Kindness of strangers

Once in a while, I am reminded that my life is supported by an endless streams of kindness of strangers. Here are two recent cases involving jump-starting cars.
The first one of the two cases happened last Christmas time while my family was visiting Hawaii. We were driving around in two cars and making frequent stop along a scenic drive. While stopping at one of those spots, I forgot to turn off the head lights. About an hour later when we came back to the cars, we couldn't start the car anymore. The first idea we tried is to see if we can get a jumper cable from some where to jump-start the car. However, most people in the parking lot was tourists with rental cars; no one has a jumper cable. Since we had another car that can start, we thought of drive to somewhere and get help. We stopped by at the first gas station a few miles down the road. We were very surprised that the gas station had a jumper cable and the attendant offered it to us. How nice! When we go back to the parking lot, we found the dead car was surrounded on both sides by other cars. We have get one of them to move in order to use our own car to jump start the dead one. We have to ask around a bit until we find a person whose car was next to ours. To our surprise, he offered to help us by using his car to jump start ours. He was very handy with the cars and it took only a couple of minutes for him to get the dead car started. Thanks to those two strangers, we were able to continue with our sightseeing and brought back beautiful memory of both islands and its people.
The second one happened on a trip to Oregon. A friend of mine has changed the car battery for us a few days before the trip. It was a long drive and I ended up in a small motel late in the evening. Next morning, when I tried to start my car, it was not starting. I ran back to the lobby of the motel and try to find someone to jump start the car. Luckily, a gentleman came in and said that he can jump start my car even though he is in a hurry to a meeting. He worked like a man in a hurry and was definitely efficient too. He pulled his car next to mine and in a flush, my car was started and he was on his way. The only thing I got to do was to say thanks and waved good-bye. Strangely, a little while later after a brief stop to take care of some business, I found that my car won't start again. Now, I have two things to do, starting the car again and figuring out how it keeps failing to start. Well, I managed to get get the car started again with another stranger's help, lucky for me, he also figured out that the connector for my new battery was bad and pointed me to the nearby hardware shop that might have a connector for me. I got to the shop and the first person I talked to was an off-duty employee. He was very friendly and offered to help me even though he was right in the middle of his breakfast. He located the right connector, but it turned out that removing the old connector was a big job. It took quite a bit pushing and pulling and trying out different wrenches, but he was very persistent and stayed on the task. It took about about an hour but he was able to put the new connector in its place. It has not given me any trouble since then, thanks to the help of another perfect stranger.

love thy neighbour as thyself -- Leviticus 19:18 (KJV)

The Smell of Childhood

It has been a long time since I smelled canola blossom and saw a large patch of them in the field. This brings back a lot of childhood memories.



I was born in a village near the town of Sanhe, a small town with a very common name in that part of the world – an on-line map tells me that there are at least four different places with the same name in the same province. One of the most vivid memories from my childhood was this large patch of canola blossom surrounding the whole village during spring time. When the grown-ups go out to work in the field, we kids can roam free in the village and the field. In a sunny day, taking a nap in the middle of these flowers is one of my favorite things to do. I close my eyes and let the warm sun and cool breeze brushing against my face at the same time; I can hear the rustle of these flowers and gentle waves of the nearby pond. I had no cares in the world but my nap.
Under the spring Sun, the whole world was bright yellow. It was so bright that I can not bear to look at them. The brightness was so overwhelming, it hurts my eyes. But since the flower and the brightness surround me from every side, I had no choice to delight in them. To this day, bright yellow color still delights me.
One can not escape the smell of the flowers when they are in full bloom. The smell was like a pleasant euphoria, a dreamy nirvana, and a piece of heaven on earth all rolled together. Once the smell hits my nose, it triggers a tingle down my back. The happy smile of sunny spring is back in me; and I am transported to that magical place of innocence. I will always treasure this smell as a precious gift, a blessing across time.

Gen 27:27 “the smell of my son is as the smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed.”

PS: The above photo was taken at a farm near San Francisco Bay, not from Sanhe.

PPS: Some additional information about Sanhe – Battle of Sanhe,
Tourist information – from virtual tourist and Go China Travel.

meal for a poor

Just saw of quote attributed to Albert Einstein (likely from Einstein by Walter Isaacson. 2007)

"I am enthralled by the lunimous figure of the Nazarene. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of the phrase-mongers, however artful... No one can read the gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."

After I saw this quote, I started to look for writings about this quote. The first piece of information found was an article Isaacson wrote for TIME megazine. This is a great quote with a lot of deep meaning behind it, however, what intrigues the most was a little side story about a weekly with a poor medical student.

When Einstain was 10, he modified an old Judism tradition and invited a poor medical student for diner weekly. This student, Max Talmud, provided the intelectual stimulation that exposed Einstein as a mathematical genius. This was a crucial piece of the puzzle to Einstein's intellectual development. I have always heard of his late language developemnt during childhood, but have not heard about how he started on his road to become an intellectual giant.

This little story is a great example of how a good deed leads to great rewards. However, I couldn't help wondering out load: how many parents would let a ten-year old invite a college kids to dinner every week nowadays?

Luk 9:48 Whosoever shall receive this child in my name receiveth me: and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me"

Christmas Day?

It is Christmas time. In the US, this means packed shopping malls, holiday parties and Christmas songs everywhere one goes. No matter whether you get into this holiday groove or not, most people seem to have a jolly good time. However, there are always a few people with some sort of acts to grind; here are some silly comments about the dispute over the exact date of Christmas.

Someone named Mike sent a long message to our small group at Google. It includes a long list of items suggesting the birthday of Christ can not be December 25th. This got me quite curious. Not knowing enough about the Jewish traditions and history around that time, I only can find out what others are saying about this. Wow, was I surprised as what I found on the web. Here are three of them that seem to have reasonably sound arguments.

1. Christmas - Was Jesus Really Born on December 25th? by John Parsons: Give two possible dates based on the Jewish tradition of priestly services, one during the feast of Sukkot and the other during late December. The author has a note to the article saying “Personally, I am persuaded that Yeshua was conceived around Chanukah and born during Sukkot (in other words, I think that Zacharias heard from Gabriel during his first course of service at the Temple). And since Christmas occurs close to Chanukah, I consider it to be a valid time to remember the Incarnation of the LORD Jesus and to rejoice with others over the miracle of the love of God for us all. Among other things, that means that my family celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas!”
2. Date and Origin of Christmas (Christian Resource Center, Bermuda): Quote Francis X. Weiser, Handbook of Christian Feasts and Customs(p60) as saying “The early Christians, who attributed to Christ not only the title (Kyrios) but also many other honours that the pagans paid to their "divine" emperors, naturally felt inclined to honour the birth of the Saviour. In most places the commemoration of Christ’s birth was included in the Feast of the Epiphany (Manifestations) on January 6, one of the oldest annual feasts. Soon after the end of the last great persecution, about the year 330, the Church in Rome definitely assigned December 25 for the celebration of the birth of Christ.”
3. The Real Story of Christmas by Lawrence Kelemen (Judaism online): List various date historically assigned as Jesus’ birthday and also origins of some of the Christmas traditions. Here is a quote, “In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.”

Guess the crazy Mike does have some valid points, the date of December 25th is not exactly purely based on the Scripture because the Scripture does not give an exact date. In addition the implicit complaint about the paganism in the so-called holiday tradition, especially the US version is valid to a large extend, -- many of us are way too engrossed in materialistic indulgence. Clearly, we don’t kill a unsuspecting victim after a week of indulgence like they did in Roman times, but the the indulgence itself does the killing for us. After the holidays, many more people suffer from mounting debts for all the fancy gifts, the extra weight gained because of overeating, and the stress of partying. These things probably kill more than what Romans did.

One can argue about the exact date, but one thing is clear we do need a time to celebrate the birth of Christ. The original idea of instituting Christmas to celebrate Christ’s birth and to displace the pagan rituals seems to be as relevant today as in that time long ago.

Isa 9:6 For unto us a child is born