Define this
Jan 11, 2006 in Curse-spouter
At the weekend I met up with a few people who were quite, really, impossible for me to define.
We were having dinner, and this person wanted to order a dish that contained beef. The husband, was more accomodating, and noting that I don't take the meat, said that we could order Pork, Fish and Chicken dishes instead. I said it wasn't necessary, but the kind man insisted–it was his decision after all, he was the guy who would foot the bill, and then he asked me, 'Is it the smell?'
My answer was simply, 'I just don't take it.'
The wife wasn't very nice at all, she sulked and then she said it, 'You must learn how to take beef, my dear, we're Christians and we have to take beef.'
Wow. What an interesting revelation. I didn't know that God said in order to prove my allegiance to him, I have to eat beef.
But before this, an interesting note about myself: I don't take beef because of my upbringing. My mother's a devout Taoist and goes on vegetarian meals twice a month and on other religious occasions, and we never ever cook beef at home.
My dad's a devout Christian and he takes beef occasionally. He has never faulted my mother for her religious choices, and never ever, ever, taken beef in her presence. I walk in my dad's shoes, except I'm not exactly a very devout Christian, so to speak, because I do not do very Christian things, and occasionally, in my quiet times with God, I ask him about Kuan Yin and question the strange things in the bible… (Dear God, why did You have to be so contradicting and, er, wordy?).
You see, I've no problems in driving Mum to the temple, and I have no problems in lighting joss sticks in memory of my dead grandparents. I'm no problems in bowing my head in respect to images and deities of the Lord Buddha. I've no problems in helping my mother fold the papers for burning on her religious festival–it is a mark of respect ANYWAY, and I have certainly no problems in helping my mother prepare the fruit and flowers for worshipping on big days like the 'pai tee kong' during the ninth day of CNY, and bringing her out for vegetarian dinners on the 1st and 15th days of the lunar calendar months. Sometimes, for the heck of convenience, I go on vegetarian diets too, and sometimes, it is refreshing to be vegetarian–I've even contemplated it several times before, and God knows you don't have to be a Buddhist to turn vegetarian.
Haven't I prayed for Mum to accept God too, (so that, for Heaven's sake, she can start eating beef)you ask, so that I don't have to do the strange things she does like arranging the fruit and chicken for the altar? I've prayed for that, oh yes, that's one of my prayers for the 2006, but I'm not the type who, God-forbid, EVANGELIZES, my mother, and I am definitely not the type who'll say that she's worshipping a mere image of a dead person who might-or-might-not-exist.
Besides, I've seen miracles happening in the Taoist belief too, and surely there has to be a connection somewhere in the great spiritual divide–something that none of us as feeble, human beings wrapped in the flesh can comprehend right now.
Surely the differing beliefs in the masses has to be God's will, of some kind, and we know my mother has the free will to choose. So no, I don't question, I don't judge, and I don't say that she worships stones and dead people. (To put it crudely,Jesus is a dead person too, and we worship him anyway, right?)
It's her choice, and whatever she chooses is between God and my mother, and I have no right to dabble in that area. All I can do is to do my best to be a good daughter to a single mother, who is trying very hard to understand the reasons why I'm going to church again after five years. God knows it's hard for her to accept the fact that I'm returning to Christianity again, but if she can come to church with me sometimes, and allow me my personal choices in life, it's the least I can do–respect her choices and do my very best.
And here's the deal, apart from not taking beef, I also don't take mutton, nor deer, nor ostrich nor rabbit… I also do not take petai, and bitter gourd. Why? I don't know, I just don't take these things, and I don't want to try them.
Maybe I'm allergic to these things, maybe it's the smell. I don't know, but I don't eat these things and I'm not an adventurous person… and look, I'm not even forbidding people to order them in my presence… I'm not asking for everyone to accomodate me. And besides, I'm not the one who grimaces in horror when someone orders peashoots, I'm not the type who goes, 'Yuck I don't like spring onions,' and cries foul when people eat foods I don't take in front of me.
All I ask, is a bit of respect, and keep those holy-than-thou definitions of what makes a good Christian to yourself, please. How other people pray, how other people decide to revere their God(s), that's up to them, who are we as humans to decide and judge, and teach?
I know that even if I were a practising Buddhist, and I still took meat on religious festivals, I'd be offended if some holier-than-thou monk-wannabe comes up to me and reprimands me for chewing into a morsel of prawn. Imagine this, 'You must not eat meat at all, you're a Buddhist, a Buddhist shouldn't take any meat.'
I mean, hello? You wanna be holy, your choice, if I have to sin and be punished by God, now please, leave that to God and leave me alone.
What we all need, is a little bit of respect. You don't even have to tolerate my choices, you can judge and criticize me if you like (and say that not taking beef makes me a bad Christian hurhur), but please, do not do it in my presence. You can say bad things about me behind my back, you can tell God to please pray for my lost soul for the choices I have made (maybe pray, dear God, please help Claire understand that she does not know you very well because she refuses to even try beef). But respect means keeping rude words to yourself, and not saying these things outloud, and all good Christians should really learn how to do that the right way.