At a recent corporate teambuilding event, we were asked to tell a colleague something about ourselves that no one else knew about.  So to my partner (as in teambuilding partner) I said that I was a "closet" — as I paused for dramatic effect and observed with amusement the awkward silence coupled with a look discomfort on my partner’s face that followed — "unconventional", meaning that while externally conventional I am, I think, someone with some rather unconventional personal views.

My partner was visibly relieved, and said later that she thought I was going to come out of the closet.

I’ve discovered as I grow older, that people become more imperfect as they age (I’m not talking about physical wrinkles) and have more skeletons to hide in their closets.  And I’ve noticed that the way people deal with this in the workplace, is to sometimes pretend that a person in question does not have a dubious personal life, and at other times to whisper, giggle and gossip behind that person’s back.

Anyway my point, or rather question, is — how do Christians view such apparent "imperfection" ?  Christians are known for their association with the quote about "loving the sinner, but hating the sin" (which I would clarify, to non-Chrstian readers, is not a quote from the Bible).  But, if confronted face-to-face with a person who comes out of the closet to say that he / she is an alcoholic, adulterer, unwed mother, drug or porn addict or gay, would the response be as "loving" as the quote suggests ?  Unfortunately in Singapore, Christians may be better remembered for the intransigence exhibited by the short-lived Christian executive committee of AWARE, than otherwise.

If the church appears in deed to be more condemning than loving, why would anyone (other than someone who thinks he is perfect, which I think would require quite a measure of self-inflated nonsense) step into a church ?  Or if I am already in a church but struggling with "imperfection", why would I open up about my personal issues and risk overwhelming condemnation ?

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One night about 15 years ago, when I was still serving my full time national service, I had booked out of camp to attend a prayer meeting.  While a short distance away from church I was stopped by a middle-aged man who asked for the time.  Somehow we engaged in further conversation, and it emerged that he was a pimp, and he tried to get me to follow him and check out his girls.  I confess to being tempted to do so, but somehow we both ended up in the church building where I, highly relieved, dumped him on the church leaders (or maybe, I dumped the church leaders on him). 

However, I was shortly overcome with guilt and panic, out of fear that I had exposed my church leaders to temptation.

I do not know what transpired next, other than that the prayer meeting proceeded as usual.  My assumption is that the pimp did not become more pious, and the church leaders did not engage in anything impious.

My reaction 15 years ago was that I should not have invited or let the pimp into the church.  Looking back, I think a church which is able to attract and which does not drive away pimps, prostitutes and all sorts of other "imperfect" people through self-righteous grandstanding deserves some congratulation.  Such a church would I think be a truthful reflection of the love of Christ, just as Jesus was often found in the company of "tax collectors and sinners" (Luke 15 : 1).

"This man [ Jesus ] welcomes sinners and eats with them," sneered the self-righteous religious leaders in Luke 15.  But that is where I think the church needs and should try to be.

In response to a friend’s comment that the significance accorded to 11.11.11 bordered on the irrational, I commented that -

"Humans are sentimental creatures, sometimes at the expense of what is considered rationality.  To take cynicism to its extreme, why should birthdays, and wedding and death anniversaries be remembered / commemorated / celebrated ?  Is the married couple not a couple on other days ?  Am I not alive on non-birth days ?  Is the deceased alive on non-death anniversary days ?  Should the terrors of war not be remembered on non-Armistice Day days ?  Certains days and dates, and rituals, which we remember / commemorate / celebrate appear more silly than others (eg. horoscope), and some are more costly than others (eg. Valentines).  I think that all this is a search for a meaning greater than today, a search for a significance greater than what we can see in ourselves, a longing to be affirmed by people whom we think matter to us."

(The reference to Armistice Day has to do with the fact that 11 November is celebrated in many countries including Singapore (though not as a public holiday), as the day that hostilities in World War I ended).

My basis for writing the above lies partly in Ecclesiates 3 : 11, which states that God has "set eternity in the hearts of men".  I understand this to mean that humans are hardwired to look beyond the immediate - to "eternity" - for a greater meaning and significance in life.

On this note, one of the passages in the Bible which has stuck to my mind since I was a youth is Jeremiah 2 : 13, in which the prophet warns the Jews against digging "their own cisterns, cisterns which cannot hold water".  It conveys to my mind the image of people desperately pouring water into broken containers which leak water, a warning that we can try to find meaning and significance in things which do not bring lasting satisfaction, or a true sense of significance.

If we are indeed born with an impulse to search for significance, to look for a meaning beyond the immediate, then the challenge for us is to find to find meaning and significance in things which are true and which bring lasting satisfaction.  To this challenge, the Bible offers an answer using again the imagery of water, and in John 4 : 14 Jesus says -

"… whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Jed’s kindergarten, which is sited on the premises of a church, invited us to sign him up for a children’s camp organised by the church.  Out of (over)abundance of caution, I decided to Google for information on the camp to make sure that I was not inadvertently sending Jed to some terrorist training or fundamentalist camp where he would be taught to disparage other religions or other questionable values.

I did not see anything unusually negative in the course of my "due diligence", and so I signed on the dotted line of Jed’s consent form.

20 years ago, my parents would not have to be concerned about such matter.  How times have change.  Life is now so much more, complicated.