward your enemy means that whatever happens to you doesn’t define you. It doesn’t shape you or turn you into something evil. They are gifts of love, not rewards for good behaviour.’

It’s seeing that how you will let God change you through distressing circumstances is more definitive of who you are than being a victim of your circumstances. Too many people I know are ashamed to experience suffering because of how bad it makes them look.

Gift of FORGIVENESS

This is not the same as reconciliation simply because forgiveness [as God’s forgiveness to us] is unilaterally given, but reconciliation is only possible when the offending party sees wrong in his/her behaviour and desires to reconcile. ‘Forgiveness doesn’t guarantee an absence of pain. Sometimes, we confuse forgiveness and reconciliation. Forgiveness means choosing not to cling to our right for justice or vengeance.’ We cancel the debt of offence.

‘Part of seeing what God is up to in our life when our spouse acts wrong requires our understanding that God teaches us how to become more like Jesus through the process of being wounded...we become a reflection of who he is IN us rather than a reflection of what others have done TO us.’ Amen!

Gift of CONSEQUENCES

‘In some circumstances, we may need to implement painful consequences as a way of preventing our spouse from inflicting further harm.’ Yet, to check that this is not merely another way to cover up vengeance or intent to hurt back, it is important to work through our course of action with at least one qualified third party. I would suggest a pastor, a social worker and/or a trusted mature friend. [Thank the Lord if you have all three!]

This book is a crucial, credible and comforting resource to anyone who is going through distressing challenges in his/her marriage or is walking with one through similar situations. Loaded with examples of marital conflicts and outcomes makes it easy to read. I like it that each chapter concludes with a prayer that takes you from knowledge to commitment to allow God to change you.

Our commitment to the purity and integrity of our marriage is without doubt most tested and evident where there wrong is done to us. But there is hope when we would let God's ways refine and define us rather than gripe about being victimized by the wrong done, pulverize our spouse with vengence and damaging actions, or deep-freeze the marriage and family in delusional denial.

Where you can get it: SKS Books
Level of impact: Will change those who have become Enablers to their poorly behaving spouse into Empowerers who empower themselves and their spouse.
Timing of book:

In Sheep's Clothing - Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People

By George Simon, Jr, Ph.D

Does a cat prey on a mouse because the cat has some unresolved issues from the past, or is a victim of abuse, or the mouse has antagonized it and it’s responding in self-defence? If the mouse is the victim, imagine if help and support is given to the cat while the mouse is told to look at the cat’s virtues. Sounds preposterous? Well, such predators lurk in families, workplaces and yes, churches and they are experts at pulling the wool over the eyes of those around them and taking them in. While it is much easier to recognize aggressive behaviour when it's 'open, direct and physical', it's much harder to put a finger on the tactics of covert-aggression.

This book makes a distinction between assertive and aggressive behaviour, and between victim and victimizer where conventional thinking tends to focus only on overt behaviour and overlook under-handed manipulation that hoodwinks victims and people around.

If you feel that you are always defending the goodness of someone’s actions and intentions while feeling helpless and oppressed inside, or if you’re always second-guessing yourself to uphold the integrity of another person in your life - read this book.

There are some professions and places that attract covertly manipulative people including counselling and church work because they can hide behind the mask of nobility of the organisation’s mission.

This book addresses covert-aggression which the author believes is ‘at the heart of most interpersonal manipulation.’ He describes the covert-aggressive individual as one who is conscious of ‘concealing overt displays of aggression while simultaneously intimidating others into backing-off, backing-down, or giving-in. These covert-aggressive personalities can have their way with you and look good in the process. They vary in their degree of ruthlessness and character pathology.’

The victim feels stifled and choked but can’t put a finger on anything to identify the crime. The end result is a feeling of worthlessness and helplessness. To me, it's not much different from what victims of abuse go through both with the abuser and with those who try to help. The author’s argument for a new psychological perspective on this personality dysfunction stems from the failure of mental health professionals and lay persons to recognize the aggressive agendas and actions for what they really are. According to him, this is largely attributed to the belief that 'people only exhibit problem behaviours when they’re “troubled” inside or anxious about something ...that people aggress only when they’re attacked in some way. So, even when our gut tells us that somebody is attacking us and for no good reason, or merely trying to overpower us, we don’t readily accept the notions. We try to analyze the situation to death instead of simply responding to the attack.’ As a result, the victim leaves and nobody really knows the real reason.

Where you can get it: S$28.15 Kinokuniya

Level of impact: A must-read for all.

Timing of book: Impeccable