Skip to main content

if only the heart was this simple ...

I happen to love praising God in song. So much so that if there's an organized choir in heaven, I would sign up the moment I get there and gladly worship for eternity. Wait ... scratch that. If the choir sings in a slug-like tempo and only to the accompaniment of a gigantic organ and prohibits any body movements such as clapping or swaying, then I'm totally out. Maybe I'll go sweep the golden streets or something.

Anyway, I visited an International Church in HK the other day and was introduced to some new songs. One in particular sticks out in my mind for a couple reasons. For one, it was completely ambiguous as to who we were actually singing to for the entire first verse:
"I'm falling, falling, falling in love with you. (x3)"
There were other words in the latter verses that clarifies that "you" refers to Jesus, but these are the only words I remember. I tried to search for the actual lyrics but only found secular love songs for obvious reasons. So that's not so exciting and borderline sketchy, but then the worship leader switched things up by singing that phrase in Chinese.
"我深深爱上你. (x3)"
Singing those two phrases in different languages back to back blew my mind. In English, the word falling gives you the imagery that someone is uncontrollably being sucked downward into love. Perhaps that's the reason why so many people in the West "wait" for love to happen to them, as if one day the ground under them will vanish and they'll fall down a precipice of love - a free fall in which they have no control over whatsoever. Don't get me wrong, that could and probably happens to a lot of people (just look at John Cusack in Serendipity). But in Chinese, the phrase "爱上你" has the character "上" which means "up" literally. So in some ways, loving someone has this upward imagery (at least to me) - as if you have to put work in and and climb skyward.

I'm no literary expert in Chinese or English, but having those two images juxtaposed against each other is powerful. Can one "fall" in love in one culture and "climb" into love in another? Do grammatical constructs change the way people perceive what love should be like? It's interesting how the two languages portray love so differently. In truth, there's a balance that needs to be struck down the middle. Love isn't something you just happen to trip over and fall into, and neither is it something that is devoid of chemistry and requires painstaking work constantly. All this just makes me wonder... am I falling in love with God, or climbing up to be in love with Him.
Labels:

Comments

Anonymous said…
Nice post. If you briefly survey Western romantic literature, you'll find the idea of “falling in love” is common throughout. Love in the West is something that just "happens" to someone. Even our vernacular reveals how much this idea of passiveness is built into our conception of love: "She's the one for me" as if one stumbles onto the love of one’s life.

Several years ago, National Geographic examined the idea of love across several cultures and found that the idea of romantic love is unique only to Western cultures. Romantic love, that two people would haphazardly come together, is ridiculous as seen by other cultures.

That said, our vernacular of "falling in love with God" is certainly colored with Western eyes. Our concept of love affects our language, and vice versa. But is love something that just happens to us? I’ll argue that us “falling in love with God” is something God planned from eternity past, before he built the firmaments of the earth. It is because of God’s plan and his first love, that love is possible and we’re able to love him back. This all sounds very Calvinistic with a smidge of Aquinas (prime mover), doesn’t it?
11:19 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I love Kroger

Hello friends. It has been four long months since my last post, so if you are reading this, that means you are a true friend. My favorite neighborhood grocery store was having a sale on blueberries today. They were selling a 6 oz box for $1 (as opposed to $4.99) for "plus members", so wanted to picked up 6 boxes of it. During checkout, I tried to input my "plus card" info using my phone number but couldn't get it to work, . So I called the cashier over to help me. "Hi. For some reason my plus card isn't working. I put my phone number in and it does't recognize it but it worked last night." "Enter your phone number in again" (slightly annoyed) "I tried it 4 times already" "Sir, the reason it doesn't work is because you are typing in the wrong area code. You pressed 732 instead of 734" "... ... ... my area code is 732" "oh ... then I can't help you, sorry" Not only did she assume tha...
5 comments
Read more

Tim Keller is my Hero!

I happen to LOVE Tim Keller. Here's an article about him on NYTimes several weeks ago. When I was in East Asia, Keller would preach to us almost every Sunday through my trusty MP3 player. I listened to him for two years before I finally saw him face to face when I visited Redeemer last July. I can still remember how I couldn't focus on the message that first Sunday because he looked so much different than how I pictured him in my head for two years. Preaching the Word and Quoting the Voice By Michael Luo , Published: February 26, 2006 In the twilight of the biggest snowstorm in New York City's history, the pews of a rented Baptist church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan were packed for the Rev. Timothy J. Keller's fourth sermon of the day. About 4,400 people attend the church; many joined after the Sept. 11 attacks. The 600 or so who braved the snow for the evening service got what they had come to expect — a compelling discourse by Dr. Keller, this time on Jesu...
2 comments
Read more

Christianity Lite

Several people have told me that I sound angry or bitter in my last post. My response to that is: I'M NOT ANGRY OR BITTER ... haha. Now that's settled, let's risk sounding critical and judgmental with the following post. One of the fears I have for the modern church is that in order to penetrate into the mainstream, the chuch is diluting its message and portraying an unbalanced view of the Gospel. In our strive to change the common stereotype that Christians are intolerant and conservative, churches becoming more and more vague about its beliefs and tenants. Please don't misunderstand, I am all for being more culturally relevant and reaching out to the masses, but not at the cost of compromising our values. Yes, Jesus reached out to the outcasts and "sinners," and we should do the same by displaying love rather than condemnation. But even when Jesus saved the adulterous woman from being stoned in John 8, He said to her after the crowd left, " Neithe...
3 comments
Read more