This is undeniably true for a chunk of my characters in Man Enough For Me. For a few I didn’t even bother to change their names because…well…to be perfectly honest I didn’t think there was a chance that said people would ever read it anyway. Also, most of my ‘inspirations’ were people I met whose lives were no longer intertwined with mine in any way.

So imagine my surprise when a couple days ago I walk into an interview with Germaine from Man Enough For Me.

Well not Germaine, but the guy who inspired Germaine. I actually ‘met’ dude four years ago at a part time job I worked for three months while I was in school. I use the word ‘met’ loosely because I actually never interacted much with him since he was a supervisor but not my supervisor. But in the world of boring part-time jobs, a girl needs something to entertain herself, and my Germaine happened to be it. However Toronto is a populous city and when I left the job I was sure I would never see him again – ever. So you can see why it took me a minute to pick my jaw up off the ground when my Germaine introduces himself four years later and asks me if I’m ready for the interview.

Thankfully I got it together but I feel there’s a lesson in here. Just like my momma always told me to be careful what I say cause I can’t take it back, we gotta be careful who we write about – cause you never know if the man holding your plot twist might one day hold your pay check.

At the floating market in Amphawa on my last days in Thailand

So I’m finally back in the West. I have actually been back in Canada for about a month now but the adjustment has taken time for a girl. The first week it was dealing with the time change. How did that go? Let’s just say I had a very early bedtime every evening. But after a week I was fine. It was the psychological part of the adjustment that has taken a bit longer.

The truth is, you don’t know how somewhere has changed you until you go back to where you were before. I was told I would have reverse culture shock. But no one told me it would come at me at the most random moments and in the strangest forms. Like my disgust at the amount of time I have to spend getting from one place to another; or my disdain at the excessive amount of ‘things’ in my home. It’s funny, when I was in Thailand, I met so many people who wanted to come to Canada. But now that I am back in Canada, there are moments when all I want to do is go back to the simplicity of my life in Thailand. It has been like seeing my Western life through new eyes and wondering what the big deal was anyway.

I guess it is similar to the experience of coming to know God. A lot of things get tossed off as you walk closer to Him, and sometimes you stop on the road and look back at the things that were so hard to let go of and wonder what the big deal was anyway. Personally, I am learning to appreciate this feeling of wanting less. I hope it never goes away.

So then, why is it so hard to let go of the things that hurt us or that even just fill us up with empty calories?

Because it tastes good.

It feels good. It sounds good. It looks good. That’s the thing with sin.  It’s designed to draw us away or at least distract us from the One who really loves us. It really is sad. I could say more, but The Arrows say it so much better.

Something to think about.
 

Thai temple beauty at its best

Wat Rong Khun, known to many tourists as the White Temple, is a huge beautiful temple in Chiang Rai Thailand. I got the chance to visit it earlier this year, and believe the picture doesn’t do it justice. One thing I have noticed is that Thai people go all out with the temples. They are truly a beauty.

books, music and film

I am a source girl.

I need to know where things come from. If I am eating a meal, I prefer to know who cooked it. I regularly ruin the ending of movies for myself by checking the synopsis on Wikipedia. And when it comes to books and music, especially gospel music I have to know the story. Sometimes however, knowing the story changes how much I like the music.

Like the other day I was listening to some throwback nineties gospel tracks (I am biased to music created between 1980 and 1992) and I got hit by one of my old favourites from a singer who has an amazing voice and range. The lyrics of her songs were so deep that I just had to google her. After all, she must have had some amazing testimony of something God did in her life for her to sing a song like that. I never found such testimony. I did find out however, that she was originally an R&B artist, who after about 20 years into her career decided to do a gospel or rather ‘inspirational’ album, after which she went back to her R&B roots.

Now I’m not saying anything is wrong with R&B. But I will tell you, my heart was broken.

You mean that song didn’t come from the heart of someone who was so completely transformed that she decided to commit her entire life from then on to ministry to Christ? Nope.

This is not unusual. There are countless secular artists who drop Christian tracks that are so soulful they make you want to say the Jesus prayer all over again. Just like there are many authors who dabble in Christian fiction because the genre happens to be on the up and up.

But how should I view the spiritual offerings of a secular world? Yes, only God knows the heart, but if the majority of your art represents one concept, and a small fraction represents the opposite, which is really real?

So if an artist demonstrates from the body of his work, that he has nominal regard (at best) for the principles of Christ, how am I supposed to take this one piece where he claims to be rooting for the King? How much spiritual food can I really get from this? And for professedly Christian artists who turn around and dabble in the secular. Isn’t that confusing for your audience?

I know this is a touchy topic and people get mad but I’ll say this: Life would be simpler to navigate if people just picked a side. You want to be the next King/Queen of soul/pop/rock? You do you. But if you’re going to be for Christ, be all for Christ. Joshua said it best for me:

 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” (Josh 24:15)

In light of my new endeavours, I have found that I have to censor myself a lot. A lot of the things I would normally say freely on facebook and even on this blog, I can no longer say because they might offend the wrong someone. If you know me personally – and by that I mean, if you have ever been on the wrong end of my frustration – you know that I don’t mince words.

So you can understand how I feel having to edit or even delete comments or posts because of the impression they might have on people. I can’t talk about certain topics because people might get the wrong (or right) impression of me. I can’t say how I feel about certain books I’ve read because someone might be offended. The result is that I blog less, comment less, and participate less in a lot of social media. The only thing I hate more than having to censor myself is being fake. I won’t do it.

And from this place came Free-Speech Fridays. This is the one day of the week I will blog whatever I want to say, uncensored. If you’re super sensetive know to avoid the above labelled posts. I remember when the great thing about social media and the online world was that there was a niche for everyone and people could be themselves. Somehow in the business of image management we have strayed away from that.

It’s time to bring it back.

Stacks of rocks in Phataem, Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand

Yesterday I went adventuring in Ubon Ratchathani, the Thai province in which I have been living for the past 8 months. We saw many beautiful natural phenomena (see my facebook page for pictures) and it was amazing. At almost every location I noticed these stone structures pictured right. I asked my Thai friend about them and she explained that the stones were stacked there by Thai persons, the belief being that if your stack of stones remained standing for a long time then you would live for a long time. But if your stack somehow fell over, you were going to die soon.

It is amazing how across, culture and race and continent, there seems to be a common aim to somehow control death or at least the timing of it.

“So Satan answered the Lord and said “Skin for skin! Yes all that a man has he will give for his life. But stretch out your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh and he will surely curse You to Your face.” – Job 2:3,4

I’ve been reading about Job and his trial and I keep thinking that most people can survive the loss of things, but the threat to health and life is what seems to push us over the edge. In these times knowing that the true source of all life is God our heavenly Father is invaluable. It may not make death any less myseterious, or even allay its coming, but it gives us peace knowing that if we are connected to Him our life has a power that is stronger than death.

Here are my top 5 new habits:

5. Powdering my Face
Okay, so I was overweight at the airport and my make-up bag got the boot, which is okay since I’ve been slowly cutting ties with it for a while now. But needless to say finding foundation for black girls here is like finding comfortable shoes in Payless. It’s not going to happen. So to keep my face looking cool I’ve resorted to dusting it with a bit of baby powder. Might sound strange to you, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a Thai woman (especially one with children) without a little bottle of baby powder in her purse.

4. Adding lime, sugar and fish oil to everything
Almost every meal you purchase here I’ve noticed comes with sugar and half a lime as condiments. And on the centre of your table there is likely a container with vinegar, and one with fish oil. Whether it’s kao pad (fried rice), soup, Pad thai, or anything else, you can be sure, in Thailand it will taste better with sugar and lime.

3.Eating with a fork and a spoon
Dinner knives are also another rarity here in Ubon, even in upscale restaurants. That’s okay though – I’ve become pretty adept at eating with a spoon and fork (spoon in the right hand, fork in the left).

2. No shoes in the house
If you visit a Thai home,(or church or temple, or some stores) chances are you will see a pile of shoes at the door and you will be asked to remove yours as well. My mother already started enforcing this in our own home when she got her hardwood floors, but it is pretty much gospel here in Thailand. I’ve side-eyed my roommate enough so I think she is getting that it applies in our apartment as well.

1. Socks and Slippers
I know, this is so not western, but with #2 it should make sense. Plus, when it gets cold here, it’s nice to have warm feet. I notice this trend a lot when I travel far on buses or trains in Thailand, and when you see something long enough it starts to look normal. On the upside, you get to show off your cute socks!

But all jokes aside, no doubt the world has been in a state of conflict for long enough that it is easy for people to think that our world is in fact coming to an end. And it is. The question is, when?

For the truth check out:

The Final Events According to Bible Prophecy

Get the facts, then decide for yourself.

During the dinner we started talking about Thai dramas (soap operas). And the foreigners at the table found it interesting that Thai dramas, which take bad acting to a new level, are in some instances more dramatic than an episode of Days of Our Lives. However, Thai people in day to day interactions are not at all dramatic. And yet they LOVE these dramas. (I have Thai friends who do not go out on certain nights because that is when their drama comes, and others who cry when someone in their drama dies.)

But Thai people generally shy away from extreme displays of emotion. Crying in public (even at funerals) is almost taboo, as is shows of anger or great displeasure.

In this way I feel that I am becoming Thai. Over the past couple weeks I have gone through more mood swings than a pregnant woman in her first trimester, but I can’t show any of it. Sometimes I wonder if Jesus got mood swings. Did He ever feel like screaming? Like hurling a rock at someone’s head? Like telling a sister a piece of His mind? I seem to remember him weeping a couple times, but people don’t like to think about Jesus emotional like that. I don’t know. But in a culture where displays of emotion are taboo, and even in Christianity where people sometimes call you unchristian for expressing your true opinions on an issue, I can’t help but wonder if I am turning Thai. And as I do I wonder if I will hide my real emotions for so long that one day I will wake up and find they no longer exist.

Something to ponder.