SLR - An Application of Agape Principles in Chinese Culture

Introduction

SLR stands for Service Learning Requirement, which is part of my studies done for each Global University course. This blog entry is my way to fulfill the service learning requirement of the course Human Relationships. Please help me to develop my thought by giving comments/feedback! You can use the comment -field below or send me mail. The feedback could include: What did you like best about the student's presentation? How could the student improve in the way he or she participated? What other words of encouragement do you have for the student? Please indicate your relationship to the student (also your name if you want).

Background for Agape

Agape is the Greek word for love, but not just any kind of love. When studying the Greek language used in the first century and in the New Testament of the Bible, it is found that there existed four different words to describe the word love we use in English. The word philia was usually used to describe the loving relationship between friends; the word storge was usually used to describe familia love between parents and their children, also siblings; the word eros was used to describe sexual and sensual love, emphasizing on sexual passion; the word Agape was used to describe the love that “seeks nothing but another's highest good”. In Christian faith Agape is used to describe the love of God toward the mankind: self-sacrificing, actively seeking response, long-suffering, and everlasting.

The greatest demonstration of Agape was the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Why? Incarnation, because God Himself loved people so much that He was willing to become one in order to bring people to Him, this showed the humility and activeness of Agape. Life, because Jesus lived a life full of Agape towards everyone who was in need, healing people, forgiving sins, breaking bondages, and glorifying God the Father. Death, because He died to accomplish Agape, death being the purpose of His incarnation and life, the price to be paid for the lack of Agape in all humankind. Resurrection, because He can then continue to love the mankind actively, with victory from death and over the devil. In addition to those mentioned, the second coming of Jesus in the end of the world will demonstrate that “in eternity, Agape is fully realized, faith and hope will have done their work”.

One Challenge for Agape in Chinese Context

Now as a Christian, how does the Agape of God affect my life? The course Human Relations has helpfully described the role Agape should play in recognizing myself, growing into maturity, and handling human relationships. In the text below, I aim to examine one practical area in Chinese culture that acutely needs Agape. I am fully aware that I will someday be facing below mentioned situations, thus I want to be prepared and know what to do when that day comes. Preparation really helps implementation!

In Chinese culture, one major fact about human relationships is guanxi, the basic dynamic in personalized networks of influence (reference can be found in Wikipedia). In a successful human relationship one must know what to expect from the other and what the other person is expecting from you. In China, simple trust between people just does not exist, especially nowadays when moral shift in Chinese society is ongoing and shame is not anymore the prevalent motivation for actions or no actions. For example, there are many stories in the news where people have killed/robbed their family members to gain money or other valuables, not even talking about misbehaviors in sexual areas that have permeated whole society. Without further politicizing the situation, I claim that democracy is of no help. The wicked human nature, when no morals or conscience is holding back, is easily destroying Chinese society.

If I am living in China and a friend/relative comes to see me from far away, I need to politely welcome him and receive him into my home (possibly for an extended period of time). I would not have riches or valuable at home anyways, but can I trust that this friend/relative will not try to misuse my hospitality and possibly mistreat my wife and child(ren)? This lack of trust is even more serious if I know that this friend/relative has had unworthy tendencies in the past, or that he is involved in bad company or addicted to gambling. When thinking about this kind of situations, every cell in me becomes defensive and I am tempted to start planning other options for his stay. In addition, I would not be able to treat him with heartfelt warmth and sincere welcome. Lack of trust can always be sensed and detected. As a Christian, what should I do in the situation?

Agape as The Answer

First, I need to articulate to myself the goals I want to achieve when encountering this friend/relative. As a Christian, I really want to relate to him, help him in whatever way I can, and ultimately help him to experience the love of God and surrender to Him. I do not want to just create a good guanxi and later on perhaps enjoy his counter-service. In fact, I do not even want to think that way, because it pollutes my motives. I want to be sincerely interested in him, helping him to succeed in every aspect of his life, and then rejoice with him when looking back in time. Then, how can I successfully keep a pure motive and reach my goals, still acknowledging the risks and dangers involved?

I find the answer to be the Agape -love of God! Taking Jesus as my role model: incarnation: if I move to China, my main motivation should be Agape towards people and not to enjoy myself; life: I should not be living for myself, but be ready to sacrifice and meet the needs of the needy; death: this aspect speaks to me the severity of sacrifices, if Jesus gave His all and my everything is from Him, should not I also be ready to give my everything to His cause? The resurrection and second coming of Jesus assures me of the ultimate reward I will get: to hear Him say “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:23, NIV).

Assuming the premises given in the above paragraph, are there any practical tools that can help me to deal with the friend/relative? Fortunately the answer is yes. First of all, to exercise Agape requires commitment and truth. The concept truth here comprehends both objective and subjective truth. I am committed and have found objective truth about this relationship (the worst cases it could present itself), I have also analyzed myself and my motives to find subjective truth about my intentions. This part is clear, but certainly needs re-evaluation every now and then, especially when a described situation approaches.

The next step, then, is to apply Agape principles in this relationship. First of all, genuineness toward the other person forms the basis for mutual trust. I should be able to open myself to him, honestly telling him my thoughts and opinions, even my fears about his situation (in a culturally sensitive way). With genuineness I want to be empathetic to his weaknesses and difficulties, really interested in him and expressing my compassion to him. In addition to those, the third basic attitude I should have is a warm embrace of grace, which indicates that I accept him as he is, really holding him as my friend/relative, and not a bad guy to be feared. With these basic attitudes I believe God can work in him and help him to open up and trust me, increasing mutual understanding and appreciation.

During the formation of a closer relationship, and even after that, I should absolutely follow certain principles that define Agape -love. One such principle could be not giving him money but actually get involved in his life and pay his bills when necessary. Money, gifts, service and counter service are all great dangers to the Agape relationships in China, simply because the society is corrupted by misbehaviors in these areas. Without clear principles I would not be able to treat people equally. Though it might sound easy, I am still in process of defining suitable principles and limits for those areas. These issues must be clarified before a possible move to China, because these issues come up immediately when stepping out from airplane. One good principle could be: love without questioning, but no need to be foolish. :)

Besides principles, I need effective communication to really reach my friend/relative. Though I know the culture and understand many of the connotations in speech and communication, it is not self-evident that I can communicate my message clearly and politely to others. Actually, even communicating in same culture and with similar background, we all need to practice effective communication everyday! Effective listening will open up a totally new world for a person not used to it, direct messaging will help to clarify messages and avoid misunderstanding, and conflict resolution is a skill everyone needs either in family, church, or workplace. My goals for effective communication would be to politely and accurately express my thoughts, with sensitivity to the circumstances, and in a congruent way. May God help me in this process.

Summary

After all is said and written, I must confess that the basic challenge remains: how to live a life fulfilled with Agape -love towards myself and others. This is something we all can practice anywhere, anytime, and with everyone. There will certainly be mistakes and failures along the way, but I am positively labeling the whole process as growth. Holy Spirit works in us by giving us wisdom, patience, understanding, faith, hope, and Agape -love. For God, all things are possible. If I manage to deal with even one friend/relative in China according to Agape principles, I am certain that there will be fruits. If he learns these things and continues to deal with people in his life in the similar way and so on, soon the society is changed. God has empowered us to love others as He loves us, let us rely on Him and not elude from His good purposes in our lives. Great opportunities and adventures, success stories and growth are available to all of us, everyday.

Philippians 3:14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. (NLT)

Ps. Now the comments and feedback, thank you! :)

Friendship: Now and Back Then

Finally, I aim to clear my list of blog topics by posting the thoughts. This one is about friendship, what's different now and back then?

When I was a kid, friends came easy, because I was good at school and generally held to be a "good kid". This was of course in China, where the goodness of a person (even a kid) is measured by how useful he can be. Well, fortunately not always. Anyhow, I was a good kid, obedient to the teacher (mostly), diligent with my home works (comparatively), and eager to play with other kids (always). Friends meant having good time, being out from home and doing things other than school work. Friends came easy and brought many good adventures and joys of childhood.

Due to moving from China to Finland, I lost most of my childhood friends, simply because of lack of communication, and later on the lack of common topics to talk about. In Finland friendship is different: you are a friend if we get along, if we enjoy things together, and if we have time to be together. My early Finnish friends were from school, and church. The friends from church stayed quite well for some years to come, friends from school vanished mostly due to time and life.

I wasn't until high-school that I started to make best friends, the definition being: consciously forming and up-keeping the friendship. At the same time I experienced the possible shallowness of human relationships, in addition to the pain of having friends: separation by time and space is a vital part of any friendship on earth.

At some point, years later, I really felt that my heart was divided into many pieces, some left in USA with warmth, some left in Russia with appreciation, some left in China with a sense of belonging, some left all over Finland with smiles and fond memories. The pain of the divided heart became so great that I doubted my will to move anywhere anymore, I just wanted to settle. Until, a godly friend commented to my feelings: the divided heart is not a problem, as long as they are divided according to the will of God. Eureka! My pains settled, my heart stopped bleeding, and I started to value friendship with an open arm, again.

The recent years, due to dating, engagement, marriage, and eventually the birth of Viivi, I have found that the role of friendship has unfortunately decreased, quantitatively. There simply isn't enough time to care for the existing friendships, not even talking about creating new ones! I've felt sad that my path has been separated from my friends and we are growing apart. Family is of course top priority, but isn't there a way to keep up the friendships as well? The bottom line seems to be: our society (Finland) cruelly separates people into categories: children, teenagers, students/young adults, singles, couples, families, work communities, church communities, etc. Any lasting friendship between categories seems to be hard to establish, or keep up. Inevitably friends drift away, not willingly, but passively, time for sharing grows few, chances to travel or do things together become rare, even a deep discourse about vital issues has a time limit. I am sad, again.

The old saying goes: new friends are like silver, old friends are like gold. I want to treasure the gold God has bestowed in my life, at the same time I long for the ability to engage with new friends. Fortunately, family as such is not a restraint for new friendships, rather it opens up doors to a completely new world of people and lives. My current conclusion is thus: at every stage of life there are valuable friendships to be formed, and all friendships should be cherished and tended to. Everybody needs somebody, a friend is a friend, no matter the circumstances or time or space. "Friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them..." True friendship is also possible with people of different religion or worldview.

 Friendship, in its true sense, should never be despised nor overlooked.

Flash Back: Tour Asia, June 2011

Cannot believe it's already been three months since I toured Asia: S-Korea, Taiwan, HK, China. It was a good trip, colorful experiences, good travel companions, great learning opportunities, and also meeting up some friends + relatives. Since I've promised to put some pics here, now I must fulfill my promise before continuing with new blog posts about recent thoughts and experiences.

So, here we go:

First stop was S-Korea, and this little cute decoration was found in a nice local restaurant. The name Jesus is well known for many S-Korean Christians, though I don't know what the little chicks are doing in the thing. Anyhow, cute.

Between the working days I had opportunity to climb a mountain near the hotel we stayed at. It was a nice recreation area and there was literally water flowing from this rock, and one can take a nice drink of the cold fresh water. What's amazing is that the water kept flowing, since it was natural and the spring upstream is producing water, it just can't stop flowing. :) Can't help remembering what Jesus said, that whoever believes in Him, out from those people will flow a stream of living water. If the spring is not dry, nobody can stop the out-flow! Refreshing, stunning, amazing.

Since it was early morning, the air was clean and temperature very enjoyable. Here is an overview from higher on the mountain.

Oh the colors of nature! Reflecting the rich love and deep wisdom of God the Creator. Morning sun shine.

Breakfast in Taiwanese hotel. This was only part of what I had. ;)

Food mart of Taipei 101, which is the tallest building in Asia (?). Bubble tea was great! :D

Departure lunch at Taipei airport. Surprisingly cheap, and definitely tasty as one can expect. 

Spread the wings like the eagle, soar on high, through the blue sky, over the misty clouds. The art of flying, despite the high tech, cannot compare to the creation. Nice view from the cabin window though. :)

HongKong is HongKong, no matter from which angle you look at it, right?

Food in the style of my home province, served in southern China. As always, we were hungry and our eyes wanted more than our stomachs, couldn't finish everything. :(

The cheapest, and almost the best meal on the trip: rice/bean noodles with cucumber and stuff, spicy, cold, bought from street seller, price ~ 0.5 euros. It's good to know that despite the inflation, there can be good and cheap food found. 

Summary: pictures are only a part of memories, and my principle does not allow me to post pictures of people here. Traveling for me is not meant for having fun or tourism, but I want to meet up with friends and people, get involved in their lives even for one glimpse only. Life is better when it is shared. :)